Any 50 year old members out there?? Come on in and say hi

[sallyseachange]

Love reading about everyone's exercise routines (which put my half hour to shame!) and fun and games with pets!

My two dogs are getting old and both now have arthritis. "Walkies" doesn't have the appeal it used to for them and I'm lucky if they stay with me ten minutes. So... I've upped working on my aerobic step (good for the Flights challenge) and of course still do my half hour workout from an Italian fitness instructor on DVDs... quite a good all round workout... well, most days of the week!

Carole and Nyna... I live in Umbria, in central Italy (between Rome and Florence) and have been here for nearly thirty years. Learned Italian as a child, at Italian school in Libya though. Anyway, we rent out a small country villa house here in Umbria, and studio flatlets in the Aeolian Islands off Sicily... I also work for a British agency, as liaison rep for 14 villas... dealing with agency, villa owners, staff and guests. Busy eight months of the year, chaotic for four.

Nyna... I totally love the sound of your pick-your-own blueberry farm. What fun! I can imagine it's very lovely where you are. I have internet friends in PA and it all looks so beautifully green!

[barbiedoll4j]

*stretch ... yawn* ... I'm just crawling out of bed after working nights. It's grey outside but no rain so far. I think, after breakfast/lunch, I'll go for my power walk. dh bought me a nice heart monitor so I can keep it in the zone. My new bike should be in on tuesday ... can't wait for that.

[imagood1]

I'm sitting here waiting for the second round of storms to come in. At noon today it was 97 outdoors and the air conditioner was on to keep us cool.....it is now almost 3:00 and the temperature is 60 -- all the windows and doors are open and the breeze coming in the windows is actually cold!

Mom has her other eye surgery in the morning -- we have to be at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. -- it's a so minute drive without too much traffic so we'll have to leave by 6:00 a.m. so we aren't late because there is quite a bit of traffic at that time in the morning. That still amazes me that people leave for work at that time of the morning!! I remember those days actually...LOL!

Your life sounds wonderful Sally -- I was one of those people who was "lucky" enough not to learn a second language in school.....I can speak enough Spanish to get a rough idea of what someone is saying but I am better at American Sign Language than anything! My great grandmother was deaf so I learned when i was small to sign basic things. It is something I should probably take back up and actually learn the right way!

I'm taking a day off from biking today -- I've gotten 125 miles in this week so I need a day off! I'm doing the rest of my exercises just not biking. Tomorrow we'll be back from the hospital before noon so I'll have time to get my biking in at around the normal time.

I needed to get some good fat in today so I took 4 tsp of coconut oil, 1/2 tsp dark chocolate cocoa, 1 packet of Splenda and 1/2 capful of vanilla extract and mixed it together....put it on a wax paper lined baking sheet and stuck it into the freezer for 20 minutes -- it tasted like the chocolate covered coconut candies in the Brach's pick-a-mix at the store. I'll have it again but not often, I still get somewhat of a queezy stomach from the coconut oil.

We are having pork tenderloin kebabs on the grill for dinner...we had them last week also, I just hope it's not raining when it's time to eat!! I'd hate for the hubs to have to stand in the rain to cook our dinner...LOL!!!!

I hope you are feeling better Nyna .... and I'd love to come see your farm - I love going to fruit farms and picking my own. When I lived in Western NY state we would go to strawberry farms, blueberry farms, get all our peaches & apples at roadside stands...I could even go 2 miles from my house and get fresh cut iris to put in the house. I really miss that! We have fresh produce stands where we go get our veggies....it's so much less expensive that going to the grocery stores.

Time to put the kebabs together. Hope everyone is having a great day!

[barbiedoll4j]

That dinner sounds lovely ... we're having a beef tenderloin wrapped with bacon, seasoned with garlic,salt, and pepper. Some steamed green beans-then fried in a little bacon grease, a yummy salad with lots of veggies and of course .... water.
DH bought me a CamekBak today. A real nice one that holds 3Liters. This will be much nicer than carrying water bottles around my waist. It will also help me drink more water. People who have them say you end up drinking much more water with one of these. I'm going to use it for hiking, power walks and biking. He also picked up a pedometer. woohoo!

[imagood1]

had to show you this -- this was before cooking (and I cleaned my pan afterward...how embarrassing!!)

Pork Tenderloin marinated in olive oil and spices (tasted like Italian salad dressing), red and vadalia onions, colored peppers and grape tomatoes. Mom had soup so dh ate 2, I had 1 and there is one left over for my lunch tomorrow...YUM.



each kebab had 4oz pork tenderloin (pre cooking weight), 2oz peppers, 3 tomatoes (except 1 had 4), and 2 oz of onion. I used a total of 3 Tbsp of olive oil for all the meat and a couple shakes of Italian Seasoning. I made these last weekend also and we liked them so well I got another tenderloin at the store this week and a package of colored peppers. This will be a staple for us all summer!

[Fancy1952]

Carole, how long did you cook it on the bbq? and how high was the temp? I'm always looking for new stuff to cook outside. These look wonderful!

Oh, good morning to everyone! Speaking of eating, we had the most wonderful, excellent pizza last night from Linda's web site. The crust is made of cheese and eggs! I will most likely not bother with a regular crust ever again, this one is so much better. Even my son and DH liked it. It ended up 5 net grams of carbs for 2 pieces! Yay!I still can't believe how good it was!

Today and tomorrow I work all day and since I let Farm Town "lead me down the garden path" yesterday, I have to make 3 lunches this morning. We ate pretty well on the weekend, making recipes off Linda's web site, so we'll go back to our salads during the week. I have yet to find a recipe of hers that we don't like, it's so cool!, and wonderful that she took the time to try all these recipes in her own "test kitchen", complete with the nutritional info. They are invaluable!

Anyway, this has to be short so I will bid you all good day, stay on track, and I'll be back later.

Suzanne

[barbiedoll4j]

Farm town?

[Fancy1952]

It's a Beta game on Facebook. Pretty cute really, you farm your fields, plowing and planting, harvesting yourself, or hiring someone else at the marketplace. You can also be hired to harvest for another farmer, so you can earn more coins to buy more land, seed, buildings, etc. Can be a little addictive, lol.

[imagood1]

Farm Town.....too cute Fancy!! The hubs cooked the kebabs on the grill but he had them on medium heat and cooked them for about 10 - 15 minutes. We like the veggies crunchy but the meat done....when the pork gets to 140 internal they are done and he pulls them off. Last weekend when we made them I put them on bamboo skewers but even through I soaked them in water for an hour they still charred a little on the ends so this week I dug out the metal skewers we had and they cooked better and faster.

Mom had her left eye cataract surgery this morning. We were at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. -- they took her in an hour early so she was out of surgery by 9:30 when her surgery was scheduled! We stoped at the grocery store for a special treat for her and were home by 10:00 a.m. Everything went fine and we go at 9:00 a.m. to have the patch taken off and check how everything looks. I'm so happy this is over now. This year she has gotten hearing aids and had both eyes done. She is a much happier person and it's so much easier to be around her because she's not so cross all the time now.

I ran to the lab this morning while they were prepping mom for surgery (getting the drops in her eyes to dialyte the pupil) and had my blood work done. I'm excited to see the results! I have my fingers crossed for good results. This is the first blood work I've had done since starting Atkins.

Hope everyone is doing well.

[imagood1]

by the way -- we had a propane grill .... not a charcoal grill - that's why it doesn't take long to cook the kebabs