Turkey Meatloaf - DASH Diet

My son made a GREAT turkey meatloaf the last time he was visiting, but I didn't have all the ingredients and wanted to make a meatloaf last night. This is what I came up with, and it was a great surprise! It has lots of flavor and a real meatloaf "texture" to it that will hold together nicely for leftovers and sandwiches*. 1.5 lbs. xtra lean ground turkey 1 cup oatmeal (I used 1 minute oats) 1 tbsp Mrs. Dash 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper 1/2 cup finely diced onions 1/2 cup finely diced celery 1/2 cup finely diced carrots 2 eggs 1 tsp garlic powder 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce 1 tbsp poultry seasoning Combine all ingredients, shape into loaf and place in Pam-sprayed baking pan. Bake at 350 for approximately one hour. I served this with a bit of black bean and corn low sodium salsa on the top just to add a bit more flavor. The rest of the meal was 1/2 small baked potato with no-fat butter spray and no-fat sour cream, steamed spinach, and a small tossed green salad with tomatoes and a few garbanzo beans. *Since we now eat very small portions of any meat (sigh...) this meatloaf will provide many good sandwiches (combined with my homemade low-sodium, low-fat, low-sugar whole grain bread) and one or two more dinners. OTHER STUFF Mr. B spent the night Friday night and we had such a nice time. I bought the new Mickey Mouse ClubHouse Adventures in Wonderland movie and he was just so excited to watch it! Jeff was off playing his monthly poker game, so Mr. B and I curled up and watched the (50 mins) movie around 7pm, then went out to the hot tub (I had turned the temp down earlier) in the dark. He thought that was SO fun! LOL Since he's so small, he treats the hot tub like a swimming pool, jumping under water, splashing like crazy, etc. When Mr. B is in the hot tub, it's not the relaxing spa Jeff and I are used to! By the time we came in (45 minutes!), he was worn out and headed off to bed around 9:30, and fell asleep immediately. Unfortunately, I didn't take into consideration that while he was splashing and going underwater, he was also DRINKING the "pool" water -- so there was an "accident" in the middle of the night. I got up and stripped his bed, tucked him into bed with Umpa, put clean sheets on the guest bed, climbed in - and we all went back to sleep, thank goodness. Mr. B actually slept until 10am! Mr. B spent Saturday with Umpa. They weedwacked the yard, including the now weed-infested vegetable garden that wasn't a vegetable garden this year, and mowed. Mr. B now "drives" the riding lawn mower - sitting in Umpa's lap, of course, and going very, very slow. But he's quite good at steering. I do wish I'd taken a movie of him on his skateboard. He's definitely a skater-dude. He can now put his food on the back of the board and press it down so the front of the board goes up in the air, then puts his other foot on the front of the board, pops it down and off he goes down the driveway! He's good about wearing his helmet and pads, but firmly states other kids don't wear helmets. One day he told me that he knows why the other kids don't wear a helmet. "Why," I asked. "Because they don't have an Umma." Oh yeah.

Too too funny audio from public school answering machine

(Karen, this is for you - I know you'll HOOT over this one!) Found on (Hiding from Kids) blog. Thank you for the belly laugh!

Feeling... more like me!

I've been on this DASH diet for 10 days now, and I am really excited because my energy level has gone UP UP UP. I will admit that for the past six months (at least) I have been SO low energy that I was worried - thyroid? diabetes? depression? worse? But from the way I am feeling for the past three days, I'm now guessing the problem was the food I was eating. I got to a point of such low energy that I wasn't even cleaning my house, and you know me - there's something wrong when I don't have a To Do List in hand every morning and a plan for my day! The DASH diet has caused me to eat far more fruit and vegetables (fresh), and almost no red meat. I take in as little sodium/salt as possible (apparently, it's not possible or healthy to eliminate all sodium), very little fats (canola or olive oil only), and much higher (MUCH higher) amounts of whole grains. I laughed out loud yesterday when I looked at what I was eating for lunch - a quinoa salad (with corn, tomatoes and herbs) mixed with a few spoonfuls of couscous leftover from dinner and some low-sodium salsa, with four whole grain high fiber low sodium crackers. I had an apple as well. It was delicious! My normal lunch would be a tuna salad sandwich (or two) and some chips. Dinner was homemade chili from the freezer (made with lots of veggies and turkey instead of beef), over high fiber pasta, and a mixed green salad with spritz-on dressing. After dinner snack was another apple! I've had a shift in my mental state with all this. Although my blood pressure reading wasn't sky-high, it did scare me (both my parents died very young) and I knew immediately that food and exercise was going to be the cure. But I didn't say "weight loss" to myself. Instead, I said, "Eat healthy - it's time to stop fooling around and be concerned about being here in 5 or 10 years." I am not concerned about my weight. I'm concerned about my blood pressure and my high cholesterol (again, before I panic my son and daughter-in-law - it's not sky high, but it's above normal limits. My GOOD cholesterol was actually within normal limits.) I have been overweight since age 6. I come from a line of overweight women, with the exception of my mother. I was a fat child, teenager, and wife. I can starve myself to try and change that, or I can just mentally accept "it is what it is" and instead focus on living longer and just forget about the weight. It is what it is. If it goes down as a result of this DASH diet, all the better. But I am officially releasing all the years of guilt about my weight. And... are you ready for this? I dusted off my treadmill and actually got on it and did a half mile - TWICE - yesterday. Now, a half-mile might not sound like much, but baby, it's a whole lot better than spending that same exact amount of time planted in my chair in front of the TV! SOME is better than NONE in the case of exercise! Another mental switch is I'm not feeling the "I will never be able to eat.. (fill in any favorite food here)..." I'm not going to say that. I'm going to follow the lead of Michelle Obama (let's disregard her politics, please) who has a 90-10 rule she follows. She eats "healthy" 90% of the time, which allows her to indulge 10% of the time. I'm taking that a bit further with a 95-5 rule. We will continue to adhere to the DASH diet and eating healthy, but once a month or so if we want to go out to eat and enjoy some of our favorite foods, we'll do it. Jeff and I have never gone out to eat very often - once a month or so - and that won't change. But if we do go out, so be it. I'm not going to panic about having restaurant food now and then. If I've had a tough day of babysitting and want to order a pizza instead of cooking, I will. But I will also just have two slices instead of half a large pizza, and serve up a side salad to go with it. Guilt-free. It's a totally foreign concept to me!

Nine Things to do on 09-09-09

Today is 09-09-09. If for no other reason, the sequence of numbers make today special. So I thought I'd try and think of nine things to do today to make this day memorable. Here's what I came up with:

1. Write down 9 goals to accomplish before 10-10-2010
2. Smile 9 times - both strangers and family members.
3. Pull out your all time favorite book and read 9 pages.
4. Write a card or note to an elder relative with at least 9 cheery sentences.
5. Exercise for 9 minutes - or, if you exercise daily already, add 9 minutes to your routine.
6. Find 9 pieces of clutter in your home and throw them away.
7. Windex 9 items until they sparkle.
8. Go outside and enjoy the fresh air for 9 minutes.
9. Write down 9 things you're grateful for.

The Number Nine: The spiritual meaning of number Nine represents attainment, satisfaction, accomplishment, and our success to achieve an influence in our circumstances. The spiritual meaning of number Nine deals with intellectual power, inventiveness, influence over situations and things. Nine beseeches us to recognize our own internal attributes, and extend these abilities out into the world to make a positive, influential difference.

(information on the meaning of number nine found at WhatsYourSign.com)

Back to real life!

Today is my first non-weekend day of no babysitting! Wooo Hoo! Mr. B returns to his "other" babysitter tomorrow, and I don't babysit again until Friday, then every Monday and Friday from then on. I'm fully enthused about getting back to my "real" life as something other than a grandmother! Don't get me wrong - I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of every 10 hour day I spent with my grandson. He is an amazing person - inquisitive is an understatement, talkative doesn't even begin to describe his rate of conversation, and he's funny, smart, polite, and physically active. In the seven weeks I had him, he got put in "time out" only twice. That's pretty darn good for a 3 1/2 year old! I will miss my daily routines with him! The first thing I did on Saturday was head for my quilt room. Oh my, it's actually DUSTY! But Mr. B told me he needed a new "blanket" because he is SO tall that his feet stick out from under his old one (one I made when he was a baby)! How can I not make him a quilt? I needed to make a quick-quilt, so I robbed my stash and found a Baby Genius panel that has the alphabet and numbers, both of which Mr. B is determined to learn. Plus he loves the CARS movie, specifically Mater (the brown tow truck) and Lightening McQueen (red car). So I combined the two and came up with this:

Because of the panel, I was able to put it together in just two hours. Today I'll quilt it - with glow in the dark thread! I hope to outline the letters and numbers, do stars in the black star border, and then just do a meandering stitch in the CARS border.

But before I quilt - it's back to reality. My housework has suffered during the Mr. B excursion, and I need to get it back under control! So here is my To Do List - though it's for the next two days (so I can get some quilt time in this afternoon).

• Laundry (though I'm not behind on this, just keeping up) - done
• Run dishwasher - done
• de-junk kitchen - done
• clean microwave - done
• vac - done
• clean counters - done
• mop kitchen floor
• cobweb patrol (around ceiling fan especially) - done
• declutter telephone stand/bookcase - done
• clean junk drawer
• empty bread drawer (it's full of toys!)
• find box/storage for toy cars
• Clean family room - done
• declutter family room - done
• dust family room - done
• vac family room - done
• Clean downstairs bathroom - done
• Wash guest towels - done
• Empty and rinse d/s bathroom trash can - done
• Wash bathroom floor (there's been a boy in the house!) - done
• Dust, vac office - done
• declutter desk top
• reorganize toys in office - done
• Dust, vac dining room

Well, THAT ought to keep me busy! I think I'll have to delegate some of this to my husband! I'll ask him to vac and mop the floors for me. What a good wife! LOL Oh wait, what a good husband, because I know I can ask him and I know he'll say yes!

Still on the DASH diet and doing just fine. Tomorrow I'll post the menues I've laid out for the week. I have no idea if I've lost weight, but that's not the goal. The goal is to get my blood pressure down before my next doctor's appt on the 27th. If there's weight loss included, I'll be happy!

I'll also get back to blogging on my Quilting on a Budget blog this week. There's a lot that needs to be taken care of in the background before getting it back up and going, but it will be back!