Gardening and Shingles

So my gardening madness has begun. Two days ago I started 3 cilantro plants and 3 basil plants. (from seeds) My living room is a disaster area. I set up a gardening station on my small bistro table by the window. But it's a happy mess. Unlike the other side of the living room along with the dining room and kitchen. A hurricane hit Yonkers on Saturday. (not really but thats what I'm calling it) It blew the shingles off the roof and there was a leak in my kitchen. So I removed all of the food and it's living on my dining room table. I have had all sorts of pots and containers catching the water coming into the kitchen. Then the landlord came over and had to climb to the attic through my closet to put pans up there so it could catch the water before it leaked down to us. So needless to say, all of the stuff in my storage closet had to come out so he could climb up. Who puts an attic entrance inside a closet anyway? Since I know he'll be back to bring down those ginormous pans, I didn't see a point to putting the stuff back into the closet. So it's sitting on what should be the tidy side of the living room. (the unhappy mess)

But back to gardening... I can't wait to get to the backyard and clean away all of the leaves and branches and start tilling the soil. I'm waiting for the soil to dry up completely so I can get to it. I'm off from work tomorrow cuz it's St. Patrick's Day and I was hoping to do it then but I don't know if it will be dry by then. I've never been a person who liked spring and summer. I'm more an autumn kinda girl, but now that I'm gardening, I love this time of year. Tonight I think I'll start 4 tomato plants and 3 lettuce plants. In the middle of August, I'm planting spinach, but that I'm planting directly outside. I won't start them indoors.

It's almost quitting time and I'm completely restless and hungry. I've been looking at the new food network magazine that just arrived and I have about 7 recipes that I want to try. But not tonight. Tonights menu is meat loaf (from stew leonards... not homemade) and some Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) with broccoli and homemade cheese sauce. My husband was eating one of those green giant vegetable thingys that you microwave and it was a rice with cheddar broccoli or something. I want to try my own healthier homemade version so we'll see how that goes.

Going as Organic as I can

So I really like junk food. I have 100 calorie chips and a 60 calorie no sugar added pudding everyday. But I definitely practice self control. I've been watching my calorie intake and I've lost about 8 pounds. The only way I've been able to do it is to have low calorie, low fat snacks so I won't feel so deprived. I never go overboard and have a lot, but I do have them everyday.

Today I clicked on a link about 12 food additives to avoid. It mentioned the effects of these food additives as well as the foods they can be found in. And now I want to go on a rampage. I want to throw out my puddings, fat free salad dressings, 40 calorie fudgesickles and potato chips and substitute them for healthier alternatives. We already eat about 80% organic/natural. We eat lots of fresh veggies. My husband and daughter eat lots of fruit. I like them, but for some reason, don't eat them. But I will start. The other 20% that we eat is either not organic or just unhealthy low calorie snacks that I eat to get through the day. I cook homemade A LOT. But now, I just want to make sure I do that more often. I can't bake yet because it's still Lent. But once Lent is over, I will have healthy homemade desserts.

From now on, we will try to only buy things when we can pronounce all of the ingredients on the label. If it has a long list of chemicals, we won't buy it. My husband and I saw Supersize Me about 7 or 8 months ago and we haven't eaten any fast food since. (thank you Jesus) We already buy healthy alternatives to ice cream. We buy organic frozen yogurt. Today I found healthy alternative to potato chips. We have found healthy alternatives to dip. We not eat hummus by the bucket-load. So we don't eat terribly but nevertheless, I still feel we can do so much better. And I am VERY inspired to do so. The closer it is to the way God made it, the better it is for you.

Thankfully, my husband really doesn't mind what we buy or what we eat. He makes life easy. But I don't think he is going to want me to throw out the case of puddings we bought from costco...