"I always seem to age here!"

Happy Birthday to me - yes, today is my birthday and as my dear friend Melissa tells me I'm turning 39 for the first time!!

Friday night for dinner I made cabbage soup, which normally everyone but my two boys love - but I decided to mess with tradition and used tomatoes with no salt added instead of stewed tomatoes, I omitted the salt and cut back on the seasoning salt and also used only about half of the ground beef I should have.  I'll admit it's not as good as I hoped and will be reverting back to the original recipe in future.

We had a very busy weekend with Thanksgiving celebrations.  On Saturday we took the kids to a winery in Niagara-On-The-Lake to get some wine and pick up a donation for Scrap Cancer.  Then we took the kids to a book fair and we all got a new book.  Then came home and it was John's turn to make dinner.  He barbecued pork chops (not much seasoning on mine!), made canned corn niblets (only had a small spoonful as there is a high sodium content), rice, and raw baby carrots for me!  John and I went to the movies that night and saw "Pitch Perfect" - looooved it!!  Hilarious!!!  I was trying to be good and ordered a berry smoothie instead of popcorn dripping with butter.  However, John had the popcorn and once he ate through the butter infused layer, I did help myself to some tasty morsels underneath.  Afterall, people keep telling me not to go cold turkey on everything or I'm apt to fail at this.

Sunday morning, after church,  John got suckered into Pizza Hut for lunch by the kids and since they've been doing pretty good with our lifestyle changes, I agreed - I mean, they did eat Brussel sprouts a few days before - so they deserved something!!!  When we got home I made two pumpkin pies to take to my  sister-in-laws' house for Thanksgiving.  We then changed into our running gear and headed to the track - BUT the sky opened up on us and the rain was coming down something fierce.  I was determined to finish 3 laps though which I did do, John and Jakey did 4 laps each and the other two wimped out and stayed dry in the car!  After showering and changing we headed to Julie & Jays for a Thanksgiving feast!

What a spread!!  Jay goes all out every year for this event.  He donned his black chef's coat and hat, and with his beard he kind of looked like a Rabbi or something!!!  Jay made some great appetizers too which I couldn't eat, but wish I could have sampled one of his asparagus/prosciutto concoctions.  Anyways, he made two types of turkey, oven roasted and deep fried Cajun.  I only ate the one cooked in the oven as I'm avoiding things that are fried altogether now.  The turkey along with my mother-in-laws' homemade cranberry sauce was so delicious!!!  I was disappointed that there wasn't any squash but there were so many veggie dishes (carrots, yams, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, potatoes, peppers) to choose from!!  Lots of desserts too!! 

Yesterday I woke up in a panic because my left arm felt numb.  I started freaking out thinking it had something to do with my heart and became totally irrational about it.  Most likely I slept on it funny but with the BP and cholesterol scare, I seem to be magnifying things.  My aunt also mentioned to me that I should see my doctor about my headaches as with my high BP it could lead to cerebral bleeding, so I was getting kind of freaked out about things that might happen.  So, I'm lying in bed worrying about my arm, then worrying about my heart, heart begins to race uncontrollably, panic increases...oh, pets reduce hypertension!  Rocket ( my dog), where are you?  I grabbed Rocket who was on the bed and snuggled him until I calmed down and all was right again.  Oh, and by the way, my headaches are gone now!!

I made another pumpkin pie to take to my mom's house for dinner and then started to make the 300 mushroom-shaped sugar cookies I was asked to do for a Breast Cancer Support Services event on Wednesday night.  These cookies have lots of shortening, eggs and sugar in them.  Usually, I sample broken cookies along the way - but I'm proud to say I did not lay tongue to cookie at all!  My other little vultures in the house took care of all the broken ones for me  ...so did their dad!!!

We had another great turkey dinner at Mom & Bill's - and I got my squash after all!!!!  Yeah!!!  My mom made lemon tarts as well for dessert and I had two of them - really wanted to eat another one or two, but am gradually learning some self control!!!  I also had a very small piece of pumpkin pie.  We got home around 8 pm and I was up till 11 pm baking the rest of the cookies.

"I always seem to age here!" - quote from Colin Firth during the question period following the viewing of his new movie "Arthur Newman" at the Toronto International Film Festival.  It coincidentally was Colin's birthday that day, and I was only too pleased to be sharing it with him, if only in that small way - being that we were in the same room!  We all sang happy birthday to him!  I later left this post-it note on John's white board in his office when he left the room:

So, today I am 39 years old!  Hoping to make it to at least 40 before I have to start taking meds for blood pressure and/or cholesterol.  I went to a meeting at our church this morning and was greeted with a Happy Birthday from my Mother-in-Law which was nice.  Afterwards, she wanted to hear more about my cholesterol etc and she was very supportive and tried to talk me into getting my own blood pressure machine so I can take the measurement in the comfort of my own home where I'm likely to be more relaxed - makes perfect sense, so when Scrap Cancer is over in the next couple of weeks, I think I'll look into that.

After that I went to workout at Curves.  Checked my weight - and down again!!!!  Yeah!!! Not quite enough to earn my next Colin perk ("The Kings' Speech") but almost!  I was 150.25 lbs, so I missed it by a smidgen!!  But progress is progress, and  I will progress progressively!!

My friend Melissa took me out for a "healthy" lunch today at a place called Stoney's in Oakville.  It was 'soup'erb!!!  I had the butternut squash and pear soup and a spinach salad with fresh berries and candied pecans.  Let me tell you, that soup was THE BEST squash soup I have ever tasted!!!  Thanks Mel for taking me - what a treat!!!  Who knew healthy food could taste so darned good?

The rest of my day has been spent working on decorating these 300 damned cookies!!  Ughh!  I've got the whole family working an assembly line, well, they were but they dropped off to bed at 10 pm and left me to my own devices.  So now, I must conclude and head back up to the kitchen where the last 100 mushrooms await packaging so that I can eventually go to bed for some much needed rest.

Colin, you can age here anytime!!!  Do you like mushrooms perchance?  Bon nuit!