Pins, Pinning, Pinterest!

So have you heard about Pinterest? It's the latest thing, I guess. It's both easy and hard to describe what it's like.

Easy --
It's a pinboard. Think pushpins or thumbtacks. In olden days of yore, you'd find a picture of something you liked in a magazine or newspaper. You'd cut it out and "pin" it to some cork board. A bulletin board. Message board. Things like that. So this website is just one big electronic cork board where people "pin" images of things they find interesting. (Pin + Interest = Pinterest! I didn't really have to explain that, did I?)

Hard --
Pinterest is filled with a million and one things to look at. There are "pins" for fitness, desserts, work outs, wedding dresses, outfits, hairstyles, photography ideas, baby ideas, kid ideas, teacher ideas, gift ideas, oh the list goes on. I saw one pin last night that said "Pinterest is like fantasy football for girls."

I resisted going there when I first heard about it because everyone said it was addicting. They were right! It's even more of a time waster than facebook, in my opinion. At least on facebook you are keeping up with news of your friends and family whom you might not otherwise talk with on a regular basis. On Pinterest, well, you're just wasting time. :)

HOWEVER, while it is a big time suck, it's not totally pointless. (haha!) By clicking on some pictures of things I liked, I've found a couple of new blogs to check out.

Can You Stay for Dinner?
This blog is by Andie Mitchell. She's a 26 year old who lost 135 lbs! She posts healthy recipes. Her story and take on exercising and weight maintenance is a great read. Since I'm in the middle of losing weight (15 pounds down!) I found it very inspiring.

Chocolate-Covered Katie -- the healthy dessert blog
I just found this one today by a pin of her "chocolate chip cookie dough dip." I totally have to try this now! It's made with chickpeas.....which sounds utterly gross but she took some to a party and everyone loved it! Being on Weight Watchers, I'm trying to find a way to have my cake and eat it, too. Or at least something similar.

So I'll keep checking Pinterest. Maybe not as much as I have been.....It's kind of like facebook in that you have to wait awhile for there to be new content. But there are some neat things to look at.

And who says girls can't have their own fantasy football team! LOL!

Point-less cake pops

So I figured out how to make cake pops. They are so much fun!

They are also incredibly fattening.....

I calculated the Weight Watchers Points Plus value for a regular cake pop. I came up with 3 points per pop.

3 points!!!

Which was actually less than I thought it would be. However, I wondered if I could make them less "expensive."

Also, I have a confession. I've found the taste of regular cake pops to be......sweet. As in, they had no flavor except sweet. Now, did that stop me from eating them? Oh heck no! But they weren't just the most scrumptious things I'd ever put in my mouth.

So I also set out to make them tastier.

I've been making Yum Yum muffins from Hungry Girl and Weight Watchers for a couple of months now. All they are is a devil's food cake mix and a 15 oz. can of pumpkin. Mix together and bake for about 20 minutes. You can't taste the pumpkin and it makes an incredibly moist cake. If you make 24 muffins, they are 2 points a piece. For comparison purposes, regular cupcakes are 4 points a piece.

Also from a Weight Watchers meeting, I discovered a new product! It's called PB2. It is powdered peanut butter. Somehow these people have figured out a way to get all the fat and oil out of peanuts. Then all you have to do is mix 2 tablespoons of powder with 1 tablespoon of water and voila! A tablespoon of peanut butter with a Points Plus value of 1. (A tablespoon of regular peanut butter is 5 points! yikes!)

It also comes in chocolate!

(But for this recipe, I used the regular flavor.)

So, as I was eating the last batch of cake pops at Christmas, I thought to myself. Hmmm, how could I make these have less points? Then I remembered those muffins. I also thought, how can I make these tastier? Then I remembered the PB2.

Chocolate and peanut butter?

Yep yep!

Even though they were the absolute last thing I needed to have around, I made another batch today. I had baked the muffins in a 9x13 pan the other day. Once again, I used only half of the finished cake. (I don't need 70 cake pops even if they are less points....) I had no idea how much PB2 it would take. I started with 3 finished tablespoons and it worked great!

I made the balls as usual and placed them in the freezer.

For the coating, well, there really is no substitute. They don't make fat free coating. I doubt they make a sugar free coating, though you could always look for one. But it would have to have artificial sweeteners in it and I try to avoid those.

I used Wilton light cocoa candy melts. Once again, I had to add shortening to thin it.

It worked! And the cake was very moist. They taste kind of like a peanut butter fudge ball.

The Points Plus value??????

2!!!

Yes, I know. Big whoop. One freaking point. Of course, it means that if you eat 3 cake pops, that's only 6 points instead of 9. Every little bit helps, right?

I also had some left over red candy melts. So I used them to fancy them up a bit. Plus, I'm really getting into a Valentine's Day craft and baking mode. That can't be good. Well, for me, at least. My family and Jim's coworkers will love it! LOL!

And finally, I had leftover chocolate coating that I hate to waste. So I drizzled it over some pretzels. Yum!

(And if you want to talk math with me and see how I calculated the Points Plus values, ask me in the comment section. I love talking math with people!)

Resolution Rant

Happy New Year's! It's January 1st. Time for my annual rant about the pointlessness of New Year's Resolutions!

Have you made any resolutions? Decided that Sunday was a good time to make a change? Thought that a new calendar brings with it skinniness, wealth, and happiness?

No?? Yes???

Ok, then. I have a secret.

It doesn't work that way!

Anyone who decides to change something just because it's January, the 1st, or they hung a new calendar is not going to succeed.

Unless you're my mother-in-law. One year, she resolved to "get fit". Or something like that. She began by dancing around in her kitchen to music she liked. Then she took an aerobics class. Then she TAUGHT an aerobics class. She ended up being an aerobics instructor full time. She even returned to college and got a degree! She's certified to teach many different types of exercise, swimming, and CPR. (I hope I'm getting all of these details right!) She also does personal training.

She IS the 1%.

The (approximate) 1% of people who make a New Year's resolution and stick to it. (The 1% is my number because you know that 79.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot, right? ;)

The rest of us, well, let's just say it doesn't usually work out that way.

So here are my 3 guidelines for making changes that will actually become CHANGES. That you'll stick with and incorporate into your daily life.

1. You gotta get mad!
To paraphrase Dave Ramsey, you've got to get sick and tired of BEING sick and tired! You have to put some emotion into it. You've got to get mad at the problem! You have to decide, once and for all, that you're not going back to that dress size, that food, that significant other, that job, that crappy situation. That whatever you have to do to change things is ok because it's easier than staying where you are.

2. Start small.
So I'm going to exercise every day this week. WRONG! You're going to tell yourself to exercise 2 days this week. Then 3 days next week, Then 4, etc. OR, you can also tell yourself, I'm going to exercise today. And not worry about tomorrow. Then tell yourself the same thing tomorrow. Take it one day at a time. Rome wasn't built in a day and these habits you're trying to change won't be changed in a day. We tend to get off course not by making one huge wrong turn but by making many small ones.

3. Describe your first step in actual words.
Make it a step you can do. "Yell at my family less" is very vague. Try something like, "count to 10 before calmly asking them to pick up their coats." Same thing with "exercise more". What does that look like? Rephrase it to say "walk on treadmill for 20 minutes while baby naps." (heh, heh, yes that's mine. Not off to a good start. I'm blogging instead!)

Change IS possible. New habits CAN be formed. They can even begin on January 1st. But they are more likely to begin when YOU decide they're going to begin. Whether that's January 1st, Feb 23rd, July 18th or any time in between. You'll change something when YOU decide it's time to change.

So don't feel bad if the resolution thing just doesn't work for you. It doesn't work for me. Nor for most people. But don't lose hope. Change is possible but YOU have to decide that it's possible!

YOU

So in the mail a few months ago we got a report. It was on our natural gas usage. Now, they have started sending them to my email! So this is what I got today:

James F Kane

We are pleased to provide you with this personalized report for Nov 10 - Dec 08. Additional information is also available online.
You used more natural gas than your neighbors.

Efficient Neighbors 73 CCF*

All Neighbors 95

You 109


* CCF: Standard unit of measuring natural gas volume, also called one hundred cubic feet.

Sign in to see how your usage changes over time.

*********************************************************************************

The actual email contains big horizontal bars to illustrate the hugeness of "109" as opposed to those saintly souls who used *only* "73".

These reports piss me off.

I guess they're from our gas provider, although I thought that was Arkansas Western Gas. The reports come from SourceGas.

I wonder how true they are. Are they REALLY our neighbors' usage rates or are they just trying to get us to click on their website and read stuff about how to be efficient?

And who is my neighbor, dare you ask?

Our neighbors are empty nesters. Some are retired, some aren't. Others are young, married couples without children. We really don't have that many families with young children around here although there are a few.

We have 3 kids. And a dog. I do 15+ loads of laundry EVERY. WEEK. With a gas dryer, I might add.

DO YOU THINK MAYBE THAT'S WHY I USE MORE GAS THAN MY NEIGHBORS??????????

So at the end of the email, I read the fine print and saw a wonderful word:

Unsubscribe

Yes! I clicked it and now I will no longer be burdened with the guilt of ruining the planet because my family wanted clean clothes.

Cake Pops Success!

I did it! I made ROUND cake pops! Pristine spheres of fluid candy sweetness. Mmmmm!

True to their word, they really were pretty easy. But the devil's in the details.

LOTS of details.

Regular reader(s) of my blog will remember my first attempt back in the summer. They turned out ok. They tasted ok. But they were gloppy and not very pretty.

At Thanksgiving, my cousin, Kayla, made some cake balls. YUM! I ate TOO many. (But I counted them on WW points!) We discussed how difficult they were to get right. We had both had the same problems with the stick not staying stuck and the coating not, well, coat-ing.

So last Monday I went Googling. I found a video by the master herself, Bakerella. When Bakerella dips hers, she goes straight down into the coating and then straight back up. She doesn't swish the ball around or use the spoon to pour the coating over it. She also sticks them into a styrofoam block instead of laying them on wax paper. Those two things totally changed the way my cake pops looked this time.

I also found a blog post by Pioneer Woman. Her Halloween cake balls were cute, but not as smooth as Bakerella's. However, I did find two secrets on her website....

1. She didn't use all the icing!

She said she only used about 3/4 of the can of icing. Aha! That's the mistake I made last time. I had so much icing in there that the sticks kept sliding out.

2. She suggested thinning the coating with shortening.

Eureka! THAT is how Bakerella gets hers to look so smooth and round. Her coating goes on seamlessly. With thinner coating, it really is possible to dip the ball into the coating and pull it straight up and have it be completely covered. Then you tap off the excess and put it in the styrofoam block.

So I took some pictures. You'll be amazed! LOL!

Ok, so this is a can of frosting. Not so amazing. But the secret is to start with a little frosting and only add more if you need it. You want to make the cake/frosting mash up to be about the consistency of playdough. I didn't measure my frosting exactly. But for 1/2 of a 9x13 cake (I didn't feel like rolling and dipping 70+ balls again), I used maybe 1/3 of this can of icing.

Here are my finished cake balls. With less icing, they rolled into perfectly shaped balls. I popped (heh heh) these in the freezer for about 15 mins per Bakerella's video instructions. From 1/2 of a 9x13 cake, I got 36 balls.

While they were in the freezer, I melted the candy coating. I tried two kinds.

Wal-Mart was out of Wilton white candy melts in bags, but they had this nifty dipping cup of them. So I bought it. I also bought some green ones which you can see in the background. Those are for later.

I also used up the rest of the almond bark from the ones I made in the summer.

Boy, was there a difference! I began with the Wilton melts. Wilton has been in the cake decorating business for DECADES! So I figured they would be better. But no. They weren't. The dip was so thick that when I held up my spoon, it glopped off. It didn't stream off or roll off. It took forever for part of it to plop off. I even tried heating it longer in the microwave thinking it wasn't melted enough. That didn't help either.

So I switched to the almond bark. Perfection! Oh my goodness! You should've seen it. It rolled off my spoon with the consistency of cake batter. It fell in perfect ribbons and was reabsorbed into the remaining candy seamlessly.

Another tip I picked up from Bakerella was to dip the ends of the sticks into the candy coating before sticking them into the balls. This was a big help. It helped the sticks to stay in while being dipped.

After the sticks had a minute to set, I started dipping. Like Bakerella's video, I went straight down and then straight up. Tapped off the excess and placed it in my foam.

Yes, I used floral foam. I didn't have time to go to Hobby Lobby and Walmart didn't have any white. I figured this was as good as anything. (And I love how it's labeled "desert foam". I thought it just needed another "s" to make it "dessert foam". LOL!)

When I ran out of almond bark, I turned back to the Wilton melts. I got some shortening and melted it in the microwave. I stirred it in to the Wilton melts and voila! Perfection! Here is what it looked like after the addition of the shortening. The almond bark looked like this, too.

And now, here are my finished, beautiful, perfectly round, cake pops!

To make the white ones, I sprinkled white sanding sugar over them. I called them "snowballs."

Aren't they pretty?

Beta and I decided they were almost too pretty to eat! Almost.......

Bah Humbug!

So here I sit. November 17. The weather has finally turned cooler, but is nowhere near frightful yet, thankfully.

Thanksgiving is one week from today.
Christmas is 5 weeks and 3 days from today.

I've bought 3 Christmas gifts for extended family members. I've bought maybe 5 gifts for the kids.

*Sigh*
I hate christmas.

With a lower case "c". Not the big Christ-mas that helps us to remember the birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. That one I like.

But the whole shebang. The gift buying, the holiday parties, buying gifts for holiday parties. Shopping, wrapping, scheduling. All the STUFF I have to do.

I didn't used to be this way. But that was when I was younger and everything was done for me. Christmas was fun then! Now, though, I'm the mom. And the wife. So everything falls to me to make sure it's a "perfect Christmas!" To make sure no one gets left off the list. To make that list and check it 3, 4 times. Probably more. To make sure each child has personal, unique gifts that will cause her to squeal with delight when she opens them. They must be fun, useful, educational, and be something she'll play with beyond December 26. And they shouldn't cost too much either.

To figure out where on earth we're going to put all those gifts once they're unwrapped.

I feel trapped. Part of me wants to just say "to heck with it!" and go give all my Christmas money to charity. I think Jesus would like that.

But I think I'd be disowned. And my kids would cry. And maybe this will sound hypocritical, but I do kind of like getting some gifts myself.

In one of the first Financial Peace University lessons, Dave Ramsey talks about saving up money throughout the year and paying cash for Christmas gifts. About Christmas, he says, "Did you know it's in DECEMBER this year?" LOL! In that same rant he says jokingly, "Jesus said buy the little children plastic things!" He's kidding, of course. He's trying to make the point that you don't have to go broke every year buying things for people.

What I'd really like to do is buy things for my friends and family that they REALLY need. Like a new washer and dryer. Siding for their house. A new (to them) car. Diapers for a year. Or something similar.

So here I sit. I'm just not in the Christmas spirit. Maybe that's because it's only NOVEMBER. I don't know. But for the last few years, it's just gotten to be too much work. And I really start questioning whether this is what God had in mind when He sent His Son.

Top Ate

I'm borrowing (nay, stealing) from Hungry Girl today. She always lists her "Top Ate" lists. They're like David Letterman's Top 10 Lists, but have only 8 things (ate, get it? um, yea) and are about food.

So, here are the Top Ate Things I've Learned Since Starting Weight Watchers

1. I was eating WAY too much.
I kind of knew that already. Sort of figured that was why I was gaining weight. But I didn't realize how much of "WAY too much" I was eating. Wow.

2. We are bombarded every day in America with TONS of food images, shows, ads, suggestions, and the like. It's almost no wonder most of us are overweight. It sometimes feels like that's all we see! Food!

3. Jeans weigh 2 pounds.
Yep. A full 2 pounds. Found this out last week when I wore jeans for the first time and was up 0.8 pounds. I was probably down a pound last week but the jeans made it not show.

4. Have a light-weight weigh-in outfit and wear it every week.
So this week I put on exercise clothes which added a mere 1/2 pound. (weighed myself at home) I was down 3.4 pounds! Now I have to wear this same outfit every week. But that's what most of the women there do. The leader was discussing it last week and said that she would know we owned other clothes and that we had washed it. :)

5. Every Weight Watchers meal I have made for my family has been delicious! They have all loved every bite. Now, no one else in this house needs to lose weight (except maybe the dog who is getting pudgy from eating all of J4's tossed off morsels), but that doesn't mean they don't need to eat healthier. Of course, see my previous post for some discussion on what "healthier" means.

6. I don't need as much fruit now as I did that first week.
I'm not starving any more. My mom and I have long known this phenomenon. Your stomach seems to get accustomed to a certain amount of food. If you eat more than that, you feel full. If you eat more than that for a couple of days, your body starts to expect that amount every day. So if you have a couple of days where you overeat (cough cough, Thanksgiving, cough cough) when you get back to your normal routine, you are hungry! It works in reverse, though. Now that I've quit snacking so much during the day, I'm actually not hungry until nearly supper time.

7. I like Greek yogurt!
Never thought I'd say that. But I DO like Greek yogurt. Now, I don't like it plain. I treat it like sour cream and cream cheese. I can't stand those things plain, by themselves. Cream cheese on a bagel? yuck. Sour cream on a potato? Ew. But mix those things with salsa for the former and sugar for the latter, and MAN! I could eat entire tubs of those things. Well, Greek yogurt is now my go-to for a sour cream substitute. I think I'll make it a staple in our house like I had been doing with sour cream. I used it in poppyseed chicken casserole last night. An entire CUP has only 3 points. Wow.

8. Weight Watchers is awesome!
I saw a story on the national news back in September. (at supper time, no less) Someone had done a study pitting various diets and programs against one another. People on WeightWatchers lost the most weight and kept it off the longest. That perked up my ears and made me look them up online. It only costs $12.50 per meeting until you lose a certain amount of weight. (forget how much, maybe 10%?) Then meetings are free. Somehow, I just KNEW it was time. I knew I needed to get control of myself and get my weight under control. Like most if not all moms, I spend every waking hour taking care of my husband, kids, and house. I make sure everyone is fed, clothed, safe, and happy. But when I do I ever take care of myself? I've always avoided spending money on myself because there are so many other things we need to spend money on. But I knew I needed to do this. And I'm so glad I did!

As of today's weigh-in, I've lost 8.2 pounds. I'm excited, yes, but what I really want to do is lose even more. Of the 20 pounds I gained while pregnant with J4 and lost in just a few weeks, I had gained 16 of that back. To top it off, my pre-pregnancy weight with him was already 20 pounds higher than my pre-pregnancy weights with the girls. So while I'm very happy that it's headed down, I will be EXTREMELY happy once I pass the 16 pound mark. That's when I will start to lose some real weight that has been with me for about 5 years now. In fact, I predict that's when things will start to get very hard and just eating less will not do any more. But I've still got a ways to go until that point. And hey, 1 pound a week is still 52 pounds a year!

*****BONUS******
9. I tend to write more the longer the list gets......Hmmm..... :)