Until Next Time...

 Hi friends!  Eliza Dog and I are at home in Alabama this week.  She's actually at doggie daycare right now.  She knew right where to go when I got her out of the truck.  I hope that means she likes it LOL  She will go back on Thursday.  I plan on heading to Huntsville for the day and having lunch with Lo and going to the cross stitch/quilting store.  Weigh in on Saturday went ok, I was up .4.  I have TOTALLY eaten off my plan all weekend.  I ordered pizza cause I lost track of time cutting out a new Halloween quilt for Jenna.  And yesterday Billy and I had foot long coneys from Sonic for dinner before he went back to Georgia.  But, I'm back on track this morning.  I hit up our Publix after dropping Eliza off and grocery shopped so I am good.  I picked up a pancake/waffle mix that is Keto.  I'm wanting a waffle.  I'll let you know how it tastes next week. Here's the menu plan for the week... Monday - chicken...

 Since I will be at home for the month of August and I'll have access to ALL my sewing and cross stitch supplies, I thought I would make a goal for the month and share it here. In my cross stitch, I have the final installment of Cross Stitch Camp to do.  I'm using the Gather Pumpkins from the Fall Gather Round by Hands on Design to meet the "try something new" requirement since it has over one stitching in it and I've not done that before.  This is being done with all the called for floss and fabric because it came in a kit LOL I'm stitching along with Nichol Spohr's Flying Lessons Stitch Along and that starts August 16.  She posted a picutre of a conversion done on a fabric similar to what I've got and in purple.  You know I am a cutesy Halloween person so this color way was perfect for me.  I've picked mostly Colour & Cotton threads with a couple Weeks Dye Works for mine.  And aren't those floss drops adorable? I want to finish my June Cr...

 I first read Julie Anne Long way back in 2012.  I jumped into her Pennyroyal Green series with book 6, How the Marquess was Won.  And let me just tell you, I fell in love with her writing.  So, when I was given the opportunity to become part of her ARC team I jumped at it.  Julie's latest release is How to Tame a Wild Rogue.  It's part of her Palace of Rogues series.  Book 6 to be precise, and it's my favorite of the series.   It's always fun to come back to a series that has characters that flow in all the books because you get to see them grow and change, even if they're not the main focus of the current story.  In this one, Lorcan and Daphne are the main characters, but lordy!  We get a lot of Angelique, Bolt, Delilah and Capt. Hardy.  And the scenes with them were MAGNIFICENT!!!!  There was this one sequence where all of our couples were not getting along and they all end up elsewhere (I'm trying to be vague to not sp...

 WOOHOO!  I finally got lower than those 3.5 pounds I've been gaining and losing since May!  I was down 1.4 when I weighed this week.  7 pounds to go and I'll have a new first number :) With that being said, it seems like my journey with keto is doing pretty good LOL  My goal is to eat between 20-50 net carbs a day.  I've been hitting between 30-35 most days. And my sugar numbers are running in the 1-teens range.  I'm feeling pretty good. This week's menu has a couple things I've been craving.  I am super excited for tonight's meal.  It's one of the cravings LOL Monday - muffalettas.  I saw Cajun Keto Chef on Facebook make a keto friendly one in a wrap and that is what I'm doing.  Hubs will eat his on bread.  I've got some Flat Out Bread so mine should come to about 7 carbs. Tuesday - jalepeno popper chicken casserole with broccoli as a side.  This is another craving. Wednesday - Italian sausage stuffed portobellas Thursda...

Ash and Grant came visit the second week of July.  I always love having them at the house.  I miss them terribly.  So, I knew I needed to get my butt in gear and finish her birthday present. I actually finished stitching these pretties back in May, well before we left Odessa.  I even bought the frame for them in Odessa. And cut out the sticky board LOL  I had ordered a new glue gun, but the wrong glue stick size, so that is what the hold up was.  But, with Ashley coming to visit I got the correct glue sticks and got to work. This was easy to finish up and Ashley loved them.  The pattern is A Year of Celebrations by Hands on Design (one of both mine and Ashley's favorite designers). I dyed the fabric myself.  I believe it was a color called paper bag on the Rit Dye website.  I used some of the called for colors, but most of it was switched to Colour and Cotton threads. With this set being done, I am motivate...

Hello, friends! I'm back with another meal plan for this week. When I got on the scale Saturday I was back down those pesky 3.5 pounds I've been losing and gaining since May. Let's see if this week I can get passed them. I did learn that I will have to be more diligent about what I eat when we travel home for the weekends.  I did not count carbs on either Saturday or Sunday.  I did make low carb choices though.   So, here's the plan for this week. Monday - fried pork chops and cabbage. This was Billy's request. Tuesday- ground beef stroganoff and mashed cauliflower.   Wednesday- shrimp Alfredo. Spaghetti squash for me, noodles for Hubs Thursday- meatballs and marinara. I'm going to eat mine with a salad on the side. Hubs can have his on bread or over noodles Friday- eating out on way home again. This time I'll make a better choice than last Friday.  Until next time...

 Happy Monday, friends!  I'm back with a meal plan for the week.   Let me give you a little update on where my mind is at.  I've postponed my Optavia order.  In fact, I haven't had one since May.  While I like the ease of their plan, I do not want to have to buy their food for the rest of my life.  And I see people who are in maintenance talking about how they jump back on 5 & 1 and have fuelings every so often.  Yes, I know that I will have to watch what I eat and semi-diet if I want to maintain what I lost, but I don't want to have to do it with food that costs $25 a box for 7 servings.  I've been doing some research and found a program called Weight Loss with Real Food that uses Optavia's macros and follows that formula but figures out what they can eat with real food that fits it.  That sounds great, but it's a LOT of work.  More work than I am willing to do.  I am tired of pouring over recipes and counting macros ...