Weigh in

Today I weighed 164.7!  What a great thing getting off your period can be!

I have a girls night tonight with done girls from work and I am really looking forward to it.  I have tried not to eat too much during the day today so I can really enjoy tonight with my friends without worrying about overeating.

Weigh in

Ok gotta get honest with myself again.  Today I weighed in at 165.8 pounds.  My period was this week and I blame it entirely for the load of sugarry crap I ate Monday and Tuesday.  I started working out at the house Tuesday though and went for my long walk this morning.  Hopefully I will be able to keep myself honest and keep my weight on the right path. 
I don't think the lasix I took this morning to help get rid of the last of the water weight will hurt though. ;)

Recipe #3 Peach Jelly

I am falling way behind in my recipes but I am still going.  Ashlee told me that she wanted to make jelly again.  The first thing we ever did together, just the two of us, while I was still dating her dad was make fig jam from the tree I had while I lived in Marion.  

So we settled on Peach jelly.  David doesn't like peaches but that is good, then it will just be for us.  I have a ton of pectin left from making the fig jam so we used Sure.Jell for less or no sugar recipes.  I copied and pasted the recipe from the website below the jump.

Six pounds of peaches at $0.88 per pound

I cooked the peaches with a little water for a while.  they were slow to cook and there wasn't really a whole lot of juice coming out of them, until I reread the instructions.  I guess I could have put the peaches through a food processor first but a potato masher worked pretty well to get the juices started.  

To get three layers if Cheese cloth I put them one inside another three times then tied a knot in the bottom.  I then stretched it over a bowl like this.

The we figured out how to hang the bag by closing it in the microwave door. (Shhhh! Don't tell David we did that.)  Then we were too impatient to wait for four cups of juice to just drip out so we had to help it out a little.

Then we added the pectin and sugar.

A little butter to keep the foam down.

The rest of the sugar.

Then finally, a full rolling boil,

My favorite part, ladling it into the jars.

Processing the jars, it only made three full and one small one went straight into the fridge for immediate sampling.

The final product set perfectly and I tried it the next day.

My verdict

Delicious, I will definitely make it again.

Kitchen gadgets I love

When I saw him for the first time in Costco I wasn't blow away, but there was just something about that little round, pasty white body that was calling to me.  But I took a chance one day after yet another relationship went south, and it was the start of a beautiful love affair.

I am talking about my rice cooker.  This little guy seems like a frivilous expense; yet another gadget to junk up the counter.  With time I have learned the intricacies of loving him, and he is now something I would never want to part with.  Not only does he make my favorite side dish almost perfectly every time, he is much more than that.  I have cooked spanish rice with him, made my favorite steel cut oatmeal and steamed chicken and veggies while my rice is cooking.  Not only that, I have a whole recipe book of exciting new opportunities with him.

Dragon Fruit

Look at this and tell me it doesn't get you at least a little bit curious.

Well It got me.  It was unfortunately $4.99!  But, what won't I do for my blog!

So I had to look up on the internet how to cut into the thing.  Turns out is something like a Kiwi in that it has small black seeds and similar texture to the fruit.

Kind of cool looking though.  After you cut it in half you scoop it out with a spoon.  The peel is soft and it was very easy to get the insides out.

Then you cut up the fruit and viola!

The siet I found recommended this as a real cute way to serve it.  Not very practical though, so I went with...

The good old bowl.

The taste?  Bland!  Yuck!  I even put a little salt on it to see if I could bring out any of the flavor.  That didn't really help though.

My verdict

Never again, save your money.

We did it again!

Ok I am again becoming one of "those" people.  I think I may just have to accept my fate as one of those crazy pet people. 
This weekend brought a new surprise into our lives.
His name is Buck.  He is an almost 2 year old

As I finally get around to publishing this post we have had Buck for almost three weeks.  He is a pretty good dog.  He goes everywhere with Dixie and is a pretty good walker.  I actually walk the two of them together on a leash splitter though their height differences do make it kind of funny.

Last week he got in two fights with Sara, one right in front of me.  I thought he was attacking her, it sounded vicious and I had to turn the water on them to get them to stop it.  I screamed so loud I felt it in my throat the rest of that day.  Can you tell it was traumatic for me?
I think looking back at it now that he was playing and Sara was not.  I still don't like it and if he does it again I may seriously reconsider keeping him.  He knows that what he did was wrong because David and I both made sure to let him know he was in big trouble that day.
It has been a few days now without any more fighting.  I hope it keeps up.