All Gassed Up

Two challenges I have been working on in 2018 are 1) use as little gas as possible and 2) eat as little refined sugar as I can. So far I'm doing pretty good, especially where gas is concerned.

Since replacing my truck with a Honda Civic at the end of Sept. 2017 I have been lowering my monthly gas budget line - from a high of $200.00 (when I was driving Dougie the Dodge truck) to $60 now (driving the Honda).  A nifty savings of $140.00 per month! Yahoo!

AND... for the past 4 months I've only been filling the Honda once a month at a cost of $45.00 so I think it's time to reduce the budget line for gas even further - from $60.00 to $45.00 a month. Since buying the Honda the monthly amount I spend on gas has decreased by $155.00/month ($200 - $45). My car insurance and house insurance amount to $156.00 ($124 + $32)!! So by switching from a V8 truck to the Honda I am saving enough in gas to pay for car and house insurance!! That's amazing and has put a big smile on my face!! 

As most of you know I was thinking about going car-free so by driving something a lot more economical and lot more "green" than the truck goes a long ways to making me feel better about still driving.

Once it warms up a little (right now IT IS FREAKING SNOWING!!!) then I won't even be spending $45.00 per month on gas because I'll be biking most places within the city. I have met Goal #1 👍

GOAL #2 - the struggle continues...
I would estimate that I have decreased the amount of refined white sugar in my diet by about 75% (or more).  Which is great! I no longer spend time browsing the candy aisles at Dollarama (there are TWO Dollaramas within a block or two of my house though with me not shopping there as much as I used to I'm sure one of them will have to shut down due to poor returns!!) Since the beginning of January I have intentionally made purchases at Dollarama twice. Once was to buy a little somethin somethin for Valentine's Day which I shared with Kazi. And then one other time when I had a craving for chocolate covered almonds.

Zero Easter eggs consumed this year though I noticed a chocolate bunny on the kitchen counter :) and yes, I had a nibble. But the rest I'll take up to Kazi's room where I won't see it. I'm on the See Food diet, I'm sure you've heard of it - "if I see food, I eat it!"

It's not that I have stopped eating snacks - I have had a few bags of salt and vinegar chips and I have been baking oat scones on a regular basis. In addition, when I have a craving, I eat a few raw nuts which of course are high in fat and calories. BUT, the fat is good fat so they say. We've also turned to avocados (again good fat) and very satisfying. I tried (and failed) to eat one or two squares of dark chocolate a day as there are many health benefits but I couldn't stop at one or two so have had to give that up.

But I'm not giving up wine and beer - you have to draw the line somewhere! Besides...both have health benefits if they are consumed in reasonable amounts!

I've had to face the fact that I can't control myself around sweets. So I try to provide myself with sweet stuff that is somewhat healthier. My scone recipe spreads 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar throughout a yield of 12 scones. I use whole wheat flour instead of refined white flour, large oats, soy milk, butter, one egg and a half cup of currants. They are delicious and filling and use mostly healthy ingredients.

This isn't a diet about losing weight though I have lost 5 pounds over 3 months. It's more about trying to make healthier choices. It's hard though, I admit it. Menopause means I have to eat a lot less to maintain my weight as opposed to when I was a teenager and could eat as much as I wanted without gaining an ounce! NOT FAIR! 

I found a site that calculates your BMI but uses your age as well as gender, height and weight in their calculation. Yippee - on their site I am within the "normal range" - the loss of just 5 pounds and inputting my age (61) and gender has moved me from straddling the line between normal and borderline over-weight. I am going to save the results and look at them everyday for the rest of my life!!!

If you want to check your BMI go to https://www.smartbmicalculator.com/

This, That and the Other Thing

Today was a day of getting things done around the house. It's cold and gloomy outside and I just didn't feel like walking/running in the woods. Brrrrrrrrr! Yes, I'm doing some trail running. I've only fallen once! And it didn't hurt too bad! Damn tree root!

Among my other trail injuries is a Harry Potter lightning bolt shaped scratch on my forehead from pushing into a thicket to get some a--hole's empty water bottle. I HATE litterers! As soon as Kazi saw it she asked (sensitively-HAH!) "how'd ya get the Harry Potter forehead?" I also have another scrape and bruise on my forehead from bending over to clean out the kittys' litter boxes and I whacked my head on the laundry tub!

So I have to stay home til I get healed up - I'm not allowed out in public!

So here's what I accomplished today (so far...):

• made oat scones
• made granola

I think I should be called Oaty McOatface!! Hahahahahaha! Click HERE if you're not sure of my reference :)

I think I hit my head too hard!

Carrying on...

• I finished my first infinity scarf - now that summer's on its way..... 

•  the cats got into a hissy fit over the cat beds so I had to separate them. For some reason they both prefer the FIRST bed I bought and neither wants to use the other two for Pete's sake! So Lily "volunteered" to use one of the newer beds and of course I had to take cute pet photos :)

Lilypad

Luna- the big fat balloona!

Maybe it's because Luna needs two!!

• a piece of paint got chipped off my LOVE decor item so I mixed up some green and blue acrylic paints and touched it up!  

• I worked on  couple other things in the workshop - the piece below fell and got chipped so I had to smooth that out plus I'm flattening the top (it was rounded) so that it can hold a beautiful rock once it's polished. 

•  I worked on another small piece and have the final shape figured out - it's going to be a shadow box carving. (I didn't feel like polishing today.

•  I went around the entire house to find the perfect spot for this little art piece below - it's one of my Talize $1.99 finds when my seester and I went thrifting - I haven't shown you ANY of the great stuff I got - that's another post I guess. I hope I can remember what I bought! I fell in love with this - the frame is great and the silver/silver-plated/steel??? work is so intricate and far eastern-ish. 

 Here's a closer look:

Isn't it great?
The photo below shows its new home.

So that's my day - it was pretty productive. Oh, and I also read for awhile. See, I get a lot done when I don't go outside!

Did you have a productive day? Any new injuries lately? 

Now for a beer!

Cheers!

Real Food - Baking

I don't think it stopped raining all day! My dear child was off work today with fever, chills, cough and a host of other yucky symptoms so I had a "mothering" kind of day. You know what I mean, making hot lemon and honey drinks, cups of ginger tea, chicken noodle soup...the usual drill. Then she was looking for snacks (funny that she NEVER loses her appetite when she's sick!) but I don't really keep any snacks around, not the kind she likes anyway.

So that got me to thinking...what could I bake that would be considered REAL food?  I got out my recipe box and found my recipe for oat scones. I've made these buttery oaty morsels hundreds of times but now I looked at the ingredients with an eye to making healthier choices.

Butter - good (thank God!!!) though I need to look for organic butter
Egg - good (am buying Omega 3 eggs)
Milk - ok but I tried switching it up with organic coconut milk as it is so delicious.
Oats - large oats as they are gluten-free
All Purpose Flour - nope, don't want to use over processed refined flour. I have a lot of different flours that I buy at the Bulk Barn to use in my bread machine (that I never use but hope to soon). So instead of white flour I used whole wheat flour and 12 grain flour.
Brown Sugar - not a real food. Does anyone know if you can swap out brown sugar/refined white sugar with an equal amount of maple syrup or honey? With the first being a dry ingredient and the other being wet I didn't know what to do. I had a package of raw sugar so I went with that.
Baking Powder - not sure if there is a substitute for this, or an organic option. What is it made from anyways??
Salt
Raisins/currants

They turned out really really really good!
Very dense with the flour choices - a very oaty nutty flavour. I used a mixture of raisins, dried cranberries and currants.

I slathered on a little butter, let it melt and drizzled on a bit of honey. Delicious! Oh, and Kazi liked them too!

Feeling LAZY

When I feel lazy, which I do tonight, I make a post out of a picture...so here I go delving into my unnamed photo files (now THERE's a HUGE decluttering/organizing project that I truly dread - perhaps even more so than the dreaded linen closet!!).....
and here's what I found:

 I took this photo on Tuesday - my snowdrops are up several inches and this is the first flower bud!! Isn't it the prettiest thing you've ever seen??

 These are the oat squares I made on Tuesday. The whole pan was gone within 24 hours!! They were SOOOOOOO good! I changed the recipe up a bit trying to make it healthier. I am not really a huge experimenter with recipes and this was the first attempt at trying to do my own thing.

• instead of 3/4 cup of shortening I substituted 1/2 cup olive oil
• I cut back the sugar from 3/4 cup to half a cup
• I substituted low-fat vanilla soy milk for regular milk
• instead of all purpose flour I used whole wheat flour
• in addition to the usual raisins I added dried cranberries, sunflower seeds and a few dark chocolate chips (my daughter refuses to eat anything with seeds, but she didn't even notice there were any!! She'll eat anything if it has chocolate chips in it lol!  haha fooled ya!)

Never having messed with a recipe before I didn't know if they would "stick together" or crumble apart or what, but as you can see they turned out quite nicely and were gobbled up faster than any other oat scones/squares I've baked.  So my next experiment will be to try some different non-gluten types of flours - like rice flour, or soy flour to see what happens.

THIS is FUN - kind of like playing with a chemistry set without the instructions but definitely better tasting!

Bon appetit!