Ode to a slow metabolism

I really dislike exercising. Really I do. Which may owe to the fact that hips, butt and thighs are yea wide. I love to plan for it and I'm really great at it. I enter the days in my Outlook calendar which syncs to my Google calendar which can text me reminders & emails. The Google then syncs to my iphone which I have push notifications that are 2 & 1 hour prior to event reminders. I'm awesome at planning for exercise. But executing the plan never goes off too smoothly. I see the reminders & close them. Finding another lame excuse not to do it. For instance, a few weeks back I bought the Chalean Extreme DVDs. Made it through the 1st week & loved it. But stopped. Why? Who knows? I mean - it is 35 freaking minutes!! I can do this!! Self sabotage it is.  So - I started back up again this week & vow to make it through the 90 days. Once again - it is 35 minutes or so for each session unlike the hour + of P90x. I have Day 1 completed and will begin to plan for the rest of the week.

I'm also working on my eating habits. Like my exercising - I PLAN to eat well. Then i see the "Light" ice cream. Yes it is only 140 cal per serving - that I agree with. but when you sit & eat 1/2 the container watching "Leverage" with all kinds of caramel topping all over - it no longer becomes "Light" it becomes a meal. So I told my husband we can no longer have ice cream in the house. I am weak and if he loves me he will deal with it.
With the summer garden it has been pretty eating to incorporate more veggies. We have tomatoes, green beans, tomatoes, eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini and did I mention tomatoes?? So I bought a bag of salad and a few mushrooms and wha-la! Dinner!! I'm going to go crazy tonight and add some shrimp to the mix. I know... I'm wild.

Dinner from the garden...

Tomatoes are in full swing now. The cherry tomatoes are ripening so quickly that we are giving them away. My neighbors are very happy about this. On my own this evening so I must whip up what I harvested from the garden. Tons of tomatoes, beans & zucchini to work with. Weeks ago I saw a recipe which involved tomatoes & almond slivers - unable to find anywhere on the internet now. Usually I save everything in Delicious but for some reason I didn't. Going insane - so I had to wing it.

I just mixed the almonds & tomatoes - amazing. Also made onions with green beans then some sesame parmesan zucchini. It was pretty tasty!!

Now tomorrow will be eggplant!! I love summer!!

Our sunflowers are finally blooming also...... I forgot how beautiful they are.

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

First it was zucchini. TONS of it. I have in my freezer 40+ 2 cup ziplock bags of shredded zucchini that I will have on hand to make bread whenever it is needed. Which, come winter, will be alot. Now we have tomatoes coming out of our ears.
See - I got real ambitious at the start of the season. I initially had started all my plants from seed but they ended up dying prior to transplant. So I went to a local nursery which had beautiful plants for super cheap prices! Like 50 cents a plant - I went crazy. Buying 14 tomatoes plants, 8 eggplant, tons of cucumber & zucchini plants. Keep in mind there are 3 people in our family. And my husband, who loves the conquest of harvesting, really doesn't eat that many veggies.

So now we have 14 tomatoes plants in our garden(s) and of course they are all ripening at once.
We have 2 gardens - our lower garden has the majority of tomatoes with corn, eggplant and a few zucchini plants. The upper garden only has 2 tomato plants but has the core of cucumber & zucchini plants with a bit of corn also. Our cucumbers turned out mostly yellow. Which initially bothered me since I had read that if they turned yellow they were over ripe & bitter. Turns out I had bought "Lemon" cucumbers. Very tasty!! We did try lettuce & carrots but I think the soil is too tight for them. On our porch I have 3 - 18 gallon bins with 2 plants each - those have tons of green tomatoes a present time - but of course they will ripen all at once. I am looking at canning recipes for them since we will not be able to eat of all them. Next... beans. We have it least 6 pole bean plants climbing up different parts of our deck. What was I thinking!!

End of summer

Wow - so this summer has flown by so quickly. I vowed at the beginning of summer to blog more. I was wrong. Our schedule with Emily & swim team proved to be very busy. But we loved it!!
Emily did so well this year!! This was her first season in rec swimming and by the end of the season she has dramatically decreased her times. So much in backstroke that she won an award at the end of the season!! She took 3rd place in freestyle at "B" championships -  out of 76 other swimmers. I can begin to express how darn proud of her I am!! She has the month of August off and then will start back up in Sept.
Sarah has her last week of school at the BCIU. Then we will have about 3 weeks off and then she starts kindergarten. I'm so excited for her. She will be in fuill day school - 5 days a week. This is going to be great for her!! Things are going well for her. She is tolerating her bolus feedings so much better than she has before. Though i still wish she would be able to take more in.
So on my wish list... blog more. I know... it's been said before. :)