Saturday January 23, 2021

Another day in paradise! The weather was really fantastic yesterday - what one travels to Florida for. We spent the day on the beach at the beach club, but swam in the pool as the ocean was too cold.

Today we will go for a shorter time, then are going to an outside music venue. But first time to take a walk (Justice is anxious).

Have a safe and healthy Saturday!

Weight up a bit, 193.8, I didn't walk yesterday and overdid it on goldfish crackers. I actually fell asleep at 8 last night and woke up at 10 so confused about the time! I thought it should be 3am or something.

While being suspect of my iron levels, I started looking back through my MFP logs and realized I don't do a great job of meeting a lot of vitamins, minerals, iron, etc. through food. I take a multivitamin, but I'm not sure that's the best way to get those things. I'm going to try to pay closer attention to getting veggies and iron through food. This morning I made a green smoothie (half an apple, spinach, kale, celery, parsley, mint, lemon juice, cucumber). That's already more than half the iron I usually get in a day from food (of which I'm normally eating less than half of what I should be). And it tasted pretty good too without much sugar.

I'm not much of a red meat eater, but I also picked up some flank steak that's marinating for dinner.

It's cool and rainy here today. I do love cool and rainy! It ups my mood considerably. A beautiful sunny day does too, so maybe it's the novelty.

Thinking of everyone we haven't had updates from and hoping everything is okay...

Live music outdoors. Sounds so wonderful. I was so grateful for those opportunities this summer.

Cecily, your smoothie sounds wonderful. Was it from a meal service, or do you have all those ingredients on hand?

I went down the rabbit hole this morning with another teacher and a parent on my caseload. It involved me having to call both of them, and be an intermediary. It didn't have to get to this, but neither seemed to be able to get what the other was asking for, and not fancying a sit down with the department of education about why the IEP accommodations weren't being followed, I intervened. My own response was not too healthy either and it involved toast. My emotions are back in control, so onward.

We are transitioning our indoor decorations to Valentine's Day. The big tree has to be packed up, but we are putting heart ornaments on our small trees in my office and family room. My daughter bought a pink tree for her office, so cute.

One of my fellow teachers told me she was going to Florida and would work from there. Very tempting to consider the same. I had to go to the actual school twice this week and I am meeting with a student in person next Friday, so it's probably not feasible for me. Oh well. My day is coming.

I dashed to the grocery store yesterday to get the fixings for it!

do you put anything else in it for calories or is it simply just for the vitamins? the ingredient list makes it about 40 calories.... Just wondering.

I weighed and entered everything and it was 120 calories. I don't normally eat any breakfast beyond coffee, so I wasn't looking for calories (I prefer to spend them later in the day). So I was in it for the vitamins and minerals! You could add protein powder or yogurt or avocado or nut butter to make it more of a meal.

Greetings My Favorites

Not much new here. Filled out some forms to be on some kind of list for a covid shot. One is the county and the other is the hospital system. Kind of redundant.

I got up and felt kind of dizzy today. No clue why. Kind of like getting off an amusement park ride. Went back to bed. Better now. Trying to drink more water as I think thats an issue for us oldsters.

Yep I have been kind of awol here. Its getting harder and harder for me to type. Years ago I hade some voice recognition software which worked well and I bet is awesome now. Maybe need to get that. Beware if I do - I will blather endlessly.

Last of the ricotta bake last night. I put in some cheddar cheese which makes it really good but adds calories.

Cecily good on you for working on iron. Many women are low in it. If you are not a big eater of red meat then when you do, get the absolute best piece of beef you can find. Better yet, get it made from a restaurant. Hmmm thinking of a prime rib. A big prime rib dinner with all the fixings was my only food funeral 11 years ago.

Liz I wish I had you to help me with this PPP application. I need to upload some documents but the program is stuck and just won't let me. And of course there is no way to talk to a real person. Outside music sounds fun. We watched the inaugural stuff yesterday just to get the music parts.

Speaking of inauguration, I am so grateful it went well and there was no disruption. The people who stormed the capital need to understand the magnitude of what they did and how our system of government allows them to assemble and speak as they didn't.

I think I will make chicken and barley tonight. Have a big bag of the stuff and its comfort food. Winter food. Though our winter has been shamefully mild here. Not all that much rain which does not bode well for summer.

I have not had haircut in a year. I look like my college days. Same hair do but no short dress.

Cheers all. Diane S

I sometimes dictate with voice typing on Google docs. Open a new document, pull down the menu from tools, and it's called voice typing. Click on that, and you can start dictating. It's surprisingly accurate. It makes a few comical substitutions, but no worse than spell check. It does a great job with the punctuation if you say period, comma, etc. Would love to hear your musings if you're released from the constraints of typing.

Further musings on iron...

How does anyone get all they need without supplements??

Here's what I've eaten today so far (hurray for early dinner!). I have 346 calories of 1600 remaining.

Breakfast:

Coffee with sugar free coffeemate, scoop of collagen peptides, scoop of benefiber

Green smoothie with half a honeycrisp apple, rib of celery, 100g cucumber, handful of parsley, handful mint leaves, 2 cups spinach and kale mix, juice of half a lemon

Lunch:

2 slices thin sliced organic whole wheat bread

2.8 oz honey maple boarshead turkey

1 slice baby swiss cheese

1 tbsp light mayo

1 single serving bag goldfish crackers (flavor blasted, of course)

Dinner:

5.5 oz marinated flank steak

170g steamed broccoli with 5g butter

Snacks:

1 pint fresh raspberries

6 cherry tomatoes

1 dried plum

1 skinny cow ice cream sandwich

I?m not sure what else I'll eat later with my 346 calories (currently stuffed), but I'm only at 57% of my daily iron intake. Even if I ate another 5.5 oz of flank steak (which I could not!) I'd only be at 70%. If I'm low, no wonder! I don't usually eat a lot of leafy greens or red meat. Most days looking back, I'm usually around 40% for the day. Apparently eggs are a good source. I would need to eat 11 eggs to get my 57% to 100%. Yuck.

Nutrition is hard.

I don't know how to get your recommended amount of iron from food either. Unless you eat fortified foods, which means processed foods like cereal. Cream of Wheat was a favorite of mine. I solved a lot of my anemia problems with a hysterectomy, a rather drastic intervention, but it did the trick. (Actually it was because of endometriosis). Even so, since my sleeve, I still get borderline anemia if I'm not careful about supplements (which I'm sometimes not).