News for today's 2018: 02/01/11

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

7:36 PM Tukiyooo 0

These are a new favorite in our house! Very yummy & “healthified” to boot!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvtOUfy_G0KR7yDymfaqRbCyZi17mWNEBjvmCEFuX8SLfLnO3Lnpc7JHwyFpCOflG5I3S9v5igY-CKEIFTrpmIbenRN_05vDrvn2UezCdkYscYEh2wPY49tsucZ3lxoNwi-pDSSUp6fcj/s1600-h/DSC09756%5B3%5D.jpg"><img alt="DSC09756" border="0" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp4x44ZvvQfOYs3oLXJbv6ymFrOhnl-nj104ENgPjS7NnE-UVT2rUz9a8BUW9RYD6UB4hNpFWXJSSmKREVZzsrmeF7pl4aJDT7a5pb2xU9nrQCkiPla_736wZghFwUbRIGjc55v6NL4mkQ/?imgmax=800" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-bottom: 0px" title="DSC09756" width="404"></a> <ul> <li>1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour</li> <li>2/3 cup sugar</li> <li>1 teaspoon baking powder</li> <li>1/2 teaspoon baking soda</li> <li>1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon</li> <li>1/4 teaspoon salt</li> <li>2 to 3 medium mashed very ripe bananas</li> <li>3 egg whites</li> <li>1/4 cup canola oil</li> <li>1/4 cup skim milk</li> <li>1 teaspoon vanilla</li> <li>1/3 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips</li></ul> Topping <ul> <li>1 tablespoon sugar</li> <li>1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon</li></ul> <ol> <li>Heat oven to 375 F. Spray bottoms only of 12 regular-size muffin cups with cooking spray, or line with paper baking cups.</li> <li>In large bowl, mix flour, 2/3 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and salt.</li> <li>In medium bowl, beat bananas, egg whites, oil, milk and vanilla with fork until smooth. Stir into flour mixture just until flour is moistened. Gently stir in chocolate chips. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.</li> <li>In small bowl, mix topping ingredients. Sprinkle evenly over batter in cups.</li> <li>Bake 20 to 24 minutes or until light golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Immediately remove muffins from pan to cooling rack.</li></ol> Nutrition Facts: Calories 210; Total Fat 6g; Cholesterol 0mg; Sodium 160mg; Total Carbohydrate 33g (Dietary Fiber 3g, Sugars 18g); Protein 3g Source: <a href="http://www.eatbetteramerica.com">www.eatbetteramerica.com</a> PS Stay tuned tomorrow for a baby/pregnancy update and a nursery sneak peak!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

These are a new favorite in our house! Very yummy & “healthified” to boot! 1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour 2/3 cup sugar 1 teaspoon bak...

Baseball...It Can't Come Fast Enough

5:11 PM Tukiyooo 0

I sit here in the midst of a giant blizzard pining for baseball. It didn't take much for me to get into this stupor. On Facebook I noticed that 97.1 The Ticket out of Detroit was having a "Tiger Talk" with Pat Caputo and Dan Dickerson (Tigers radio play-by-play guy) tonight. Since my plans had fallen through thanks to the snow, I found my evening free. As I continued to listen, I started roaming the Internet for other Tigers information. And as I found more, I eventually crossed leagues and started looking at video for my National League team, the Milwaukee Brewers. Watching the videos, listening to the radio, and reading the articles made me pine for the day when I can turn on the radio any night - regular radio or Internet radio - and listen to one of my two favorite teams. I remember last year having that eternal optimism at the end of March - I seriously thought that the Tigers and the Brewers could meet in the World Series. On one of my many lovely spring walks, I actually debated If they ever met in the World Series, who would I root for? (it took me two seconds to decide: the Tigers) Of course, hope springs eternal, but April brings reality. Eventually as spring segued into summer I settled into a mood where just listening to them play made my day. Dan and Jim (Tigers) and Bob and Cory (Brewers) were great at bringing the game into my living room or car, and their relaxed voices always made it seem like they were talking right to me! Now that it's been over four months since my last baseball game with these two teams, I'm starting to go a little crazy. It became evident to me when I heard about the Tigers' opening day plans and immediately scheduled a trip home around it, so I could listen to the game on the radio as I drove! But even though I'm making all these plans, it still doesn't change the fact that Opening Day is still two months away. So the snow still falls around me, the weather is still bitterly cold, and the drifts pile up. But it doesn't mean I can't dream that it's already spring!

Baseball...It Can't Come Fast Enough

I sit here in the midst of a giant blizzard pining for baseball. It didn't take much for me to get into this stupor. On Facebook I notic...

In Praise of Winter

9:41 AM Tukiyooo 0

Winter is often when we have very mixed emotions about the weather.  It can be gray and bleak, bitter cold and damp, and even a bit treacherous on occasion.  But, I still say that living in a region that still has four seasons is a treat.  I want to share an essay written by Paul Schiff, retired wildlife educator, that was in our Wild Ohio Magazine over 18 years ago.  I think his sentiment still rings true today.  Enjoy! In Praise of Winter by Paul Schiff Winter. Cold, wet, snowy winter.  Bleak, gray, barren, lifeless, depressing winter.  Poetry and song dismiss winter in favor of themes like the good ol' summertime and autumn leaves. It's difficult to find praise of winter, other than when it's referenced as a foreteller of spring.  And yet... There are bright sunny days after a new snow, rosy cheeked children with sleds, snowmen, rabbit tracks to follow and winter birds at the feeder; winter has its moments. For those of us who spend most of our leisure waking moments in the out-of-doors, winter becomes a challenge.  With the challenge met and feet snug in warm comfortable boots, winter is perhaps nature's most revealing time of year. You can see things in winter that are hidden in other times.  Hidden by leaves and the dominance of green and growing things. Last January I saw a red fox sunning itself on a hay bale left in the field.  If the fox hadn't raised its head I might not have noticed. There was a new snow and the red of the fox in the spotlight of winter sun peeking through the clouds was remarkable.  You won't see that in June. I'd walked the day for the fun of seeing tracks and other winter marvels in the new snow.  I followed a pheasant trail until the bright colored bird flushed with a loud cackle from a bittersweet tangle in an old fencerow.  I automatically raised an imaginary shotgun and said "Bang" as my line of sight swung in front of the bird.  Pheasant season was out.  The old boy was safe. A few berries that hung yet on the bittersweet looked like Christmas tree ornaments.  Juncos and song sparrows played hopscotch down the fencerow in front of me as I stopped for a closer look. Fencerows are neat.  They provide food and travel lanes for wildlife of all kinds, especially in the winter.  But they are a landscape feature that is quickly disappearing in favor of larger and larger fields for monocultures of corn and beans. You can walk the riparian corridor of a small stream more easily in winter.  You can see where a mink explored a root tangle and where other animals have visited any unfrozen trickle for a drink.  You can see squirrel leaf nests high among the branches of streamside cottonwoods and sycamores, and where deer have nipped buds and left their hoof prints in the mud or snow. There is of course the occasional deep snow or severe blow--the winter of "76 or the 1950 snow (I don't remember this one, but I've been told it was a doozy).  These memories and the potential of extremes make winter weather watching exciting.  The first thing I do when the weather is at its foulest, is to find some excuses to venture out.  We should all experience this and imagine what it might have been like before the time of flip the switch for creature comfort; and what it's like for wildlife. Wildlife can have a tough time in winter.  When deep snow or freezing rain cover available food survival is a struggle.  Of course wildlife survival is a struggle all year long.  That's part of the plan.  And in truth, wildlife has survived Midwest winters for centuries before people were around to worry about it.  The axe and plow doom more wildlife than the most severe winter.  So dress right, eat your oatmeal.  Just like wildlife, our choices are to adapt or migrate.  If we choose to adapt and explore winter for all it's worth, we should find plenty to like.  And as long as the present rotation of seasons includes just one winter, I wouldn't trade it for any other season.

In Praise of Winter

Winter is often when we have very mixed emotions about the weather. It can be gray and bleak, bitter cold and damp, and even a bit treacher...

There's one thing I'm really good at

5:31 AM Tukiyooo 0

I've been focusing a lot on the negative aspects of my weight loss journey. I often talk about the things I don't do right. It's a never-ending list. I don't always track my food, I eat too much, sometimes I eat things I shouldn't. I don't do this right and I don't do that right. Blah. Blah. Blah. However, in spite of all the things I don't do right, there's one thing I excel at doing  when it comes to a healthy lifestyle and that's exercise. I'm fifty-five years old and throughout my life I've had phases of exercise craziness. I would pick some exercise, such as high-impact aerobics, in my twenties when all my girlfriends were doing it. Or running because I thought that was what all the cool people did and it burned the most calories. Or or weight lifting when I worked at the police department with all the buff police officers and the department had it's own gym. Or whatever exercise struck my fancy, and I'd go full throttle with it. My problem was that I would only do it for a few weeks or maybe a few months, then I'd completely stop, cold turkey. My reasoning was simple. It hurt. Who wants to do something that hurts? I personally don't like pain and have a rather low threshold for it. On February 12, 2008 I started Weight Watchers. At the same time I started going to my gym four times a week. I had been a member since 1996 and had rarely used my membership. After about six months I started going five to six times a week. Now I ofte go for fourteen stretches without a day off. Although recently I'm trying to cut back to taking at least one off day a week. What happened to change me? How did I go from hating to exercise to not hating it so much to almost liking it? How did I go from a couch potato to working out six days a week, 60 to 90 -minute workouts each day? What happened to snap me out of my inactive lifestyle is something I've written about before. You can read about it <a href="http://diana135.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-story-and-my-trigger.html">here</a>. Basically, I felt like hell at 240 pounds. I thought I might be dying, and I might have died if I didn't do something about my physical condition. Since I really didn't want to die yet, I had to start exercising and lose weight. Let's see...death or exercise? Or perhaps a wheelchair or exercise? It was a pretty easy decision. How I started When I started exercising February 12, 2008 at 240 pounds, it was HORRIBLE. I'm talking real pain. I was miserable even just walking on the treadmill. I quickly gave up the treadmill and went to the elliptical. It was still hard, but I could set my own pace without being totally embarrassed. That was my big fear, being embarrassed at the gym. That's so stupid because really, no one gives a damn what you do at the gym. I barely even look at anyone else, because I'm totally focused on myself. When I absolutely hated going to the gym For the first two years I had a "five-minute rule". I decided right at the beginning that I would exercise in the morning. I knew if I tried to work out at night I'd find any excuse in the book to miss a workout. So I started getting up at 4:45 a.m. and was at the gym by 5:15 a.m. There were many mornings when I really thought I'd just rather die than go to the gym. The problem was that I probably would die if I didn't exercise. I decided to start my "five-minute rule". It's really simple, when I would wake up and think "I'm exhausted, I don't want to get up and go to the gym. I don't want to exercise and feel pain! I hate this!", this is what I would tell myself: "Diana, get up, get dressed. Get in the car. Drive to the gym. Go inside. Get on any piece of equipment you want. Exercise five minutes. If you're so miserable you can't stand it, you have permission to go home. Stop thinking about it and just do it." Just knowing I could go home if I wanted to, took away a lot of the pressure. I had an out if I needed it. In three years I've only left the gym one time after five minutes. I had bronchitis and really had no business exercising. The funny thing is that I haven't even thought about my five-minute rule for months. Now I just tell myself to stop thinking about it and go. I rarely give it much thought. I just do it. After three years, it's become a part of my life. I can't imagine ever stopping. I have more tips for getting into an exercise frame of mind, but it's almost 9:30 p.m. 5:15 a.m. comes really early so I have to go to bed now.  More about exercise tomorrow.

There's one thing I'm really good at

I've been focusing a lot on the negative aspects of my weight loss journey. I often talk about the things I don't do right. It's...

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Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Baseball...It Can't Come Fast Enough

In Praise of Winter

There's one thing I'm really good at

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