Clutter House

Oh, I have a clutter house and it's OK,
no one's comin over anyway
you can't walk a straight line anywhere
and the whole darn place is full of pet hair

Oh, I have a clutter house should clean it up
'cause I can't find a clean drinking cup
the paper in my office is 10 ft high
and the dishes in the sink nearly reach the sky.

That's a song I wrote a few years ago as an effort to embrace the clutter rather than let it get to me. It worked to a degree. There are other verses, which I can't remember and though I wrote them down, I don't know where they are. In the song the word pet hair was originally cat hair because I had cats. I no longer have cats nor will I ever have cats again. I love my little dog. I do have a clutter house, I could post before pictures, but it will be a long time before there is an after picture. I moved into this condo to get a fresh start, but just ended up taking my clutter with me. It has been three years.

I couldn't find the picture I took awhile ago of the clutter on my office floor so here is a picture of me sleeping. I took myself. I will let you figure that one out.
In terms of my weight loss activities, I do walk the dog every day, but have only managed to do the wii fit exercising two or three times since I started this blog.
Excuses:
I am on deadline and work late
I am tired.
I don't have time in the morning and if i don't do it in the morning it doesn't get done
I figure if I don't do anything, the weight will just go away
My brain has been abducted by aliens and I forget how to excersice. Damn, I still can't spell it. Exercise. There, thank you spell check.
I decided to be brave this past Tuesday and went and auditioned for Godspell put on by the Paris Performers Theatre. I have always wanted to be in a musical play that people would actually pay money to see. I tried out for all the high school plays and never got chosen. I can't even get cast in my church plays. How lame is that. But, they asked me to be in Godspell, along with two UC choir ladies, one of whom I think is my age and two teenage girls, one of whom is the daughter of the  director. Then there are five young college aged guys, three of which are fraternal triplets. They sing like angels. I will like this. Lots of singing and moving and dancing in this play. I can't wait. I hope by the time performance comes around the weekend of June 1, I will have lost substantial weight. In fact my goal was to lose at least 40 lbs for the family reunion in July. I don't see why that couldn't be possible. Of course I need to avoid late night snacking and making those snacks hot tamales and chocolate and buttered popcorn. Not all at once of course.

Here is my recipe:
First I must divulge a cooking secret of which North Americans are clueless, but that Mediterraneans have known for years. When cooking with ground beef add a teaspoon or two of cinnamon per pound. It takes away the aftertaste that beef tends to have.
Sandy's Easy Chili
1 pound of lean ground beef
1 can of Aylmer's Accents diced tomatoes for Chili
1 can of red kidney beans
Brown the beef after first spraying the bottom of the pan with Pam, add some cinamon as specified in my divulged secret above, a teaspoon of garlic order or one fresh garlic mashed through one of those garlic masher tools, one onion chopped finely or a tablespoon of onion flakes.
Add the tomatoes and beans and simmer everything for while on medium heat until flavours are all absorbed and everything heated through. Serve on top of a baked potato that was cooked for a few minutes in the microwave. Sprinkle everything with your favourite low fat grated cheese. Enjoy. 

Body Flush

Here's the second posting of my "trip". I just watched the movie "Bobby" the other day and Ashton Kutcher sure takes a trip in that. He even pronounced the full name of LSD, which I won't because I probably wouldn't get the spelling right the first time out.
One word I never spell correctly is exersice...yes every time I spell it that way...exercise...there. Until I can spell exercise the first time out it will never become routine.
I did do some this morning on my Wii Fit. After sitting for a half hour at the cuputer afterward, every muscle hurt. Ah well.
So the first post was about Richard Simmons, but it won't all be like that. I will be stating an opinion about something, posting a picture and then giving you a recipe.
Let's talk about the "Cleanse!" Where for US$400 plus change you get three mega jars of whey powder and several bottles of vitamins. You have a shake for dinner, a shake for breakfast and a salad for lunch. Then you pop vitamins all day long. Celebrities are all into it, they are featuring it on TV shows. It's all the big rage. Trouble is these people are missing the obvious. They are buying into the fad. I would have bought into it 15 20 years ago, before I really knew that none of these things do what they say they will do. Eating no real food for several weeks is not healthy. Why do things like this when it has such short term results? It isn't part of your "journey" it is a stall in neutral. You are eventually going to go back to eat real food... in fact you are suppose to on this Cleanse. And then when you start falling off the wagon again you fork out another $400 plus change and do it all over again. And how on earth can you clense your body with powder and vitamins anyway? I agree with the salad part of it, natural organic (if you can find it) fresh vegitables and fruit will clean your system right out. And if you want  to save your money and still clense your body, Drink Water!!! Filtered, clean refreshing water. Lots and lots of it, 8 classes a day. Water is the natural body flush.
So, that's that. We all know what we need to do to lose the pounds, trouble is translating that to our behaviour. I am hoping that writing this will help with my behaviour.
So here I am writing this blog and sending it out to cyber space. Someone may read it, someone may not. But like the actor/rocker Meat Loaf (the person not the food) says, "I would perform for three trees." At least by doing this electronically I am saving trees.
I saw Meat Loaf this past summer too. So that will be today's photo feature. Great concert on the 2nd hottest day of the summer. He opened with Hot Patootie from Rocky Horror so the second picture there he is trying to do the Time Warp dance. Thought I should explain that as he looks like he might be doing something else. Maybe the results of the Cleanse.

Here is another recipe I invented.
Vanilla Yogurt, Banana Strawberry Orange Smoothy
In a blender put a frozen banana broken in peices (We never manage to eat the whole bunch of bananas before they turn too ripe, so I put them in the freezer.)
About a cup of Strawberries (you can substitute raspberries or blueberries too)
A half cup orange juice
A half cup low fat vanilla Yogurt
A squeeze of lemon juice.
Blend it up and enjoy.

Happy trails.

Sandy