Living Better One Day At A Time

Happy Monday! Once again I am joining in with the lovely Sandra over at "Diary of a Stay at Home Mom" in her Happy Homemaker Monday meme.

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. I am actually typing this up on Sunday night as my Monday is going to be CRAZY! I will be babysitting A, so I am trying to get a jump on my Monday to-dos. 

So with that being said, let's get to it....



THE WEATHER:::
Hot is the correct word to tell what the weather is. We are supposed to have temperatures in the upper 80s all week with high humidity. I think we have a chance of storms on Wednesday. Last week we needed to have our jeans and jackets most of the time, this week we will need our shorts and tank tops again! Oh well, that is September in Ohio. LOL 

RIGHT NOW I AM:::
Sitting here typing this up. I also have the Packers game on, even though they are losing big!   

ON MY READING PILE:::
Still nothing at the moment :-( I really need to get reading some of my review books.


ON MY TV:::
Cleveland Indians …

Friday morning after I went to the grocery stores, I came back home and then Bill and I went out for a walk. It has been a long week with no walking since we are still trying to get in a schedule with the baby that I am babysitting. The weather was perfect. 

I will have to say that we had a great walk. We saw lots of lovely scenery. We even saw a long snake across the path! It was kind of cool. It was elongated at first slithering across the path, then it coiled up. Overall, it was a lovely walk. 












Hope everyone has a lovely Sunday! 

So with my new dieting plan of carb cycling, I have been on the lookout for recipes to try that are both low carb and are something more than grilled meat and veggies, and is something that my family will eat as well. I don't have time to make separate meals for everyone so it has to fit both diet plans. (I am not cutting carbs from the kids' food nor am I making Bill follow my diet plan-- he has his own plan going.)

Anyhow.... I was scrolling through Facebook and came across this yummy looking recipe for Slow Cooker Greek-Style Green Beans and Chicken Thighs. I knew instantly that Bill would love it as he loves Greek food and I thought the kids would eat it as well. It also fit into my low-carb day perfectly! So that is a triple win and so a go to become my 12th new recipe tried in 2017. 



I followed the recipe to a tee, except I used 3 large chicken breasts instead of the thighs. I also only cooked it for 6.5 hours on low instead of 8 as the chicken was done after that time. I …

Sorry this is getting put up so late. This is the first chance that I have had to sit down and type this up...between a new babysitting job, my tutoring job, life with my own family, I am surprised I am able to get on the computer this early!  Anyhow, let's get on with this week's Weigh In Wednesday: 
My official starting weight(on 1/1/2017)was: 242.0 pounds!
My weight last week was 235.4. My weight today is: 

So a loss of 1.8 pounds. FINALLY A LOSS!!! Total loss from 1/1/17: 8.4 pounds

Finally a loss!!! I was really thinking that I was going to have  a gain this week or a little loss as I have not been able to exercise and I have been stressed and not sleeping well. But to my surprise there was a 1.8 pound loss recorded! I have been more diligent about my diet. I really need to follow the thought that many of you shared with me last week...focus on the diet to lose weight and focus on the exercise for my sanity! I kind of did that this week and I got results that I liked. I started …

Happy Monday! Once again I am joining in with the lovely Sandra over at "Diary of a Stay at Home Mom" in her Happy Homemaker Monday meme.

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. I had a lovely one. On Saturday, we got to attend a fall party at our friends' horse farm. The party was for her riding clients, but we are almost like family so she invited us as well. The kids had a blast. Sunday, was the first Sunday for the kids' PSR classes and church. Then we just relaxed around the house watching the NFL interspersed with coverage of Hurricane Irma. My in-laws were unable to evacuate from their Florida home. The storm passed directly over them, with the eye going over their home around 3AM this morning. I talked to them this morning and they were safe, but were unsure of damage as they were not allowed outside due to continued threats of tornadoes and wind. Just thankful that they are safe. I have been meaning to get this post up earlier, but this is the first chance I ha…

Yesterday, Bill and I set out on an adventure after dropping the kids off at school. We have been walking many of the trails and hiking paths around our area in the last couple weeks. Well, Thursday morning we headed out to the Mohican Valley Trail about half an hour from our house to walk the trail and to see if we could find the "Bridge of Dreams." 

Well, we did find Mohican Valley Trail and we walked to the Bridge of Dreams. It was a very pretty walk (if you ignored the horse poop  on the trail! LOL). We parked a little over 2 miles away from the bridge and headed towards it.



The Bridge of Dreams was beautiful. It is a 370 foot long covered bridge and is apparently the 2nd longest covered bridge in Ohio. According to Wikipedia: "The Bridge of Dreams spans the Mohican River in Knox County, Ohio. It is a pedestrian and bicycling bridge and part of the Mohican Valley Trail, a nature trail built on an abandoned railroad bed belonging to the old Pennsylvania Railroad. The b…

So I know that I am supposed to be dieting. I know that I should be eating healthier and I have been trying. But, then I saw this recipe for "Buckeye Bars" and I HAD to make them. I was craving something sweet and these sounded SO good. 





Let me tell you...THEY ARE DELICIOUS!!!! If you like the buckeye candy, you will love these. They taste just like buckeyes but are in bar form which means they were much easier to make.
I will say this...I followed the recipe here. However, I made one change. The original recipe called for 4- 4oz Ghirardelli Semisweet Chocolate bars. Well, I had all the ingredients at home, except the chocolate bars. So, I thought I would substitute semi-sweet chocolate chips. Well, the first batch of chocolate that I tried to melt scorched. So I had to run to the store to get some more (as I had already made the peanut butter layer). I first looked at the Ghirardelli bars. They were $4.19 a bar at Kroger! If I followed the recipe, I would spend over $16 on th…

Let's get on with this week's Weigh In Wednesday: 

My official starting weight(on 1/1/2017)was: 242.0 pounds!
My weight last week was 235.8. My weight today is: 

So a loss of 0.4 pounds.  Total loss from 1/1/17: 6.6 pounds

Seriously?!!??? Only 0.4 pounds? I have been exercising and walking like crazy. I will admit that I have been stressed a lot this past week. I thought I was eating well, but maybe I am not. I don't know. I feel smaller. Bill tells me that I look smaller. Maybe I am gaining muscle. I don't know. I am frustrated with it all. I think that I am going to go back to carb-cycling my meals. Will have to plan on that....
Exercise wise this is what happened since last Wednesday:


Thursday: After the chaos and depression that was last Wednesday, Thursday I felt the need to push it. So Bill and I walked 5.45 miles. It felt refreshing to get out of the house and push it.