Dare-Me Diet Deal Day 1 of 54

To summarize and simplify the math of the intro post, D = 54 - P, where D = the number of Days I'm on my blender-intensive diet and P is the number of pounds lost.  54 days is a shockingly long time.  Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea.  But if I lost 54 pounds by tomorrow, I'd be done with the blender-intensive diet AND I'd be a skeleton.  But perhaps I can find a happy medium here.

Today, P=0 'cause it is day 1.  What if I gain weight?!  Uggghhh! 

Oh, and I forgot to mention in part of the deal, if I cheat, that day doesn't count and I have to tack on a day for it at the end.

Today I got the blender and got home about 12:30pm.  The kids were hungry and the house was chaotic, so I didn't have time to unpack it or figure it out before lunch.  My lunch entailed salmon, fruits and veggies.  Before dinner, I only had time to clean the machine and make a simple green smoothie: greens, carrots, juice, banana, hemp protein powder.  Now it is 6:35 and I'm still hungry!  I gotta figure out how to use this thing better.  I need some nut butter, stat!

Dare-Me Diet Deal Intro

I've been wanting a Vita-Mix after hearing friends on-line and in-person say how much they like theirs for green smoothies and grinding beans and gluten-free grains.  But honestly, who can justify a $600 blender?  Well, look at me, I did! 

I didn't want to get it and not use it, so here is the dare/deal I made with myself.  I'll use it for A LOT of my food initially.  Here are the rules, with a little algebra thrown in for good measure.  For D days, I will eat:
1) Food prepared in my new Vita-Mix
2) Fresh fruits and vegetables
3) Lean animal meats (fish, chicken, turkey)

Where D = (X/10) - P
X = Cost of the Vita-Mix     and
P = Pounds lost

When pitching this elaborate justification scheme to DH, he said, "Well, I guess I have to be honest here."  He took a deep breath, and we both braced ourselves for the painful truth.  "I think losing 10 pounds would be a good goal."  Owwww, man!  But he's right, and then some.  Not that I mentioned to him that my goal was weight loss.  He is so in the dog house for bringing that up!  ;)  My main goal was to justify a Vita-Mix to use for grinding GF stuff and getting more fruits and veggies in our diets.  But losing some of the weight I've gained in the last year would be fabulous.  I know what the problem is - I eat junky food for energy, which gives me temporary energy, then makes me tired, so I eat the wrong stuff again, so I have energy, then I'm tired....  You get the idea.  I hope this Dare-Me Diet Deal will break that sugar addiction cycle AND justify spending way too much money on a blender.  Perhaps this hard-core intro period will get me in the habit of using the Vita-Mix and make me stretch creatively in its use.

So this morning I went out and bought a 5200 TURBO (actually, I'm kidding about the turbo part) at Costco.  It had an extra $100 dry grinding unit for the grains and beans.  With tax, the horrifying bottom line was $537.20.  So, getting back to our algebra:
D = 537.20/10 - P
Let's assume I stay the same weight.
D = 537.20/10 -0
D = 53.72
Let's round that to 54.  54 days.  Holy cow!  What have a done?!  Quick, send me your favorite blender recipes!

Motherly sayings

"Son, I don't think it's good for the umbrella to hammer on it." Good grief. I never knew I'd have to SAY that.

What to say when we awaken in jail?

This is so random, but I got such a huge kick out of this thread on Facebook, that I wanted to post it in my blog.  Here is the scenario: "If you & I woke up in jail together...using only FOUR words...what would you say to me?"

Here are some of my favorite responses, in no particular order:

No kids! No kids!

My name is JULIO. (That was an "in" joke.)

I don't believe it.

Next time, pants on.

What will Matt think?

We are so screwed.

Dang! We had Fun!

We got some sleep!!

Your lawyer, or mine?

I told you so!

Bring anything to read?

This is your fault.

Awww man, not again.

Thanks for the help.

Fancy meeting you here.

Is that my blood?

What did you do?

Don't tell my husband!

Let's do it again!

You come here often?

Parsley Pesto

Hi to all my loyal fans!  I wanted you both to know that I tried my Fabulous Pesto tonight with the herbs I had on hand and it turned out great.  My basil in the garden had not been happy about some 30's-ish lows last month, so I only had a tad of that for my pesto.  I had a bit of cilantro and TONS of parsley.  It was vibrantly green and yummy on our bean thread pasta.  By the time you put parmesan, pine nuts and garlic on anything it would taste great.

How much are 16 caterpillars worth?

Today's garden yield included 2 cherry tomatoes, over 6 pounds of Manderin oranges and 16 juicy caterpillars.  Since early November when I did a big seed catalog order, I've been keeping track of my garden expenses and yields.  My little spreadsheet includes expenses of seeds, plants, pots and stakes totally $73.49.  I didn't include wages for our work or expenses of watering because they were too hard to quantify and, hey, its a labor of love.  My yields record all the garden produce I've harvested since November 1: chard, lettuce, eggplants, tomatoes, herbs, lemons, oranges, lima beans, black-eyed peas, pomegranates, radishes, potatoes, and butternut squash.  Assigning values to each produce item, trying to be comparable to organic produce at the store, my yield so far is about $156.  But today's yield included 16 little green caterpillars eating my turnip greens.  How much are they worth?  How will I fit them into the equation?

I plucked them off.  They are now residing in a jar with greens from turnips and from a nearby radish, which wasn't infested with the caterpillars.  I'm setting it up as a preschool science experiment.  Do you think the caterpillars will selectively eat the turnip greens in the jar?  Or had they just not noticed my lovely radishes?  Oh!  Gotta add the radish and baby turnip to the yield totals!

Ok, my science mind is starved by motherhood.  I got out some old equations to work on the caterpillar density.  I know that 16 caterpillars might not sound that remarkable to you, but they were found in my little container garden.  One pot of lonely turnips, the pot being about 12 inches in diameter.  Feel free to check my math...  That is a radius of 6 inches.  The surface area of the pot is pi*r*r = 113.1 square inches.  That's 0.15 caterpillars per square inch, or 20.4 caterpillars per square foot.  Gosh, if I had an acre of turnips, they'd have 887,397 caterpillars on them!  That feels like a caterpillar plague of Biblical proportions in my little pot!

Wonderful worm castings!

It has been a while since I've tended to our worm bin in a substantial way.  We just keep them in a plastic tote in the garage.  A month or so ago I'd moved all the contents over to one side of the bin and started adding the new bedding and new kitchen scraps on the other side.  This gives the worms a chance to migrate out of the older bedding and scraps and into the new, easing but not eliminating the sorting of worms.  Today was harvest day from the old side.  In addition to finding a happy, healthy worm population with plenty of egg sacks, I harvested about 2 gallons (I'm estimating from my 5 gallon bucket) of fresh worm castings.  These went directly onto our sugar snap peas that are happily blooming.  Nothing like digging around in worm poop to really make your day.  Elizabeth, you said that it is pretty sad when good limas make your day.  Is worm poop sadder?  But it was really rich worm poop!  I'm linking an image from RedWormComposting.com so you can  see what I mean about the egg sacks.