The Strawberry Patch

How about a little dose of strawberry madness? I love strawberries. To eat them, to grow them, to collect things with strawberry patterns on them. You name it, if it's got a strawberry on it I'm going to like it. I even have an entire board on Pinterest devoted to the strawberry. You can check it out here.  I thought a good way to add some cheer to the ol blog today would be to share some great pinterest finds featuring my favorite fruit. What a beautiful day it is today, I have all the windows open and it's nice and cool. Now if only I had some strawberries to nosh on.

http://www.rocknrollbride.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/reception8.jpg



http://fatquartershop.blogspot.com/








http://junglefrog-cooking.com/strawberry-tiramisu/





http://thekitchensinkrecipes.com/2009/06/15/fall-even-harder/

 



http://www.etsy.com/listing/67686854/strawberry-poster-watercolor-fruits-8x10

 

Thoughtful Eating

Had this for lunch, it was ok...I'd rather make my own.

I don’t know about you, and this may sound strange, but I’m very interesting in seeing what other people eat. Maybe it’s because I love to cook and eat and don’t even get me started on looking at foodgawker.com. The problem with looking at sites like food gawker or food on pinterest is that I always want to cook what I see and a lot of what I see is not so healthy. I’m 39 years old and I do think it’s time that I start taking my health seriously. I honestly have very bad eating habits. It’s the old fat, sugar, salt addiction. I will graze on junk food all day long and never really sit down to eat a proper healthy meal. I’ve decided that I’d like to devote at least 1 post a week to what I’m eating. I’ll be taking photos of everything I eat for the day. I think the idea is that I won’t want to record my mindless grazing and actually try “thoughtful eating”. Now, I’m not saying there will be no sweets or junk food, but if there are I will show it.  My biggest problem I think is really portion control. If my husband gets donuts on Sunday morning I don’t need to eat 2, I only need to eat 1. Not that donuts are a healthy choice, but you get the idea hopefully. I don’t want to live in a world where the food police are pecking around in my head. I still want a Danish and coffee on occasion! I’m on my second week of what I’m calling  “thoughtful eating” and I have to say I’m pretty proud of myself. I did have a slip up today and that’s why I decided to go ahead and kick start my thoughtful eating posts. I’ve been doing some grazing and skipped a proper lunch. Eating cheese puffs then an apple then a few caramels is not thoughtful eating! Here are the photos of the food I ate last week. I didn’t do photos this week because I was out of town and then had company, but I will start again monday. Weekends are excluded since our weekend scheduals are all over the place and often times we only get 2 meals in.  One thing I have noticed is that the act of taking the photo really promotes thoughtful eating! Who wants to eat junk, have a photo of it, and then beat yourself up for eating poorly? Also, if I am feeling like eating something that I should'nt I'm way to lazy to take a photo so I'd rather just skip it.   :-)

DAY 1



Breakfast: Stawberry mini wheats and almond milk



Lnch: Lean Cuisine salad editions and water

Snack: Vanilla yogurt and red grapes

Dinner: Tikka Masala with Jasmine rice and I ad loads of peas and carrots

Dessert: slice of German chocolate cake from the bakery

DAY 2                         

Breakfast: Honey Bunches of Almonds and half a bananna 



Lunch: Spring greens with egg, bacon, peas and homeade honey dijon dressing





Snack: Vanilla yogurt and red grapes...I love this stuff.



Dinner: Chicken Fajitas, grilled chicken with red peppers,
onion, lettuce, and some sour cream. Carb balance tortillas.

Dessert/Snack: A few coconut cookies and a decaf nescafe latte
 that I maked over ice. This is so good, you just meassure your nescafe
 into about 2 tablespoons HOT water to disolve then add cold milk or
 water and and ice.  







DAY 3

Breakfast: Strawberry mini wheats

Lunch: Tuna salad with spring greens on whole grain

Snack: Grapes with vanilla yogurt

Dinner: Boston Market Turkey Medallions

Snack: apple

Dessert: 1 scoop chocolate ice cream with whipped cream,
a cherry, and a cocnut cookie.



DAY 4



Breakfast: Honey Bunches of Almonds and half a banana





Lunch: Tuna salad with spring greens on whole grain bread

Snack: Dark Chocolate and peanut and almond granola bar

Dinner: Rigatoni with Arrabbiata Sauce, grated parmesan,
and half a whole grain focaccia roll with olive oil and balsamic drizzle.

Dessert: Oreos and a decaf latte (nescafe)



DAY 5





Breakfast: Lucky Charms with half a bananna.

Lunch: BLT

Snack: Big surprise, vanilla yogurt and red grapes

Dinner: Penn Station chicken teriyaki with mushrooms, and fries.



Happy Fourth of July!

I thought I would start off by showing you the extent of our celebration today.

That's it. One flag in the rain. Like a good portion of the country today it's been raining and according to the forcast it will not be letting up anytime soon. We don't ususally go and watch fireworks unless we happen to travel up to my parents home. The smallish city they live in has a really nice fireworks show and it's extreamly close to their house. So close that people park in their neighborhood to watch it. We put lawn chairs in the front yard and it feels like the ashes are going to rain down on you. Sometimes they do! It's a lot of fun, all the neighbors are out and it's sort of like a huge block party. This year we are staying in Louisville and hopefully will be able to watch some fireworks on TV. We also have some good eats for later today. Cold fried chicken, watermelon, and red potato and green bean salad. I've not figured out how I'm going to do the potato salad yet because hubbs wont eat vinager, mustard, or mayo. The boy has no idea what he's missing. I love potato salad, especially my familys german potato salad! It's served hot and we always eat it with brats that have been cooked in beer, onions, and then grilled. Guess you can't tell we're German. ;-)
As for my potato salad today I was thinking of doing some sort of bacon and parmesan "dressing" over the cold beans and potatoes. I know I could roast them and we could eat them hot, but since we're doing cold fried chicken it only seems right to have some sort of potato salad that's cold. I'll let you know what I come up with and if it's any good.

I also wanted to share with you a few more paintings I did. I really enjoyed doing the Illustration Friday popsicle so I thought I would do a few more novelties. Here is an ice cream sandwich and an orange creamsicle. I'm also working on a Push-Up. I tried to scan it so you could see the progress but for some reason my computer and scanner are not getting along today. Remember that commercial where the guy chucks his computer our the window? That was me about five minutes ago. I'm better now. Just had to breath. As much as I love what computers have done for us there is sometimes a love hate relationship. I love them when they do what I want and I hate them when I'm not smart enough to know why it won't do what I want. But sometimes their just old and stupid. Did you know computers get stupid as they age? YUP. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Well it's certainly not me! ;-)

Happy Fourth!

 

Illustration Friday Submission "Equality"

At least this week I completed a submission for Illustration Friday. The topic is "Equality". Obviously a heavy topic in our nation at the moment. Hopefully one day it will not be an issue at all. There are so many artists that are representing equality in a beautiful way so make sure you visit Illustration Friday to see what everyone is doing! I didn't feel I could come up with anything better than what I was seeing so I decided to do something from a simple time. I remember sharing these with my sister when I was a kid. For the most part we were able to get a clean break right down the middle. It would be so nice if the only equality we had to worry about was who got the bigger half of the popsicle!