Blissful weekend
What a great, relaxing weekend this has been and just what I needed. Yesterday, we puttered around the house, I got myself up to the gym and had a good hard workout and then we took the dog out for a snowshoe. The snow is rotting out now and the conditions were not that great but it was a gorgeous sunny day and we made the best of it. Checked out "The Daily Plate", thanks to my compatriots here. Looks like a great site--I have been using Fitday.com but I think that TDP has more features so I am going to see if I can make the transition. The only hesitation I have is that I know Fitday so well AND I have added so many custom foods there so it is quick and easy for me to use.
I also found some menu/recipe/nutritional analysis software to replace what I used to use on my old PC. I recently got a new iMac (and wow, it is GREAT) but the Mastercook software I used to use intermittently is only PC based. I found something called Shop 'n Cook and it looks way better. I am trying a 45 day free trial and just going through the orientation instructions. Sheesh, entering a recipe is way faster and easier than it was on Mastercook and it just loads up the nutritional analysis as easy as as can be. This is going to make it a lot easier for me to keep track of my calories as I tend to be a bit of a freehand cook, making up things as I go along.
The other great thing about this software is that I can download recipes off the internet and plan menus by dragging and dropping recipes onto the calendar. I'm hoping this will make it easier to plan ahead as well.
I've also been importing tons of CDs into my iTunes as well as some recorded books. I've been listening to music so much more than I have for years now and it's so invigorating.
Last night I went out to the hot tub and sat there in the silence with all the stars overhead, thinking about Maxfield Parrish's painting called "Stars" (if I was clever, I would know how to post a thumbnail of it) which has always been one of my favourites, portraying a nude woman sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, leaning back and looking up at an indigo blue sky full of stars. Nobody paints blues like Maxfield Parrish. I was also thinking about Van Gogh's "Starry Night", another favourite of mine, and kind of singing Don McLean's "Starry, Starry Night", about Van Gogh. It's sort of sad but so pretty.
And today the sun is out in full force again and I am listening to CBC, "The Vinyl Cafe", which is a hilarious and often touching radio program (kind of like Prairie Home Companion by Garrison Keillor) and it's so bright in the kitchen, I almost need sunglasses. There was a great story that a woman sent in, about how her husband planned a birthday party for her fortieth birthday party. Her friends talked the husband into hiring a male stripper but they all headed home early so when the stripper showed up, there was only the woman and her husband to watch his excellent and enthusiastic performance 
. When he peeled off the last layer, he flung his black silk g-string into the air and they landed on her husband's cigarette. She wrote, "The evening ended as so many evenings end in real life (
), with a scantily clad stripper eating a hearty plate of party leftovers, discussing home renovations with my husband, as I stitched up the hole in his black silk g-string.".......LOL!
As for that exemplary man that I share my life with, he's already got a pork loin roast rubbed up with spices, resting until it's time to cook it, and a mop ready to slop onto it as HE, yes, HE cooks it. I'm going to peruse a couple of cookbooks to see if I can find a couple of nice side dishes. I make a point of hugging him every time I pass him, burying my nose in his neck, breathing in that smell that means so many good things to me. Wow, the sense of smell is a wonderful thing, isn't it? I am really looking forward to the smells of spring when the earth breaks out of it's white shell and barrels full blast into it's juiciest, most exuberant season.
Well, I better get myself out the door and up to the gym again before it gets too late in the day. Feeling so much recharged and ready to get back to my program. I've been holding around 157, up a half pound, down a half pound, up, down--I'm ready to see a lower number on the scale now!
Maybe I can talk my hubby into getting a hot tub...strickly for therapeutic reasons of course.
