On the Dieting Front

When my guy and I go out for a meal -- not very often these days -- I'm ordering the most diabetic-friendly items on the menu, like this chicken cranberry pecan salad I got when we stopped at Bob Evans on one of our day trips. The dressing has a lot of sugar in it, so I get that on the side and use it very sparingly (I only used about half of one of those cups.)

My relationship with food is always going to be difficult, thanks to diabetes. In theory I can eat pretty much all the salad, meat, cheese and eggs I want, and limited amounts of rice and pasta now and then, but no bread, baked goods and especially potatoes, which are a trigger food for me. I drink coffee, herbal tea and sparkling mineral water, mostly the latter. I'm also trying to lose weight, so at this time I really can't eat all I want. It's very, very frustrating when I have to watch everyone else enjoy desserts and rolls (and french fries!) while I go without or nibble on a piece of celery.

Presently my biggest problem is snacking at night. I am working on it, but giving that up has been a real struggle. The high-fiber drink I tried that stops my snack cravings at night really does work to stop hunger pangs, but it doesn't erase the habit or the longing.

I think it's related to what I miss eating, too, like cookies. A couple of cookies and a cup if tea was my favorite snack. Recently I discovered some sugarfree cookies from ChocZero that I like a lot, and are pretty low carb, but they're very expensive, at about forty cents a cookie. I should really make my own version.

I work on my diet every day by really thinking about what I put on my menu. Today I'm planning to have a lactose free sugarfree yogurt for breakfast, and then some salad with sugarfree dressing for lunch. Because my blood sugar crashes every day around 4pm I do have an afternoon snack, which will probably be tea and cookies. Dinner is still a question mark until I talk to my guys, but if I can eat a small portion of whatever I make for them that will finish my eating for today. Tonight I will let myself have a cup of calming tea, but that's all.

I've plateaued as far as my blood glucose level goes, but I would like to bring it down a bit more if possible. I've lost about five pounds since January, which doesn't sound like much but as always it's slow-going when you rely only on diet and exercise to lose weight. Not gaining any new weight over the holidays was my real victory last year. If I can whittle off another five pounds before summer arrives I'll be happy.

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Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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