Trying To Make It All Work

Well today is off to another slow start, which really bugs me, because I was doing so well or at least I thought I was. I'm going to try to get back on track, but it may be a slow process, hopefully not too slow.

Yesterday started out pretty much the same. I had a fruit & yogurt cereal bowl with vanilla yogurt, cheerios, Special K cinnamon pecan flakes, a nectarine cut into chunks and pecans. It was yummy.

 

You can't see the yogurt, but it's under there somewhere. Oh yeah... and there's a little ground flax under there too.

 

My lunch photo reminds me of fish for some reason. I think because of the bread crumbs. It's not fish though, it's vegetable lasagna(Stouffer's)  with a big salad on the side.

 

My salad was a mixture of spinach and leftover salad from Sunday. I also added some tomato and onion. Sunday's salad was spring mix with shredded Parmesan and great big croûtons. I topped it all with some Zesty Italian dressing.

Super lunch!

 

My dessert/afternoon snack was leftover cherry cobbler topped with a little vanilla yogurt. The yogurt went really well with it and was a great sub for ice cream or whipped topping.

 

We had our Zumba class on Monday this week. We've had our class days swapped around a lot lately, due to schedule work arounds, but I'm just glad we've been able to have them instead of cancellations. This week we were only able to have class one day, so, I'm hoping to make up for it with some walking this week. Lately that hasn't been working out either. We'll see how it goes. I could really feel it in my legs last night. I suppose because we haven't gotten to walk any in the last week.

Since my eating schedule has also changed. I've been eating dinner before Zumba and having a snack afterwards. Yesterday's dinner was leftover chili beans with cheese and a big slice of cornbread. I didn't eat until about an hour before Zumba. I was worried that it was a bad idea, afraid I'd be eating chili while I exercised, but that wasn't the case thankfully.

 

I did eat a slightly smaller amount of chili.

 

This was my after Zumba snack, a Millville GetBalance Chewy Granola Bar and some dry roasted almonds.

 

A great snack and just what I needed.

I was late getting my photos uploaded last night. Lindsay went to Zumba last night and the girls stayed with Dale & Lucas while we went, of course Mimi has to play with Lexi a little after Zumba. We wrote the alphabet, did a little yoga, & lifted weights among other things. You can understand my reason for being tired last night. After everyone left, did I get right to business? Of course not. As usually I had to fiddle around like I had nothing to do, which made for a late night. Procrastination is my biggest downfall and while I have made improvement, it continues to plague me.

Do you fill the need to squeeze too many things into a short amount of time and yet take your time doing them? That's me!

Happy Tuesday!!

An Impromptu Dinner

Yesterday started off with a mostly strawberry smoothie. I say mostly because I threw in 3 pieces of leftover pineapple. Waste not, want not. Fruit in a glass with yogurt and milk, it's gonna be good.

 

 

We got up with no particular plans for the day. Everyone has been taking a break from Sunday dinners, but I guess everyone was missing it, because we all wound up back at Mom's for, as Mom put it, "an impromptu" dinner. You can't tell it, by looking at the photos, I don't think.

There was meatloaf....

 

fried chicken...

 

crockpot chicken in barbecue sauce...

 

Mac & Cheese and vegetable lasagna(Stouffer's)...

green beans...

 

potato wedges...

 

broccoli....

 

corn....

 

salad, two actually, one didn't make the photo shoot....

 

diced tomatoes for the salad...

and rolls.

 

I loaded up my plate with vegetable lasagna, green beans, a roll, & salad w/ tomatoes, plus some fresh broccoli and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Yum!

 

There was more apple cake for dessert.

 

I also threw together a quick cherry cobbler.

 

My favorite quick and easy cobbler recipe. We use to make this almost every time we went camping. It's one you won't need a recipe card for. It's pretty easy to remember with just a few ingredients. Most people already have the ingredients in their kitchen. Just grab your favorite fruit and an hour later you'll have dessert. What's your favorite quick & easy recipe?

I like the corners.

 

Dinner #2 was made from salad #2. I added some broccoli, tomato, and onion.

 

I topped it with Caesar dressing. Love that there's big croûtons in this one too.

We had a good day, visiting with everyone and playing with the grand babies. I was up late and got a late start this morning. I moved the email subscribers delivery time up so, that even when I'm late getting the day's post out, it still arrives the same day. I'm planning to get that straightened out and get back on schedule. Everything has been a little out of whack lately. Do you ever get off schedule? Do you have one? What's the main thing that throws you off? I'm still waiting for some comments. My what bashful bunch out there. Let me know what you're looking for. Happy Monday!!

Fruit Cobbler Recipe

 This is a quick and easy cobbler recipe. One I have used for years. I've made a variety of fruit cobblers with this recipe. My latest version was made with canned pie filling instead of the fresh fruit and sugar mixture called for in the recipe. I've also used canned fruit without sugar. It's a wonderfully cake-y cobbler, great on it's own or with cool whip or ice cream.

Ingredients

1 quart fresh fruit (apples, etc., sliced, berries whole)
2/3 C. Sugar
6 Tbsp. Butter
3/4 C. Self-Rising Flour
3/4 C. Sugar
3/4 C. Milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the 2/3 C. sugar & berries together.
Put butter in deep baking dish (approx. 8 inches square).
Place in oven until butter is melted.
Make batter of flour, sugar, & milk.
Pour over melted butter, but do not stir.
Pour the fruit over the batter and bake approximately one hour.
Batter will rise to the top and become brown and crisp when done.

No Dessert For Me

Up early this morning at 6am. I laid down for a nap yesterday evening after I got home and didn't wake up until 10pm. I wasn't really ready to get up then either. At first I thought it was 6am because without glasses, that's what time it looked like on my clock. Then I realized it was just 10pm. I brushed my teeth and went back to bed. 

I got up this morning at 6am. It really was 6am this time. I didn't want to get up then either, but knew I hadn't uploaded photos or anything yet, so I got up. I'm not sure what my problem is, but I didn't feel to great yesterday afternoon.

 I felt pretty good yesterday morning. I had a big bowl of yogurt, fruit, and cereal.  I put some vanilla yogurt in a bowl, topped it with cheerios, ground flax, strawberries, blueberries, and pecans.

Now this is how you eat cereal! 

I was starved when I got to Mom's. I had a little potato casserole while everything finished cooking.

I also had a slice of a black Russian tomato. Sometimes these look like they are rotten, this slice didn't, but they are very good. I love a tomato with a meaty middle. I added a little salt & pepper, which made it perfect.

 

I could have eaten more, but I didn't want to fill up before everything else was done.

On the menu was barbecued chicken for the those who eat meat.

...as well as grilled chicken, cube steak......

 

 ...and chili beans.

 

There was cornbread...

 

potato casserole...

 

macaroni salad...

 

stir fry veggies...

 

asparagus....

 

and salad. There were salad veggies cut up on the side, but I didn't get a shot of them except for the tomato, lol.

 

This is my plate. By the time I got around to eating, I wasn't feeling too good. I had a little more potato casserole, asparagus, stir fried veggies, cornbread and a boca burger. I ate most of it, but nothing agreed with me for some reason.

 

We had blueberry cornmeal cobbler, which I made.

Lynda made chocolate tres leche and no bake oatmeal cookies, which I didn't get a shot of.

I had one bite of cobbler, one bite of the chocolate tres leche and that was it. I didn't want anything else to eat, so I skipped dessert and since Lucas had to work 3rd shift and hadn't had but a couple of hours of sleep, we went home so that he could catch a nap before work. I also felt super sleepy when I got home. I laid down to take a nap and that was all she wrote. Now it's time to finish this up. If the recipe for the cobbler doesn't make it to my email subscribers, they can check out the recipe page. Have a great day! Thanks for checkin' out the blog. Don't forget to leave a comment.

Peaches And Cream

Well this morning is a little different. While I'm doing this, Dale and Lucas are sitting here watching Pawn Stars, very distracting. I've set a timer to see if I can get this posted on time. I've been slacking a little lately. I was also still a little late getting to bed, but I did sleep pretty good, just not long enough.

Yesterday I slept too late, I would have like to have said, too long, but that's not something I can say very often. After I published yesterday's post (late, sorry), I made breakfast, as usual lately, it was a smoothie. Yesterday's smoothie was a strawberry banana smoothie. The peaches and cream comes later in the day, so keep going.

 

I may get over this smoothie kick I'm on eventually, but for now, I still think there's nothing like a cold, sweet, creamy smoothie, first thing in the morning.

 

Here are a few more shots of our new friend. I call him "smokey Joe" or kitty. I think he prefers smokey, kitty sounds too feminine. He is very male, thankfully, with his scratchy meow and friendly hiss. 

He's taken up residence on my front porch since he's gotten to know us and demands attention of anyone who steps out the front door, as he circles your feet with a continuous meow, hiss, until you pet or feed him, and to think when he first arrived, we only caught an occasion glimpse of him slipping through the weeds. He didn't know what "here kitty, kitty" was and would not come anywhere near anyone. I think he's decided that not all people are bad after all.

We went to Mom's yesterday, so Dale can fix the step from her garage into the house. There is just one low step going in which means you have to sort of pull yourself up into the house, difficult for anyone, but even more so, as you get older and have bad knees. The quick remedy was a hand rail, but even with the rail it's still a task.

We also came for the cobbler, peach cobbler.

Dale was the first to dig in. I decided to wait until we'd eaten lunch.

 

Before lunch though, we had to make a trip to Lowe's for bricks, etc. to fix the step. We also made a trip to Walmart. We also stopped for a Peppermint Mocha Frappuccino, which I forgot to get a shot of. When we got back we all fixed a bite. I had a MSF garden burger on two pieces of everything bread.

 

Of course that's not all, I topped it with spinach, tomato & mayo with chips & red pepper hummus on the side.

 

It was very good. I hadn't had a garden burger in quite a while and I was super hungry.

I made the mistake of eating too much (dadgummit) and had to wait until later for my share of the cobbler.

 

We had to leave and bring Lucas home, since he's been working 3rd shift and hadn't slept yet. I snagged some of the cobbler to take home for later. Ooops, my alarm just went off, so I have to hurry and wrap this up, sorry.

My cobbler wound up being dinner, since lunch was late and I'd eaten way too much. I had peaches and cream, ice cream that is. I heated the cobbler and topped it with two scoops of vanilla.

The ice cream melted as I took the pictures.

I was yummy, especially with the ice cream, of course Breyer's would have been better. I'll know better next time.

That's it. The End! I'm clicking the publish button on time and this baby is outa here. Until tomorrow, enjoy your day!