A couple of finds in the culinary world...

1. Stuffed Acorn Squash: all you do is cut the squash in half scoop out the seeds and bake it, then you fill it with spaghetti sauce and top that with your italian cheese of choice and return to oven for a bit. This is such a tasty little dish and is wonderful in the fall. mmm mmm good.
Addendum: though I put this in the comments, I feel I should add it here. The spaghetti sauce should be fairly chunky. I have put Italian sausage and chunky tomatoes, and zucchini in it. You can also "stuff" the squash with chili or beef and rice. All are very tasty.

2. There is a website many dieters and weight watchers know about called hungrygirl.com. She has several recipes which she has modified to be a little more dieter friendly. My most recent favorite from this site is a bowl of oatmeal that is quite delish. Here's that recipe:

1 packet Quaker Instant Oatmeal, Regular flavor (I've also used 1/3 c. regular oats)
1/4 c. Fiber One bran cereal (original)
1/4 c. light vanilla soymilk
2 tbsp. pumpkin (or more...)
2 tbsp fat free Reddi-whip
1 tbsp. sugar free maple syrup
1/4 tsp (or more) pupmin pie spice
5 sprays I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray
1 no calorie sweetener packet (I often leave this out)
dash of salt

Place all ingredients except Reddi-whip in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 45 seconds, stir, and then continue to cook in the microwave for 30-40 seconds. Once oatmeal has thickened, remove bowl from microwave. Add reddi-whip and stir well.

Nutrient facts: 179 calories, 3.5 g fat, 11g fiber, 7g protein and only 3 points (for the weight watcher folks).

It's quite a tasty and filling treat.

potty training = blech. i'm going on sabbatical.

yesterday h. had a runny nose which he wiped with his arm. i said, "h. do you need me to wipe your nose?"
he replied,"no. i use my arm."

well alright. as long as we're clear on that.

HATE ME IF YOU MUST...
but i hate, hate, hate the trend of putting 4" flowers on baby girls' heads. it just looks ridiculous. i came across a picture of a baby girl face down with a gargantuan flower on her head. the caption read "summer didn't feel well" i didn't buy it. i just think she couldn't hold her head up any more. i really don't feel too bad posting this because i know that the mothers who put these things on their daughters' heads probably think that my "gluing" little bows to Scout's head looks pretty lame,too. so i suppose we'll each enjoy our own form of silly accessorizing.

HOW'S IT GOING?
the great junk out of 2009 is going quite well. truthfully, it's not super hard to decline the foods i've sworn off of, BUT i do find myself thinking of the yummy-ness i'll be partaking of come labor day. won't lie, pretty excited for a little chocolate/pb combination. mmm mmm good.

STARTING AGAIN.
after a failed attempt and then an illness (first H and then myself) we'll be taking up the potty-training torch again next week. if you have ANY tips on this subject, feel free to post them. i feel like i'm entering a world of madness and am a wee bit afraid we'll have a repeat situation of "i'll do it when i want to..." this is Hayden after all. the kid who couldn't have cared less that he didn't motate until twelve months and didn't walk until 19. sure he knows his alphabet and the sounds each letter makes, but will he see fit to potty in the potty? who knows. all prayers and offerings will be accepted.

Little S.
she's become a roller. she rolls all over the place and pretty much refuses to stay on her back which makes diaper changing a bit of a challenge. she thinks her big bro is just about the coolest person in the world and absolutely lights up when he walks in. still chatting. still smiling. still sleeps and eats well. gotta love that in a kid.

Here We Go Again.
it's hunting season. again. enough said.

oh man...
let me start off telling you that i currently have an insanely stuffy nose. with that said, i'll continue.
ran some errands today. first stop: kid to kid. while there H. was talking to me then got a look on his face and ran behind a rack. i caught a brief whiff of something and asked him if he'd gone potty. he said no. fair enough. i didn't investigate further because he has never hidden before to do his business. i put him in the little play corral so i can look around. i purchase a few items then retrieve my son. i smell nothing. i think nothing. head over to the smith's to pick up a prescription. wander around for a bit. all the while H. is becoming increasingly whiny. still, i smell nothing. we get home and i start to get him lunch, but he acts like he just wants to sleep so i take him to his room and change his pants. lo and behold! an extremely messy and, i can only assume, smelly diaper. poor kid (and poor people in the stores!). he'd been walking around with this diaper for about an hour, all because of my defective smeller.

i hate summer colds!

Sometimes I need a kick in the pants...

on occasion i find myself in need of a little extra push to get things movin' along. my baby fat weight loss has not been going as quickly as i would like and i blame the fact that i love, and tend to overindulge in, junk food. with this in mind i wrote up a little contract between myself and B. here is what it said:

"Julia promises to not consume any of the following from August 1, 2009 to August 1, 2010. The only exceptions being the days listed.

Foods NOT to be partaken of:
Chocolate
Cakes
Cookies
Candy
Chips
Fries
White bread (rolls, quick breads, biscuits etc. to be included)
anything classified as "junk food"

Days this does not apply:
Labor Day
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Birthday
Christmas
Valentine's Day
Memorial Day
Fourth of July

If this is not followed Julia will owe Brent millions of dollars. MILLIONS!!!!"

then we both signed it (B. does want it to be known that i had the idea and wrote the contract--he's afraid people will think he makes me sign contracts about losing weight). i'm posting this here for two reasons. 1) the more people who know about this the more successful i will be and 2) i realized that i didn't put down what i would receive if i accomplished this and so i'm looking for ideas. what could/should i get if i do this? someone suggested a cruise. what do you think?

The BBC says that of the following 100 books most people have only read 6. My friend Jen has read 54 because she's cool like that. I've read 43 (the red ones). How many have you read?


1. Pride and Prejudice -Jane Austen
2. Lord of the Rings- JRR Tolkein
3. Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series-JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mocking Bird-Harper Lee
6. The Bible (I can't claim I've read all of it--but I've read part of it)
7. Wuthering Heights-Emily Bronte
8. 1984-George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials-Phillip Pullman
10. Great Expectations-Charles Dickens
11. Little Women-Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles-Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22-Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. The Hobbit- JRR Tolkein
16. Rebecca-Daphne Du Maurier
17. Birdsong-Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye- JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife- Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch-George Elliot
21. Gone With the Wind- Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House- Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace-Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited- Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28.Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland-Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows-Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina-Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield-Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia-CS Lewis
34. Emma-Jane Austen
35. Persuasion-Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe-CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner-Khaled Housseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin-Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha-Arthur Golden
40.Winnie the Pooh-AA Milne
41. Animal Farm-George Orwell
42. DaVinci Code-Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude-Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany-John Irving
45. The Woman in White-Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables-LM Montgomery
47. Far from the Madding Crowd-Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaids Tale-Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies-William Golding
50. Atonement-Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi-Yann Martel
52. Dune-Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm-Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility-Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy- Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind- Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities- Charles Dickens
58. A Brave New World-Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime-Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera-Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men- John Steinbeck
62. Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History- Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo-Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road-Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure- Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary- Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children- Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick-Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist-Charles Dickens
72. Dracula-Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden-Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes from a Small Island-Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses-James Joyce
76. The Inferno-Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons- Arthur Ransom
78. Germinal-Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair-William Thackeray
80. Possession-AS Bryant
81. A Christmas Carol- Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas- David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple-Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day- Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary- Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance- Robinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web-EB White
88. The Five People You Meet in Heaven- Mitch Albom
89. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection- Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness-Jospeh Conrad
92. The Little Prince- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory- Iain Bank
94. Watership Down- Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces- John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice-Neville Shute
97. The Three Musketeers- Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet-William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables-Victor Hugo