Does anyone read food labels?

When trying to eliminate sugar completely, it may come as a complete shock when you discover that the foods you substituted are also polluted. 

Take mayo for instance...three brands I loved because they are made with avocado oil have distilled vinegar. Have you read the ingredients? Distilled vinegar is made from corn. 90% of the corn produced is genetically modified. Most won't tell you the ingredients but here is a great article that explains.

https://theorganicdietitian.com/ingredient-spotlight-vinegar/#:~:text=White%20Distilled%20Vinegar%20is%20often,fermented%20into%20white%20distilled%20vinegar.

What else did I learn? 

Vegetable oil, all of them are made from soybean oil. Crisco is too. This is awful. Although I mainly use olive oil, many products I used have vegetable oil in their ingredients. My food choices are slowly  being eliminated. 

Salt is another ingredient that I am replacing. Table salt is bad for me. Table salt is processed and the minerals have been removed. In it's place I am substituting Celtic Sea Salt. I don't cook with salt and I don't sprinkle  it on my foods but some Paleo recipes won't work without it. 

I am back on Paleo. No more donuts at Tuesday morning Bible study. No more eating out. No more potlucks. It's time to work on making the rest of my life the best it can be. I am 73 years old but I don't have to deal with issues caused by my food choices. Sugar is hurting me and I don't have to let it control my life anymore.

Today I am making my own mayo. I am making my own ketchup. I am making my own products because I can control what I eat. 

New obsession in the midst of tidying and moving

Hand lettering, who knew?

Sometimes you find something that reaches out and grabs your heart. I found wooden plaques with a song from a hymnal glued to it and then a phrase from the hymn written across it. Simply beautiful! However, they are not in my budget.

Although we are still in the tidying, packing stage, I know in the new house I want these above the piano. I have wood and I have several hymnals but couldn't quite figure out how to write on the song's page. I tried using Word and Corel but they were unsatisfactory. Certainly not the look I wanted. Then I found hand lettering.

I will be the first to admit that this is only my 2nd day of playing with this. However, instead of trying to find a font to copy, I think my handwriting is good enough to use. I actually like the look even if it's a little rough. By the time we get moved and I can actually make these for myself, I should be a whole lot better. Still, I am happy to have found this technique. Plug here for Pinterest, what would I do without it? 

The life-changing magic or tidying up - Shoes

I recently was in a photo for a cousin reunion in Texas. I was the only one not wearing shoes. The reason: I spent 14 days in the car, trying to decide where to live. Traveling around to all the small cities in Texas is really bad if you are older and your feet swell. Still, I don't wear shoes at home if I don't have to. I blame my Texan mother who didn't like shoes either. So when I got to the category of shoes, I knew what would happen.

We pulled all the shoes from under the bed. We pulled them from the closet. I gathered them from the office. Basically, I only like three pairs of my shoes and one pair of slippers. Therefore, two full garbage bags are leaving the house today. I did find some slippers I like when it's cold but they were dusty and grungy so have now made their way to the washing machine. If they survive, I will keep them. If not, they will find their way to the trash too.

Since we are planning to move, my clothes and shoes are now manageable. My clothes take up 1/3 of the closet and the shoe rack looks naked. I still have one empty drawer in my dresser. It going to be really easy to pack.

Where do I go from here...Books

Continuing on with Konmari and Paleo

Seven trash bags of clothing donated to our favorite thrift store. Ended with one bag of socks which are folded and put away. Amazing how much I don't miss the clothes that are gone except for one dress. I should have kept it (although I don't like it) because I had to go to a funeral. Instead I wore the one pair of dress pants I kept and a nice top. Still, the pants are too big (Paleo, 40 pounds down) so I may throw them away and go get something to fit.

We will be making a trip to Texas in a week or so to decide where we want to live. This is going to be fun and we are looking forward to this new adventure. I look at my closet and my dresser and realize I don't have that many clothes to pack. I have one empty drawer. I use a quarter of what I had in the closet. I don't have to search for anything because it is all in its own place. Feels good!

When we get back, I will start on the books. We are a book family. My mother was a librarian and I have all the books she had plus my own. Some of them are very old and first additions or signed, so I am going to see if they can be sold. Some have no value at all and some are important to me. I almost think that sorting pictures will be easier than books. Again, my mother did the genealogy so I have tons of old family pictures. When I can pull up pictures of my great grandmother, you know how many pictures I have. The old photos will not be thrown away. Although they are scanned, I worry about losing the photos on my computer. I also have them backed up but that doesn't stop the worry. Older photos that are scanned do not pixel out so they are clearer than the digital photos of today.

My great grandmother, Martha Jane McColloam. Photo taken in 1918 in Tennessee. Very clean and clear picture. I guess each of us has something that is important to us. I'm quite sure that my photo collection will not be important to anyone else so they can throw them away when I'm gone. 😊

Changing this up a bit - Paleo Diet and the KonMari tidying method

I have let all my blogs lapse. Don't know why, maybe life got in the way but I am doing some new things that I want to write about. 

Started Paleo in May. It's July, I am down 30 pounds. Unfortunately, the inherited gout gene kicked in so I have also been fighting with it since May. More about that later. In the meantime, we are moving. 

Why in the world would we, who are not youngsters, pack up and move to another state? Without political bias, I will simply say that California is not my home anymore. Still, we are excited because we will be able to buy the house of our dreams in Texas on a lake with waterfront property. Or, we can choose several acres of forest. Either way, since we are older, it seems like a way to live out the rest of our lives in a place of our choosing. I did find a colonial mansion that I really like because it is beautiful but it might be a bit too big for us. The possibilities are endless. We have not decided where we want to go yet so we are making a trip to Texas to scope out the areas. 

The problem seems to be the amount of stuff we have accumulated in the last 30 some years. It seems overwhelming. Then I found this little book called, the life-changing magic of tidying up, by Marie Kondo. It's the KonMari method of conquering clutter. Like every has said about it, it is a bit different in thinking that the Western way but I am quite captivated by it. 

I read the book from cover to cover to understand the concept and started yesterday. . Fairly simple and straight forward. If it doesn't give you joy, you don't keep it. She says to start with clothes. They are the easiest thing to work with. We have over 1000 books so that is going to be more difficult. 

My drawers are empty. My closet is almost empty and I have already sorted and saved the tops I want to keep. The discarded tops took up 2 garbage bags. They will be donated. I haven't done anything with the clothes in the hamper but that can be done later. The KonMari method also suggest a way to fold all the clothes. Just an FYI, it you are a plus size (hence the Paleo Diet), tops won't fold small enough to fit in the drawers. While I could fold some of the the ones with thinner fabrics, I hung them all so they are in one place and color coordinated. Can't wait to get to the socks. I have two large bags full of mismatched socks. Bet I can get them down to a usable amount. Pretty excited about getting them folded and put away. Kinda interesting that I am excited about socks.  

This method of removing cluttering serves several purposes. We are listing our home in March of 2019. We need it to show as well as it can. I don't want to move with boxes and boxes of stuff we don't need or can't use. Once we get a handle on the stuff, we can clear our minds of that worry and deal with all the other things we need to do for a successful move.  

X is for Xray

Ok, this is really a stretch but what can you do with an Xray. Fortunately, we have a couple that lend themselves to a crafty use.

On May 1, 2014, my child broke his leg warming up for a league game. It was a long recovery as he was sidelined for about 5 months. Some physical therapy was required but he was back playing in October.

Back on the mound, pitching. 

We laugh at some idioms but in this case the phrase "tough break" comes to mind. For him, it is a play on words but we now use it when he complains about something. It really means that it is a bit of bad luck. 

I have the Xrays from the first set the doctor took after it was set. They decided not to do surgery to see if the chip would mold itself back to the bone. 

So, next Christmas, the boy will be getting a piece of new wall art. Since this is make ahead, I can't show it on the wall but can share the picture. He never reads my stuff so I know it's safe to post. This will be a subtle (or maybe not so subtle) reminder to play it safe and not complain about the small stuff. 

S is for Shrinky Dinks

I needed two gifts for Christmas in a hurry and I was looking for ideas. While I was rumaging through my craft stash, I found the Shrinky Dink paper that I had put away. Terrific idea I thought. So I found letters online and cut them out. I colored pretty flowers on the corners and took them into the kitchen. I pulled out the toaster over and turned it on. After it had warmed up, I put my pretty letters in and watched as they curled into tiny balls that would not straighten out.

Rats! I was running out of time. I decided that I would do 3x5 rectangles to see how they would do. I found two saying for the teen girls and copied them onto the paper. Rushing back to the kitchen, I preheated the toaster oven again and started the process. This was a little better. One did not quite straighten out but it was good enough for a gift. The other one was a lot better.

I had punched holes in them and was pleased the key rings actually fit. The girls loved them.

This is not the first time I have written about this craft. I have a Shrinky Dink page where there is a lot more information. I also found out how to use materials in your home to make your own shrinky paper. What a surprise, I found it on Pinterest.