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Our Daily Thread 12-27-12

Good Morning!

Who’s up for coffee and Christmas cookies for breakfast?

😯

Me too!

You’d think that I’d be sick of Christmas cookies by now. But no, I’m not.

Quote of the Day, and I wish I’d discovered this fact sooner…

“It is a scientific fact that your body will not absorb cholesterol if you take it  from another person’s plate.”

Dave Barry

🙂

95 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-27-12”

  2. Kim,

    You should have some Christmas cookies and coffee before you go. That should wake you up and get you ready for the day. It’s the breakfast of champions ya know. Or is that Wheaties? I always get ’em confused, but one of them is.

    🙂

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  3. It is true Kim, I was thinking how blessed I was to go to work yesterday; it is so good to do what I love.

    Here is a Question for the Day: Do you do something a bit weird for you health’s sake? And if so what. For me it is not drinking soda. Once I stopped my TMJ problems went away.

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  4. AJ- If you have snicker-doodles, I’m in. If they’re sugar cookies- forget it.

    Kim- one thing about teaching- I get another week of laziness, even though I still have a little more grading of exams to do. That can wait, though, as a nephew and his family are coming for lunch today.

    cbadwjh (Adios, I think)- I drink coffee and eat dark chocolate. Maybe it’s for health, but definitely for the flavor, especially together.

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  5. A bit weird??????
    I go to the Y’
    I stay away from doctors as much as possible.
    I take vitimins because Elvera makes me.
    Is any of that weird?
    I guess I’m pretty normal.

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  6. Good morning! QoD: I don’t eat gluten. And now I can mix up batches of my own gluten-free bread with the heavy-duty stand mixer I got for Christmas! 🙂 (It doesn’t work very well to mix by hand or with cheap electric beaters because of its texture.) Now I can make my own GF bread instead of paying $6 a loaf!

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  9. Good Morning! It will be cookies and coffee for me AJ…. 🙂
    Qod…..I steer clear of soda as well……the only time I drink soda is when nausea is lurking about….a little ginger ale truly helps settle down the tummy
    6arrows….$6 a loaf….ouch! And here I thought $3 was the most outrageous thing I had ever heard of! I can recall riding my bike down to the corner meat market to get a loaf of bread for my Mom….she gave me a dime to pay for it….my oh my how things do change 😦

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  10. QOD, chop firewood and shovel snow. I have had too many cookies and have gained back most of the weight lost. Time to get back on track…soon.

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  11. NancyJill, I know, aren’t prices something else! Wheat bread is under $4 a loaf (but not by much) where I’m at, but gluten-free bread is always more expensive.

    Reminds me of a conversation I heard in the gluten-free aisle at the grocery store one time. One person lamented to another, “Why is gluten-free food more expensive when it’s got less in it?” 😆

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  12. QOD,

    Coffee? Never. (Mr YUK face here.) Cookies? 🙂 Maybe. depends on what kind they are… 😀

    I had eggs and toast this morning, and then a banana and an oatmeal bar when I started feeling peckish.

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  14. I had a smashed up banana mixed with cinnamon and fat free plain yogurt for breakfast. I put cinnamon in as many things as possible because it is suppose to help with blood sugar issues. I drink black coffee, and green tea and other tea. Sometimes I will have a cup of each (coffee and a tea) on my desk and I alternate drinking them. I need to drink more water. I bake with light olive oil (made for baking without the strong olive flavor) and I reduce the sugar in bread/cake recipes. I use yogurt in recipes calling for milk most of the time to counter lactose intolerance. I don’t drink milk, but I can usually have some ice cream if I do not overdo it. I like to use my exercise bike daily, but since having some leg problems I have not been doing that. We keep a large, Sam’s Warehouse size, bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips for having a share of dark chocolate daily. Lately I have been replacing some of the white flour in bread recipes with a portion of oatmeal. Lastly, I am eating less meat these days and trying to get more veggies and fruits.

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  17. But because it is the Christmas season, I added brown sugar. And because there were only four plums in the house (we have a case of them in the pantry) I added dried figs and cranraisins. So it is the same as having cookies and coffee.

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  19. Just found out an acquaintance lost their almost 3 year old little girl on Christmas Eve to an accident involving a swing set. So sad. Please remember them in your prayers.

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  20. Cookies and sausage balls. You all are making me hungry.

    I need to seriously get back on track, too. I’ve been getting a head start thinking about 2013 changes I should/really need to make (just thinking about them, mind you). Many are repeats from years past (we tend to deal with the same weaknesses throughout our lives, no?).

    But among the changes I’d like to make this coming year would be more focus on my health and finding (and doing!) some strengthening & flexibility exercises.

    I hate gyms, I prefer to be outdoors; so more (and longer) dog walks are a natural. I’d love to get a bike for summer, I’ve been without one for some time now and we actually have some decent stretches of waterfront to ride along. But I also think I need to find some effective stretching exercises I can (and will) do.

    I’m not adverse to finding a class in some kind of exercise somewhere. But the Y is rather pricey in my town (in my opinion, especially since I’m not sure I’d go all that much).

    And I’d like to get back to hiking some more again with a friend at church.

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  22. So this morning I have to do some dreaded “man on the street” interviews I’ve been putting off for more than a week now. I’m not even writing the story, it’s just something a few of us were asked to do to add to a story another reporter at a sister paper is doing on the upcoming L.A. mayor’s race.

    I hate doing cold-call “man on the street” interviews where you have to go up to random strangers somewhere. People always think you’re trying to sell them a subscription. 😉

    Then when you finally find someone who has some good things to say, 9 times out of 10 they’ll tell you at the end of it all not to use their name, which basically makes it unusable for us. Arrrg.

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  23. Adios,

    I use Quaker oats in my meatloaf, instead of bread crumbs. Does that count? You really can’t tell the difference. It’s good.

    And I’m having salad for lunch to make up for the cookies at breakfast.

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  25. Bit weird, huh? Well, we eat lower-carb, low-gluten. We haven’t gone completely gluten-free, but we avoid it when possible, and eat very, very little. We eat as low carb as possible, and fill the “void” with low-carb veggies.

    So, I make a mean “garlic mashed potatoes” out of cauliflower (we like it BETTER than real mashed potatoes), and a great cauliflower crust pizza. I am also planning on making up some cauliflower “rice.”

    I made a chocolate cake for Christmas using black beans for flour (and also a low-carb cheesecake and lower carb apple pie).

    My kids are looking great (they’ve lost a ton a weight). My husband and I are smaller and our numbers are great. (Why it is so much harder for us to lose, I don’t know. But, he’s lost 75 lbs. and I’ve lost 45 lbs. Right now, though, we seem to be “stuck” and aren’t dropping anymore, but we are maintaining and — again — our numbers are fantastic.)

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  27. While we are eating very low gluten, we don’t replace it with the gluten-free flours, because they are all very high-carb and (for our purposes) not healthy. So, I look for healthier, and very odd (some might say — lol) replacement foods. 🙂

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  28. Also, just to shock the socks off a few of you who’ve bought into the “nutrition advise” of the last 30 years or so … 🙂

    We eat REAL butter, real cream, and avoid low-fat and non-fat products like the plague. 😉

    Yes, it’s true. And, I remind you, our numbers (cholesterol, A1C, triglycerides, etc.) are way BETTER than they’ve ever been before. They’re downright good. 😉

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  30. A belated Merry Christmas to you all. I registered here then disappeared, but it’s a very busy time of year. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

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  34. Tammy (28), we use real butter, higher fat meats, etc. Have you heard of Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions? That helped inform me on the health benefits of full-fat foods versus their low-fat versions.

    As far as being gluten-free goes, that has helped keep my weight from going too LOW. I kept losing weight very slowly (and inadvertently) during the 17 years I was having babies, and it was getting a little scary (my weight when I got pregnant the first time was toward the low end of the normal range for my height, so I couldn’t afford to lose the nearly 20 pounds that I did). When I started a gluten-free diet when my youngest child was a year old, the weight loss finally stopped, and although I wish my weight were higher than it is, I feel a lot healthier now than I did during the years I was eating wheat and other forms of gluten, and I hardly ever get sick anymore.

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  35. Kim (19), how very sad. My parents know a family whose daughter died in an accident involving a swing set, as well. It was so horrible the way she died, I can’t even relay it.

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  37. Tammy, I love cauliflower. When you make it into pizza crust, just what do you do? Does it smell up the house the same as when it is steamed?

    That is terrible about the child and the swing set.

    Glad to see you made it back on here, Meg.

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  38. Donna, I received the new World Magazine today and saw the last page tells about some writing contests. One is based on published articles in secular outlets. I thought you might be interested in entering.

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  39. Kim, I will pray for this family. So sad.

    DonnaJ, yes word on the street assignments are the worst. I always start with, “I am not trying to sell you anything or change your religion.”

    I am gluten free as well. And besides cinnamon, I put curry, tumeric, cumin and flax seed in my morning oatmeal.

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  40. Let’s see, this summer I met a very charming gentleman in an establishment in New Orleans who was 85 and treated Mr. P and me to lunch because I struck up a conversation with him at the bar and helped with his crossword puzzle. He attributed his good health to gin. I don’t like gin-it tastes like soap.
    My grandfather lived to 89 eating the fat off of any piece of meat he could and salting the devil our of his food. I like fried fat but I don’t like a lot of salt.
    I don’t eat a whole lot of bread, flour, cakes, cookies, etc I don’t like a lot of sweets so I am not too worred about gluten. I do prefer the almost or Nut-thins when I have appetizers.
    I drink my coffee black to avoid the extra calories from cream and sugar. I eat a piece fo chocolate here and there. I buy REAL butter and WHOLE milk. I do put cinnamon in my oatmeal because there are a few in my family who have diabetes.

    Looking back at this I am down-right healthy and don’t understand why I am not a size or two smaller than I am.

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  42. RickyWeaver, are you around? I need to talk with you. Or, more specifically, your wife. About Mexican culture and marriage expectations. Thanks.

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  43. Tammy, I too switched to real butter a few years ago. I didn’t like the taste of it, nor the price, and I have some problems with milk–but I found out that butter doesn’t affect milk allaergies at all, kept reading how bad margarine is for you, and finally decided to wean myself over. For about a year I used half butter and half margarine in everything, to get myself used to the flavor. (It really took some getting used to.) By the time I got married I was able simply to skip the margarine sometimes, so I dropped it. But a friend made chocolate chip cookies and I didn’t really like them, and realized they were made with butter, so today I still do my baking with half butter and half margarine (which should “work” for people who prefer either) but otherwise I use all butter.

    I also switched to sea salt (from the health food store). And I pretty much never drink soda (definitely never sugar free). But I won’t buy low-fat anything if I can help it, and I avoid fake sugar completely. I love fruits and vegetables, and I’m not that much of a bread person (for bread itself, almost exclusively rye). I do like chocolate (dark chocolate), but lima beans or almonds are nearly as good a snack as a candy bar, and blueberries equally as good.

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  47. I’ve been thinking a lot about our family’s habits regarding internet usage, and today happened to run across a site that mentioned this book: You, Your Family and the Internet: What every Christian in the digital age ought to know, by David Clark. Have any of you read that book? It sounds pretty interesting. I found more information about the book, with numerous links to other related resources, at the following site:

    http://www.theinternet.me/

    There is also a good interview on the home page I linked to above.

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  50. Thanks, ricky. I have a sixteen year old daughter who is absolutely convinced that in Mexico she would already be married and living her dream life. Her mom and grandmother both married by around fourteen but to men in their forties. Obviously it did not work out all that great or daughter would not be here with me. Is that normal to get married that young and to older guys or is it just her perspective from her own narrow life experience?

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  55. Thanks for the contest info JaniceG.

    I buy real butter, too, but I use so little of it that it sits in the refrigerator forever until I figure it’s too old. Can you freeze butter? I guess I should buy 1 cube at a time.

    Man-on-the-street interviews went pretty much as I expected. Two of the 4 people didn’t want their names used. Sigh. 😦

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  57. Donna, I’ve heard that butter can be frozen. I’ve never done it, as we go through it so fast here, but it sounds like it works out fine from what I’ve heard.

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  58. Ooh, looks like I just got #57. And Peter and Mumsee were just around here not too long ago. I hope I’m not in trouble.

    And where has Kevin B. been? Isn’t he another ’57er?

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  60. I did not want to say anything when you took it. And that is a good question, six arrows, where exactly is my little brother? Seems like you grabbed fifty seven awfully quickly. Any chance you nudged him with an elbow? Stomped him with a boot? Hmmmm???

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  61. You have always given the impression of a nice gentle sort. But then, so has Donna and we all know what happens when she gets in a frenzy. Some of us still have bruises.

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  66. Mumsee, In Mexico your daughter might well be married. Living her dream life is something else. Mexicans and recent Mexican immigrants do get married and have children at early ages. It is common for girls to get married between 16 and 20. Mexican women are also more likely than Anglos to marry older men who are family friends rather than classmates. The longer they are in the US, the more “Americanized” they become.

    Your real issue may be that the Mexican culture does not highly value education. It values hard work and toughness for men and beauty and motherhood for women. My wife grew up among Anglos and wanted an education. For this, most of her relatives thought she was odd.

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  67. That does seem to be the issue though she is working very hard at getting her education. But, because she is already many years ahead of her mom (second grade), I think she thinks she has done enough. I wondered if what you describe might be the problem. We are trying to get across to her that her education and allowing the young man she has set her sights on to get his education will help her in the long run. But she ran into a waiter at a restaurant who told her about his niece, younger than her and already married. She thinks she is turning into an old spinster or something.

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  68. We freeze butter all the time. we cut it into smaller sizes and just pull out what we need when we need it. We also freeze cheddar cheese. If you let it thaw right out to room temperature, it doesn’t crumble and is much like just refrigerated cheddar. However, low-fat cheddar does not freeze well at all.

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  72. Mumsee, my husband is a first generation American. His mother married in Mexico at age 24 to a man 9 years her senior, who was a family friend. He brought his wife to the US where he had been legally working. In a few years they became citizens. They went on to raise 8 children. She taught them to read in Spanish before they started school. She was also very insistent that they all finish at least high school and encouraged them to attend college. My husband has some cousins whose mother did not value education as much as his. There were 12 in the family and some finished high school, and some did not.

    We will pray with you that she completes her education and waits on the Lord to provide her with a husband in due time.

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  73. Thank you, and if you don’t mind, I will “name drop” a bit. Let her know that I know of several folk of Mexican descent who value education as well as family.

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  80. So sad.

    On the dog walk tonight I saw a couple of flat, deflated Santas; once majestic blow-up lawn decorations that had their plugs pulled. Reduced to a pile of red & white plastic rags littering front lawns.

    And the big inflated skiing Santa had tipped over onto his side. But at least he was still inflated.

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  81. So much talk about food today, and tonight, wouldn’t you know it, I am suddenly sick. I’m pretty sure it was the caramel corn/chocolate covered nuts snack I had tonight. And of course, it happens on the same day I proclaim (@34) that “I hardly ever get sick anymore”. 😦

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  84. I just lost badly at a game of Upwords with my son. Who knew “rabbitted” was a word? Not me 😦 I always thought rabbits were nouns. Now at age 59 I find out that “rabbit” can be a verb. It is still true that you learn something every day (or night).

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  86. Have you heard of Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions? That helped inform me on the health benefits of full-fat foods versus their low-fat versions.

    ******Yes. It is on my list to read. 🙂

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  87. As fat/formerly fat/losing weight people, and as people with two diabetics in the household (as well as a genetic history of diabetes), we do eat non-sugar sweeteners.

    Honestly, if you look at the concerns with most of them, their list of concerns are less than half that of actual sugar. Sugar has all sorts of negative health issues.

    Naturally, though, that’s a choice for every family/person. For us, low-carb comes first, THEN comes whole food with a paleo spin (except we don’t completely dump dairy.)

    It’s working wonders for the kids. My husband and I are doing much better, but still have a long way to go. 🙂

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  89. Tammy, the concerns with sugar-free soda are pretty serious, though. It seems to be habit-forming; in the large quantities in which many consume it, it is very bad for health; and people drink it instead of water. But people “excuse it” as a non-issue since it doesn’t have calories. Sugar is at least natural and not a chemical.

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  90. I won’t drink sugar free but I am still an addict. I don’t drink it very often, as in months go by without it, but if I start again, it is tough to stop. Same with all of the other garbage I eat. I know what it good for me, but I know what is good to my eating thoughts and have a hard time using good sense. Comfort food and stress food and for some reason, I talk myself into thinking I am in a high stress situation and need it. It does help me function in the short term. The Randy Alcorn book is helping with that though, as I see I am not being a good steward of what He has given me to use for His purposes. Hopefully, it will hold.

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  91. I’m afraid I have become an internet addict. I’ve often used it as stress relief in the last almost two years since we’ve had it at home, and sometimes (probably more than I would like to admit) it adds more stress than it removes. Moderation is the key, and that’s a hard one for me.

    However, I’ve also used the piano as stress relief (the Beethoven sonatas are particularly good for this purpose), and that, I think, serves a good purpose, as my kids get to hear some of the standard pieces in the piano repertoire played live — albeit, admittedly, imperfectly 😉

    BTW, Mumsee, what is the Randy Alcorn book to which you refer in #90? I think I remember you mentioning it before, but I don’t recall the title. It sounds like something I should read.

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  93. Thanks, Mumsee. I looked it up on Amazon and liked this from the introduction:

    There is something in this book to offend everyone…Any offenses are simply the by-product of trying to be faithful to the principles of Scripture — which have an annoying tendency to take issue with the way we prefer to think and live.

    I like that kind of straight talk! 😉

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