Bananagrams Anyone?

How many of you like to play Scrabble? Personally, that is not my favorite game, but I played a similar game that I really liked; Bananagrams.  My daughter and her husband got one for Christmas and when they were visiting the other day, we played. I was not very good, but I liked it better than Scrabble. I love playing it by myself. I thought about buying the game, but, I think I will just use our regular Scrabble and use the letters in that. 

Where Is It!?

The sun supplies us with vitamin D, but since most of us do not live in an area where we get enough sun, or that we use a lot of sunscreen, or are indoors all the time, most of us do not get enough D. So, we us should be taking vitamin D preferably D3, and with Calcium.

The last time I went to the doctor, my vitamin D results came back REALLY low. I was pretty surprised, I have never had my vitamin D low, even when I lived in Indiana, where the sun rarely shines.  I questioned the results, and my doctor did retest me, but in the mean time she put me on a very high vitamin D regiment. I was taking more than 6000 units a day.  Less than a week later, I started having some severe pain throughout my body. I'm not sure if it was the large amounts of vitamin D, or something else, but when my results came back above normal, I took myself off the high dosage. Lately, I've been taking calcium with D3; so I've been getting about 1000 units of D3. Most of my pain has subsided. Not sure if there is a connection, but, anyway...


A few weeks ago, I was grocery shopping, and noticed my calcium with D3 was on sale. Even though I did not need any, I still bought some; and since we have our house on the market and I didn't want vitamin bottles on the counter, I put the extra bottle away, in a nice safe place.  So, today, I took my last pill, and guess what!? I can't remember where I put the new bottle. I guess I need to start taking vitamin B12 for memory loss.


Well, better get back to my search...

Foto Friday Week 2

Foto Friday 

Week 2

Self Portrait 

As I was thinking about how I could do self portrait, I thought of all the things I like to do. One of which is NOT getting my picture taken.  So, how can I do self portrait without actually having my picture taken?  Well, that's not possible, but I can take pictures of me behind my favorite things; one of which is TAKING pictures.

Another thing I like to do is make jewelry. As a teen, my sisters and I use to make jewelry all the time. When we got older and going to college, we just did not have the time. My sister got back into to it and is now an author of several how to make jewelry books, plus she has an Etsy, and writes for about.com (http://jewelrymaking.about.com/).  She got me back into the jewelry making business almost 20 years ago.

One other thing I love to do and started when I was three is dance. I especially love to tap dance.  Don't have any place I can actually take classes now that I'm old...but I still love it!

My most favorite thing, though above all else, is spending time with my family...

One thing I learned about this assignment is that this was very challenging. I did, however, learn to be more comfortable with the timer on my camera, and my tripod.

"FROM THE MOUTH OF BABES"

This is a picture of me when I was about four. I started taking dance lessons when I was three, and pretty much danced off and on my whole life. Except for a few years in high school.  I swam instead. 

This is my daughter, Ashley, when she was five. She started taking dance lessons when she was two (just three months shy of her third birthday). She has always taken dance, and now has a degree in dance and is teaching and choreographing. This falls second in her life, only to her husband which is definitely first!

This is Ashley when she was about four. We use to curl her hair for church. This is what it looked like when we first took it out. Eventually, her hair would relax, and her curly hair would fall like the tap picture above.

Anyway...

The ballet picture of me above has always hung in my parents home.  When Ashley was about four, she looked up at that picture, and with a very puzzled look on her face, asked my mom who that was. My mom told her that that was her mother. Ashley continued to study the picture, and then said, "Ooooh! Is that my mommy when she was an Ashley?"

From the mouth of babes...

The Holidays Have Ended

Well, the last of my group left today. Our son, Scott just left to go back to school. He starts early tomorrow morning.

I so very much enjoyed all my peeps. It was hectic, but very exciting, and I love having all my kids together.  With everyone gone now, I can get back into my routine. I can't remember when the last time I walked; although, now we are looking at cold weather, and I just don't do that too well.  Especially since I have all my winter clothes in storage. I didn't think we would still be here. I figured by now we would be in Kentucky and getting settled. Oh well.

I hope everyone had just as wonderful of a Christmas and New Years as we did, and that your new year is turning out to be a good one. So far, it's been ok. I've lost 3.2 pounds, and I'll have to say that is great. I know, this is only my third day of my new eating habits, and probably just lost water weight, by hey, I'll take it!

Eating Healthy is so Yummy!

I originally planned to start my new healthy eating habits, aka a diet, on Monday 2 January, but I got up Sunday morning and decided I should get right on it.  I got up, weighed my self, and after I got out of the shower, headed for the kitchen. Since church is starting at ten now, I figured I need to have a pretty substantial breakfast. Having hypoglycemia, I have to be careful of that. I had egg in a hole, that is a half of a whole wheat bagel. No butter, just one egg and a half of a bagel. In addition, I had a smoothie and boy was it yummy. It had 1/2 cup orange juice, 12 small frozen strawberries, and 1/2 banana.  So that all counts as 1/2 protein, 1 starch and three fruit.


For lunch, since it was New Years, and everyone should have their black-eyed peas for good luck, I put some on in the crock pot the night before. Boy did they smell good when I got up. My dad makes the best ones, spicy and all, "oh soooo good!"  He use to have them when he was in the Air Force and part of the boat squad in the Gulf of Mexico in the late 50's.  I put the peas on a small bed of rice and topped with 2 oz of low fat cheese my one and only dairy), that will count as 1 starch, 1 protein, and 1 veggie.


For snack, I had a protein bar! Chocolate and caramel rolled in nuts.


Dinner was a salad (1 veggie) with lite dressing (a condiment), the other half of my bagel from this morning (1 startch),and this time I got to have some butter on it for my one fat.  I also will had some nuts (protein), and 6 baby carrots (one veggie).


In all, I will have to say I had plenty to eat, and everything was very good.

Flamingos

Each month, we receive our church magazines. We use to get all three, The Friend (for Primary children ages 3 to 11), The New Era (for youth 12 to 18), and The Ensign (for all ages).  Since we just have one teen, young adults, and old adults in our family, we now only get The New Era, and The Ensign.


The magazines came this week, so I do what I normally do, immediately sit down and look through them.  They always have such good content.  One article that caught my eye was one about flamingos. I have always loved flamingos, not necessarily because they are pink, but because they are such cool and unique birds. I love bright colors, and these birds just intrigue me. 


The author talks about why the birds have their pink coloring; how it is all because of what they eat, and that if a flamingo does not eat the intended diet, they become white and pale. She goes on to describe how, as members of the church, we sometimes are told that we have a countenance about us...a brightness, a glowing.  This is the light of Christ. Just as the flamingo has a diet which gives him his unique pink color, we can receive the light of Christ with a "Spiritual" diet.


I encourage you to read the article. It is very well done.  It is called, "Feast Like a Flamingo". I know you will enjoy it.