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ANARIE's Recent Blog Entries
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Thursday, May 24, 2012
I'm just swimming in great fruit and veggies! A friend whose parents live in the Rio Grande Valley (where much fruit is grown) brought me a little watermelon and a pineapple. Baby kale was on sale earlier in the week, and I've been making green smoothies. I went shopping yesterday and came home with strawberries (4 lbs/ $5), mushrooms ($3/lb), red and green grapes ($1.99/lb), crookneck squash (88 cents/lb), and a few cherries. (Not cheap.) My garden is just finishing up the carrots and beet greens, the purslane (edible weed) is ready to collect, and probably next week I'll have the first ripe tomatoes.
Tonight I'm making BLT P soup-- bacon, leek, tomato, and potato. It also has celery and carrots in it. I've got some no-knead bread dough ready to go in the oven, so I'll have hot, crusty bread to go with it. Yummers!
Monday, May 21, 2012
Oddly, I have drunk alcohol twice in a little over a week. I don't do that often, mostly because of the calories, but on the last Friday of the semester I went to happy hour with colleagues from the community college and had about half a beer. (We went to a brewpub that offers a sampler of four 5-oz glasses, and I drank half of one and about a tablespoon of the other three.) Today I went with a different bunch of colleagues to a little artsy-craftsy town out in the countryside, and we went to a vineyard and did a tasting. It was six small samples, between 1 & 2 ounces each. That was actually a bit more than I wanted, but you stand there at a counter and it would be awkward not to finish one before they give you the next. (They have you use the same glass, which seemed odd to me. The only time she switched out any of our glasses was when I finished a red and switched to a sweet white dessert wine.)
Both times, even that small amount of alcohol hurt my stomach and just made me feel icky. I came home and crashed for an hour or so both times. Today I then went for a walk, and that actually made me feel better, but overall I have to say I understand why they call it inTOXICation. I just feel like something has been put in my body that's not supposed to be there. It's not just the stereotypical stomach upset and headache. My whole body feels like when you've taken medication that doesn't agree with you. It's like my blood is just very mildly irritated and it's spreading that irritation through the muscles.
The wines were all very pleasant, actually, but I just don't think I'm ever going to drink a whole glass at once again, unless it's over the course of several hours.
And the funny thing is that I wasn't drunk. I didn't really even feel a buzz after the beer. Today I was definitely buzzed, but I could have passed a field sobriety test; I walked a straight line just to test myself in case the designated driver needed a navigator. I absolutely would not have driven-- I don't drive after any alcohol at all-- but I don't think I was anywhere close to the legal limit. That's pretty consistent with my college experience, though. I would get buzzed after half a drink, and after four or five I would still be buzzed to exactly the same extent-- but broke. I never tried to drink more because I was too cheap!
Oh, and I broke my no-sugar streak. 
I gave in to peer pressure and half a serving of ancho dark chocolate terrine with cinnamon creme anglaise and pomegranate seeds. If you're gonna break your sugar streak, that's the way to do it!
So... alcohol bad. Chocolate good. Maybe that should be my new motto!
Monday, May 14, 2012
I went to the grocery store for strawberries and asparagus, and what did I find tucked back in one corner? Champion sports bras and singlets for $5.00! I got me one of each for a little over half what I would normally pay for one. Not what I expected to come home with, but it's better to impulse buy a bra than a quart of ice cream!
Sunday, May 13, 2012
I had stopped doing this, but I have to brag a little about yesterday's shopping score. I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from a happy hour (!), which could have been a disaster since I'm discovering that alcohol and I are not friends-- I had about half a beer and it made me feel strange for 6 or 7 hours. But not only was there only one small impulse buy, I also got some serious bargains. I came home with:
--1 gallon skim milk
-- bag of 4 frozen Lightlife brand portobello veggie burger (new to me, but there was a coupon)
--2 pounds butter
--1 tub spreadable light butter
--can of light hot cocoa mix, 26 servings (I use it as a calcium supplement--it has 35% DRV for 20 cals)
--2 one-pound boxes shredded wheat cereal
--1 box generic Cheerios
--1 qt cottage cheese
--1 can crushed tomatoes
--1 pkg sugar-free gum (my impulse buy)
--3 one-pot size coffee samples
--3 large mangos
--2 boxes Nutrisse foam haircolor
And the grand total? Wait for it....
$22.14 !!!
The haircolor was on a clearance shelf for $1.99 and I had 2 coupons for $2 each, so that was totally free. Usually that brand is around $8.99 a box. It's one shade lighter than I usually use, but I find that on my hair, anything lighter than medium brown turns out pretty much the same color. Then the cereal (store brand) was on sale for $1.98 and there was a coupon for $3 off of 3 boxes. The butter was on clearance for $1 a pound because it's getting close to its sell-by, but I'll freeze it and it'll be fine. The light butter is Smart Balance brand, and there was a $1 coupon in last Sunday's paper; I have 2 copies, and the catalina or carolina or whatever they call it at the checkout spit out another coupon that's good until August. If I like this brand, it'll be cheap for me until fall. So... all in all, a pretty good haul.
The other thing is that I'm on day 6 of the no-sugar streak, and it's doing me good! By day 3 the cravings were gone, and for the last 2 days I've been much less hungry overall. I'm not fanatical about it; I eat sugar-sweetened yogurt that I already bought, and I use regular jam (although part of the time I've been using some freezer jam that my mom made which has a lot more fruit than average and might have been made with Splenda.) I have some diet soda, too, which helps, but I haven't been drinking as much of it the past few days, either. Anyway, my calorie totals are looking good, and I think I've lost a little weight already, so I'm back to where I was before I overate on Easter. Still 4 or 5 pounds to go before I'm officially not overweight, and another 10 that I would really like to lose after that, but at least it's moving in the right direction!
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Two unrelated topics, actually!
I've been trying hard to start a "no refined sugar" streak, and failing because I keep telling myself, "Eh, I'll start tomorrow" (especially when someone offers me a free cookie sample!) Then I read someone else's blog about using the ticker for accountability. I wish I remembered whose it was, but it was just one of those, "Click, read, realize later that that was really inspiring" situations. Anyway, I went in and reset my ticker from weight (which I didn't keep updated anyway) to "days since," and it's already helping! I've finally made it to day 2.
I baked some of the sourdough bread that I made by making regular bread dough and leaving it out for a few days. It was pretty good, but not like San Francisco sourdough good. The local wild yeasties around here apparently just aren't that flavorful-- when I've tried to make my own starter in the past, it's always been kind of blah. Still, it's good to know that it works. Now I have the remaining dough in the fridge to bake one serving at a time in my 1/2 pint dutch oven.
Still no luck on the small covered pot search. I want a 2-qt cast iron dutch oven, but I want it for under $20, and no one has leapt forward to accommodate me on that.
There's one more place I plan to check in the next few days, and if they don't have one, I'll settle for a ceramic casserole I saw for about $15.
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on 6 days of no sugar. I tried that at the beginning of the month and fell of the wagon after day 4. Hitting it again this week thanks to your blog!! 
Member Comments About This Blog Post:
figs. They were a little pricey. the vendors wanted $8-$10 a tray. each tray had 8 large figs. that would have made those figs a dollar each. yikes ! they looked so good. the blackberries looked good too, but I passed on those. I then went to my favorite Asian market to pick up some bok choy, bean sprouts and Japanese yams. Have you ever tried a Japanese yam ? They're actually a tad sweeter than regular sweet potatoes. 
