The Sandcastle

I’ve just been reminded that I have not shared this recipe I invented with you all. We like these so well we make them every week. I’m hoping you like them, too.

Meatloaf Burgers

1 pound ground beef

1 egg

1 can water chestnuts, finely diced

Minced dried onion, to taste

Salt & pepper, to taste

Mix all ingredients together and shape into four patties. Cook as you would any hamburgers. We make ours on the griddle on the stove.

These meet both Paleo and Weight Watchers guidelines. Because they have no grains in them I think they might also be good for those with celiac disease as well.

TTYL,

Linda

 

I woke early (for me) this morning. I don’t know if that was excitement or worry over starting this new program or something else altogether but I was up about 9:30.

I actually remembered to do my morning exercises! These are mostly stretching to regain some mobility and strengthening because I want to be able to lift heavy things when Dave isn’t there to do my lifting for me.

Breakfast was a mushroom scramble. Basically a handful of mushrooms sautéed in ghee (butter that has had the milk solids removed) then a couple eggs seasoned with salt, pepper, and onion powder stirred into the pan.

My morning computer time included receiving a Whole 30 newsletter inviting me to join a forum of people supporting one another through this process. I lost a bunch of time to reading everyone’s introductions and adding mine. I am the “old lady” of the group since most of them appear to be in their 30s.

About noon my stomach announced that my breakfast was not enough food. I ate a half dozen olives and it became content again.

In this afternoon’s package deliveries was our newest toy.

A portable pull up bar. Height adjustable so Dave and I can both use it. Well, we can sort of use it. Right now neither of us can actually do a full pull up. But, I have instructions on how to exercise on it so as to build up to doing a real pull up. Maybe even more than one. For now, all I can do is called a dead hang. Yup, it’s just what it sounds like. I just grab the bar, using the correct form, and hang there. I can actually feel my arms straightening and later felt my back muscles wondering on earth I did to them today.

Lunch, which was very late afternoon was a meatloaf burger (made with water chestnuts instead of bread), roasted squash, and tossed salad with homemade dressing. Oh! I haven’t told you about the dressing!

I made homemade mayonnaise. And it worked the first try! Not everyone who has tried this recipe was so successful so I am thrilled! Then I added other ingredients to some of that mayonnaise to make Whole 30 approved Creamy Italian dressing for Dave and Ranch dressing for me. I still can’t believe I made non-dairy Ranch dressing since normally it’s primary ingredient is buttermilk. But it was very tasty so is likely to become a staple in my new food repetoire.

For supper I planned to stir some tuna and chopped tomatoes into some of that creamy mayonnaise and eat that with a banana. I did the first part of that, somewhat modified though. See, I had just been reading a couple of blogs about pizza which started a craving. So, I stirred some oregano and onion powder into my tuna/tomato dish which satisfied that craving just fine. But, it filled me so full I didn’t eat the banana.

So day one of my Whole 30 is going amazingly well. I even have approved snack foods ready in case I get hand-to-mouth disease later this evening. If it all goes as well as it is so far this will be a piece of cake. So to speak. 🙂

TTYL,

Linda

You may remember when I did the book review for It Starts With Food I said I need to do another Whole 30. That’s where you eat only approved foods for 30 days so your body resets all its wrong messages.

That sounds restrictive, I know, but a blogger who eats this way made a list the other day of the foods she can eat–she got 319. Then her commenters added to that list. It’s really not as restrictive as it sounds. You mostly just don’t eat grains or beans or dairy. That leaves a lot of meats/fish/poultry/eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts & seeds, and fats you do eat. Just think how many meals you could make from a list of 319 foods without ever repeating anything. Then add spices to that list and you get an infinite variety of meals.

There’s a large group of people who are going to do this in August so as to support one another. So, I’ve decided to join that group and Dave is, more or less, going along for the ride. That means he’s agreed to only eat right food at home and to dispose of any wrappers from the car before coming in. 🙂

Doing a Whole 30 starts with you cleaning out your refrigerator and cupboards of all the not-quite-OK foods. So here’s the food we need to eat before July ends tomorrow.

Not too bad really. But, I sure was surprised to learn my cans of tuna and tomatoes had not acceptable ingredients in them. The snacks and potatoes are not allowed for the next 30 days. The potatoes will probably come back then but I’m hoping the snacks won’t.

So here’s our pantry after the clean out. Still plenty of good food to eat.

Our refrigerator door did not fair as well. Here’s the not OK foods.

Lots of dressings and toppings that have the wrong types of oils in them.

That left only this.

So we went grocery shopping at our nearest co-op store today and stocked up on fruits and vegetables and some new brands and types of ingredients. I forgot to take a picture of our purchases before we put them away. But we are now ready to eat a lot more healthful food for the next week or so.

Which is just the beginning of our 30 day reset. I’ll let you know how it goes.

TTYL,

Linda

Since I will be traveling solo in the winters I need something to tell me where to go. To do that I bought a Garmin dezl 560 LMT GPS after having read rave reviews about it. Here’s another one.

We had the perfect conditions to test my new GPS friday evening: a drive we do monthly to a friend’s house about an hour from home with a combination of city, freeway, and rural driving.

As we left home the first direction was to turn left at the end of our street to take a valid route but not Dave’s favorite route. So Dave turned right instead. The GPS quickly recalculated without nagging us.

We expected it to then route us onto another freeway that we prefer to cross to get to the next crosstown freeway. We were pleasantly surprised that, this time, it chose to keep going where we wanted to go making us feel validated in our choice of route.

Our next test was of the “lane assist” feature. At one point in our trip we knew our next exit would be a left exit instead of the typical right ramp. Sure enough, the display came up with several arrows showing how many lanes there are with all but the one would need dimmed. Under that was a red icon indicating we were not in the lane we would need. When we moved over, that icon turned green. Yay! Also, the screen split to a half screen closeup clearly showing our route taking the far left lane; the other half of the screen kept a reduced version of the main map.

Many miles later, it routed us off a freeway to an alternate route. Surprised by that, we checked the traffic on that freeway on Google maps and discovered it was marked red meaning it was very slow. My GPS was routing us around that traffic jam!

Another feature is a speed indicator. In the lower right corner of the display you see a speed limit sign telling you what the limit is on this road. Right next to it is a display of your current speed. If the latter one shows you are going faster than the former says, it also turns red. Kind of hard to tell the officer you didn’t realize you were speeding with that data right in front of your face. 🙂

One of the things it did not get right was the Estimated Time of Arrival. It kept changing as we moved along finally telling us we would be late to our destination. Maybe because of trying to keep that speed thing out of the red. 🙂 But, mostly because we were in summer Friday night heading-out-of-town traffic so had some slowdowns we couldn’t avoid.

Later that evening, we headed home again knowing that the “best” route had a section of freeway closed for construction. Imagine how happy we were to learn the GPS took that into consideration and gave us an alternate route. It KNEW that road was closed!

Another feature I am going to like: the ability to define your vehicle. This GPS is designed for truckers and RVers. You can tell it the height and weight of your vehicle and it will route you around low clearances and light-duty bridges.

And it includes information about truck stops along the freeways including what types of restaurants they have. That could help me eat healthier as I travel. It may not but, if not, that’s not the fault of the GPS. 🙂

And I get lifetime map updates so my data will be current each year as I head out.

I am now much more confident of my ability to drive alone through the strange cities I will need to navigate in my winter travels. That, to me, made it worth the extra expense of buying this particular GPS.

Plus this one included the “bean bag” mount you see in the picture above. That means it is easy to place it on the dash when traveling but remove all evidence of it being there when parked in an area where someone might be tempted by evidence that there are electronics on board to break into my home. The ability to move it easily adds to my sense of safety. Not a bad thing to feel as a solo female traveler.

TTYL,

Linda

 

Preparing to move into a very small RV leads to doing some very odd things.

For quite some time now I’ve been making mental lists of what I should put in that very small space between my bathroom and the back door of the van. The space is five inches deep by two feet wide. So, today I placed a foot stool 5″ from the wall in the corner of our living room and started stuffing things into the space. Here’s the result:

From left to right: the blue bag in the corner is the sun umbrella that attaches to my bag chair to keep me from from burning–which I do VERY easily. The grey bag is my new folding table. The tall gadget is my Swiffer handle to which I attach dry or wet cloths depending on whether I am dusting or mopping. The green bag is Dave’s bag chair which I will need for visitors. The white contraption is the rest of the umbrella set which I didn’t know wasn’t in the bag until Dave told me when I thought I was done. The very short black bag is a 3-corner stool I use as a foot stool when traveling–I need to put my feet up regularly and this is my outdoor solution to that challenge. And the far right thing is my vacuum cleaner that converts from a floor model to a handheld so I can vacuum anything that needs it.

Did you notice I didn’t get MY bag chair in there? It doesn’t fold down enough to fit it into a five inch space. That means it is going to have to go in a different corner. One by the front wheel of my TravelScoot. It should fit just fine there.

Now I just have to figure out a system for tie downs that keeps all this from rattling around while driving.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. I’ve been taking a vacation from counting Weight Watchers points. I am within a pound of where I was when I stopped doing that a few weeks ago. So, I can maintain but not lose without the tracking. Helpful to know.