The Two Year Mark

This month it is two years since the beginning of my big diet adventure.  How I eat and what I eat are so completely different from before.  I have lost 30 pounds (which makes it way more fun to shop for clothes), and my overall health and energy are so much better.  It has been a rather expensive process, as well, but not more so than trying to manage the issues with medications.  


To make sure I keep my various foods in balance, I have a pretty strict diet rotation.  What I lose in flexibility, I make up for with ease of planning.  Here is my current food list:


Proteins:  Beef, chicken, eggs, and goat's milk kefir


Starches:  Potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and acorn squash


Greens:  Chard, kale, spinach, romaine, and bibb lettuce


Veggies:  Broccoli, asparagus, green beans, carrots, onions, and bell pepper


Fruits:  Apple, pears, nectarines (summer), canned peaches (winter), plums (summer), frozen blueberries (being tested), and golden raisins


Sugars:  Maple syrup and honey


Misc.:  Coconut milk, canola oil, sea salt (non-iodized), most herbs and spices, vanilla (homemade), arrowroot starch, cocoa powder, and unsweetened baking chocolate


Snacks:  Pumpkin custard and chocolate pudding


While it is limited, there is still enough variety that my meals aren't boring.  There are things I miss, but only now and then.  Though I still hope to be able to add foods back over time, if that is not the case, I am content with things as they are.  It is really a small price to pay to feel so much better.


Things I am so thankful to have had in this journey:  the internet; my local farmer's market; the local ranch where I get my beef; Sprouts, Whole Foods, and my local grocery store; and most of all, my dear husband for his encouragement and patience in the ups and downs of this process.  


This journey has also led me into the world of the organic.  At this point, I am now evaluating where buying organic is worth the money to me and where it is not, but more on that thought in the next post.  


  

Declaring Victory

The Challenge:


A group quilt project, meaning block sizes will not be consistent.


A difficult pattern--odd shapes, biased edges.


The Goal:


Put all the blocks together to make the top.


This was definitely a stretching project for my whole quilting group.  The blocks themselves were not only difficult, but the pattern was created where the blocks joined each other so all the pieces had to go together just so.  The first step was sewing strips together, and, as with any group quilt, there is going to be various seam widths, creating different sized units. My job was to mark the stripped units for cutting the actual pattern pieces which were kite-shaped.  I then supervised the placing of the pieces for the blocks so the pattern would come together.  Once the blocks and edge units were made, I volunteered to put the top together.  Could I make it happen?

I named this project Match Point--both in the sense of a game as well as trying to actually get the points to match.  It was definitely back and forth, but for the most part it went together pretty well. 


A miss 

A hit.

Success.

A Lovely Way to End the Day

Enough said. :-)

Winter Crepe

Gray leaf-barren arms

Graceful shapes with berry tips

Bring art to the cold

Nebraska!-History

Last, but not least, we had opportunity to enjoy some of Nebraska's local history.  The Omaha Union Station museum was a beautiful building, as well as having an array of interesting displays.

Looking up

They just don't build buildings like this anymore.

Same motif used in the commemorative quilt at the quilt museum

Omaha also had several historical neighborhoods.  There were the grand homes:

This next one had such great brick detailing.

Then there was this row of small houses that looked like they might be Sears catalog homes.

This one was my favorite, though we weren't able to get a very good picture of it. The style is a Craftsman bungalow, all brick with nice detailing and a great front porch.  I wish I could have seen the inside, too.

That concludes our trip.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Nebraska!-Benched

The city of Omaha created a lovely park in the downtown area, and the perfect weather gave us the opportunity to enjoy it.  My favorite feature of the park were the "art" benches.  I thought they were creative and fun.

Woodsy

Deep conversations

Ribbit!

Wired

The suburbs

Just pretty

On a sliding scale

Nebraska!-The Bridge

The evening of our first day out we went to see the Bob Kerry Bridge, the longest pedestrian bridge that connects two states.  The bridge crosses the Missouri River from Nebraska to Iowa.  It was a beautiful evening--cool with wispy clouds in the sky--and the bridge itself is a beautiful structure.  Such a lovely and pleasant way to end the day!

The curving path gave opportunity to have views from various perspectives

The path was wide enough for walkers and bikers to cross comfortably

The design was clean, simple, and yet striking

From below

The recent flood waters left interesting patterns in the shallows

Looking back towards the Nebraska side

A water feature/mini-amphitheater

A garden depicting the different local ecosystems

Catching a few rays of the evening sun