A Diet that Really Works!

Here are two red snappers, baked to perfection, peaches in between. I cannot remember the rest of the meal, but it must have been some wild rice, a side of vegetables from the garden, and a huge green salad.

This was a celebratory meal, and no doubt, we had a huge puffy lemon soufflé for dessert (and everyone scraped the last browned bits from the dish.)

When we retired (and moved to this restaurant desert), we no longer ate out- possibly once a month, if that. In not eating out you'll save at least a thousand of dollars a year!

My husband was, at 5'11", maybe 250 lbs. I was, at 5'6" closing in on 145 lbs. Not pretty. We never exactly decided to do something about this state. But my husband bought a stationary bike, and I invested in some exercise DVD's. We have been stalwart in our devotion to the morning exercise, and I have been a devotee of my Fitbit that tracks the number of steps and stairs climbed each day. It also helps that we have to do a lot of work on our property and in the garden.

But, I do not think that the exercise program is the most key thing. Right now, I am a slim 120 lbs and my husband has lost more than 80 lbs. The weight loss has left us maybe more wrinkled than we'd like, but we love being slim and fit.

When we were working full time, we ate out a lot, at home and on the road. At the end of the day, no one wanted to cook or shop for food.

O.K. THE DIET.

First, you do not have to count calories or be concerned with fat. You can eat anything you want, all you can eat. You do not have to be concerned with sodium content or fiber or vitamins.

THE BIG THING!  Everything you eat has to be made from scratch! This means no convenience foods, frozen entrees, rotisserie chickens, canned soups, Ritz crackers. (you can use panco crumbs). You can use canned or boxed tomatoes, especially the low sodium ones. You cannot use anything that has no more than three ingredients listed.

Of course, you can use flour, sugar, butter, olive oil etc. These are basic. You cannot use bottled salad dressings, boxed mac and cheese, frozen entrees, pancake mix, cake mix.

If you are not using any convenience ingredients, you'll have to be imaginative, and think ahead about what you'll cook, learn about the local vegetable purveyors. Your fridge will seem bare without all those convenience foods. There will be lunchtimes when you open the fridge and THERE IS NOTHING TO EAT! So, you'll just eat a p and j sandwich and vow to cook a few hard boiled eggs for the next day.

As you begin this diet, I recommend having lots of yogurt and cottage cheese on hand, also nuts.

So, as night falls and I am ravenous, I go up to the main house. "What's for dinner?' I ask. Tonight it's brown rice with chicken and oranges, a huge green salad with lots of mushrooms, black beans. Very satisfying indeed.

If you eat everything made from scratch you'll lose weight, I promise.

On Becoming a Naturalist

 Every day I walk around our property - the two acre yard and all that is beyond, and I am constantly amazed at the small and large world I see. Here in the pink Muhlie grass I see some new wild coreopsis with tiny yellow flowers, different from so many other wild coreopsis that may have red or brown centers. In the dark center of this photo is a gopher tortoise burrow and I think there is another entrance about twenty feet away in the old asparagus bed.

Hardly anyone I know is interested in paying attention to these small wonders; they see the splashy reds and oranges of the huge zinnias that are now blooming in the garden. These hardy flowers are out to please us all. A few days ago I brought in a fistful of zinnias for the table. I also included a couple of flowering dill heads (I love their smell).  A couple of days later I noticed that there were the tiniest of black specks on the table, and then, on closer inspection I saw that these specks were caterpillar frass. The dill blossoms were hosting several small caterpillars, probably queen butterflies. Each day I love to watch them plump out as I eat my cheerios and blueberries. Tomorrow I will take them outside so that they can find the right places to construct their cocoons. 

All my life I have been interested in these small and large natural wonders, and now I can spend time in observing everything around me here in a remote part of central Florida. I am becoming somewhat expert in knowing the wildflowers here, the shrubs and trees in the woods, some of the mushrooms, and every day I am quiet enough in my solitary rambles to see deer, wild pigs, bobcats.  I am good on the larger birds and the water birds on the pond, but, so far, I am defeated in the identification of warblers. Mostly, they are LBJ's (little brown jobs). I check out the footprints of the critters who have been around, and I have recently been consulting a book on scat. 

Some nights, after I have watched the bats start out, I love to put on my headlamp and walk to the pond to observe the red eyes of the alligators and the white eyes of the frogs. And I also love to train my light on the thousands of spiders making their webs in the grass which, by morning, if the dew is right , will be a magical carpet of silvery web.

As I brush my teeth at night I watch the dozens of green squirrel tree frogs hunting on the big window. When some of them get inside I am adept at catch and release.

I am interested when I discover a yellow rat snake inside the fertilizer container. He's fat and bumpy, having gorged on the frogs who usually live there. I am interested that a coral snake hangs out underneath and I don't bother it.

I think my life has been heading this way since I was very young. I still know where the snowdrops bloom in the town I grew up in in upstate New York and I could tell you where the butterfly plants grow in New Hampshire and where the best fiddleheads are in Providence, R.I. and where one can find lady slippers in the woods of western Connecticut. I noticed those things in a concentrated way. I did not notice anything architectural. When I was young and accompanying my father on his archeological digs what I noticed were the lizards and insects and the tiny wild flowers growing on the sites.

Being a teacher gave me a lot of scope to explore the natural world. I have been happy that so many of the students I have taught decided to make their way into science and ecology.

And still, the graduation quilts

These are the graduation quilts of four years ago, (for my posse) and since then there have been many more, but I do not want to post the latest because everyone loves a surprise.

When I make these quilts for graduations and weddings and births and other highlights of life's great moments, I think intensely about each recipient. I spend hours selecting and piecing and creating and sewing. Sometimes, I think about the tiny Asian women in sweat shops who make the quilts for Garnet Hill and such. They do not have the creative leisure I do, but I do appreciate those quilts.

It takes many hours to make a quilt. First the idea, and then a trip to the quilt store to add to the fabric I already have. The best part is trying out the colors. My "clients" often ask for certain colors or themes and I try my best to accommodate them. I am loathe to spend so many hours on something purple and dark green.. I never make anything traditional.

Over the years, and hundreds of quilts made, I have learned a lot about how to do this. It doesn't take nearly as much time now, and since I have my great collaborator, Laurie, who finally does the final quilting on her long arm machine, it isn't the tedium of hand-quilting the finished thing. And the product is much stronger.

My studio is now cleaned up after my last quilt - everything fairly spiffy, now ready for the next project, a baby quilt for a friend. She's having a girl and I'm thinking of not doing anything pink and princess.. I have a lot of sailboat fabric. (girls sail)

It is midsummer, rainy season here, and every afternoon the heavens part and torrential rain happens. The earth is soggy, the creek from the river is rising under the bridge to the delight of millions of frogs, and my hair curls.

The seed order for the fall gardens- both mine and the one for the school community, has arrived. This is the season in a central Florida vegetable gardening when we can relax and maybe take out the dead tomato plants, quell the biomass, and only harvest eggplants and okra for supper. With all the rain I never think about watering anything. All is potential! We have built some new planter beds, the compost is thick and ready to put on the beds for the fall garden.

I am loving my residence here in the steamy summer
with all the rain and dramatic clouds every day. I love the loud froggy calls and the constant buzz of the hummingbirds on the six feeders and in the garden.  As I came up to the main house from my studio for supper there were three deer were grazing in the pasture and a couple of turkey families with their young were pecking around.