top ten (tuesday): Pancake Tuesday

In honor of Pancake Tuesday and Lent (and maybe blogging again?) I’m reposting my Top Ten (Tuesday) from last year…

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I’m linking up to ohamanda for Top Ten (Tuesday)!  What is your Top Ten today?

Have you ever heard of Shrove Tuesday, also known as Pancake Tuesday?  It is the Tuesday before Lent begins (on Ash Wednesday).  Here are 10 things to learn about the tradition of Shrove Tuesday.

1. Shrove is the past tense of shrive which means ‘to go to or make a confession’. Historically, Christians would go to confession to prepare themselves for the season of Lent.

2. Shrove Tuesday began in the Middle Ages.  It was noted in history dating back to 1000 AD.

3. In many countries, especially the United Kingdom, Shrove Tuesday is known as Pancake Tuesday.  It became known as Pancake Tuesday because people had to use up all the food that was ‘forbidden’ during Lent which included eggs and dairy products.  Pancakes became the popular choice to use up all these ingredients.

4. The Pancake Day tradition tells the story of a housewife getting ready for Shrove Tuesday. She was cooking up all her pancakes and lost track of time when she heard the ‘shriving bell’ ringing, calling her to church.  She raced to church in her apron with her frying pan still in her hand.

5. Pancake Races are held all over the world on Shrove Tuesday especially in England. Women dress up in their aprons with their frying pans and a pancake and race through the town to church when the bell rings, all the while flipping their pancakes.

6. The most famous Pancake Day Race is held in Olney, England. This is where the original housewife ran to church with her frying pan in 1445.  The race happens each year on Shrove Tuesday and begins at 11:55am and participants run 415 yards dressed in the traditional costume of a housewife with a skirt, apron, head covering, and frying pan.  Participants must have lived in Olney for at least 3 months.

7. Here are some traditional pancake recipes.

8. Shrove Tuesday has become a day of indulgence and revelry.  Although it originally began as a day of confession to prepare yourself for Lent it has become a day of overindulgence and partying … ‘getting it all in’ before you deprive yourself during Lent.

9. Other traditions for Shrove Tuesday are Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Carnival, Malasada Day,  and Fasnacht.

10.  Shrove Tuesday is 47 days before Easter. The Lenten season is 40 days before Easter, however they don’t count Sundays because those are considered ‘mini-resurrection days’ to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.

We’re having pancakes for dinner tonight… anyone else?

 

jumping in

Wow.  My last post was back in March.  I’ve thought about posting periodically in these last five months… but then I haven’t because I’ve been overwhelmed by a)thinking I need to have a plan for my posts; b)not feeling witty or interesting; and c)not feeling like I can commit to blogging regularly.

Whatever.

I’m just going to jump in and say hello.

And leave you with a recent picture.

at a recent wedding in Maryland

Maybe, I’ll be back soon.

losing it:week 5

This is week 5 of the Losing It challenge.  Head over to Giving Up On Perfect to see how everyone is doing!

Goals:

• Track: so far, so good
• Run: yeah, baby!  I have run 4 times since last Friday… a total of 8 miles!  I’m gearing up to do a 3mi run some time this weekend.
• Drink: yup!

So, this week sticking to my goals has been something that I have been able to do.  I’m not sure that I’m seeing the results on the scale… but we’ll see.  Earlier this week, I weighed in at WW and lost 1lb.  That brings my total weight loss percentage for this challenge to 3.8% (if I did my math correctly).

My college roommate posted one of my favorite weight loss sayings in her FB status today.  This is what she wrote:

“They say ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’.  I don’t know, I’ve been skinny and I’ve eaten great food…they’re both pretty awesome.”

What do you think?  Does “nothing taste as good as being skinny feels”?

top ten (tuesday): Easter Traditions – revisited

In light of the Easter season, I’ve decided to re-post this post from last year!  Here are 10 Easter traditions that we have…

10. The Miracle Maker – great movie!

9. Cadbury eggs – yum!

8. Palm Sunday Baptisms – our church has a traditions of doing baptisms on Palm Sunday.  It is one of the most powerful services we have every year.

7. Easter Baskets – my mom always used to hide our Easter baskets in the house and we would get up and search for them before church.

6. Easter Breakfast – another tradition our church has is a free community breakfast before our combinded Easter service at our local high school (we usually have 3 services every Sunday).  It is a great time for our entire church to come together once a year.

5. New Easter Outfit – I always get a new outfit for Easter Sunday… do you?

4. Easter Bunny cake – my mom has a great (easy) recipe/instructions for making an Easter Bunny cake… it looks something like this:

3.  Decorating eggs – its been a few years since I have done this but I know it will be something that I do again once I have kids that are older.

2. Family Dinner – always a big part of our Easter Sunday…

1. Special Easter Church Events – over the last several years we have participated in special events at our church during Easter.  The picture below was taken from something that we did last year called Experiencing Jesus’ Passion – an interactive experience of the Easter story involving art and drama.  This year we are planning on attending a combined Good Friday service and then celebrating Easter Sunday with our traditional Easter Breakfast and combined campus Easter Service at the local high school.

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Want to see some more Top Ten Tuesday lists?  Hop over to ohamanda.com and visit the other Top Ten Tuesday links.  There are some great posts out there!

monday menus & deals

Okay, so after a few ‘off’ weeks I’m attempting to get back on my regular blogging schedule.

This month I have been doing quite a bit of stockpiling and making use of some of the great CAT deals at Shaw’s.  (fyi: I’m in the process of writing a few step by step posts about extreme couponing… stay tuned!)  We recently purchased a used chest freezer from some friends and I have been able to fill it up will all of the great C.H.I.L.L deals that have been going on this month.

This week at Shaw’s there is a sale on Edy’s ice cream: Buy 1 get 2 FREE!  Edy’s is also part of the C.H.I.L.L CAT so if you get 10+ cartons you get a $10 coupon off your next order at Shaw’s.  Last night  I bought 4 cartons, got 8 free and received a $10 CAT.  The ice cream works out to be approx. $1.10 per carton.

I haven’t been keeping track of my budget this month (on the to do list!) but with all the stockpiling we’ll see how it comes out.  I’ll try to update soon!

Menu:
Monday – Pesto Ziti w/garlic bread
Tuesday – Tilapia (on sale @MB $3.99lb) w/baked pot and veg
Wednesday – Grilled Chicken on salad
Thursday –  Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake
Friday – Pizza

Market Basket Deals:

• Fresh Express Salad – $.99
• Tilapia – $3.99lb
• FREE Bottled Water coupon w/purchase of Crystal Light – but you don’t have to get the Crystal Light to use the coupon! Find the coupon tear pad in the bottled water aisle.

losing it:week 4

This is week 4 of the Losing It challenge.  Head over to Giving Up On Perfect to see how everyone is doing!

Goals:

• Track: not so much
• Run: nada
• Drink: um… kind of.

This has been an off week for me.  Earlier this week I weighed in at WW and only lost .4 lb.  Yeah, I didn’t even bother doing the math to see what percentage that was.  I flaked out last weekend on my ‘no carb’ deal… i just couldn’t stick with it. Blah.  And then we went to the Great Buffet 2 – yup… Chinese food plus some… what was I thinking?  I have no idea how close I will get to my goal before vacation… but I’ve got to keep trying.

Oh well… today is a new day.  And it is a GORGEOUS one here in New England!

Although this week has been super hectic (GSS Board Mtg, MOPS set up, MOPS meeting, work, prepping for Family Night at church tonight), I have managed to be semi-reasonable and I am still hoping for another loss.  And once things wrap up tonight, I am looking forward to relaxing this weekend and I am even going to try to go for a run.  Woot! Woot!

losing it:week 3

This is week 3 of the Losing It challenge.  Head over to Giving Up On Perfect to see how everyone is doing!

Goals:

• Track: ummm… about 60%
• Run: ran once-then got sick
• Drink: doing ok with this one

This week I lost 1.1% of my total body weight (1.6lbs).  Not bad but I need to kick it up a notch if I want to reach my goal weight before vacation.  I have 10 pounds to go!

I weigh in at WW earlier in the week so I have already begun looking ahead toward my next weigh in.  This week I decided that I was going to mix things up and try my South Beach/WW combo diet that has been successful for me in the past when I have wanted to kick it up a notch.  So this week I have been eating eggs (local duck eggs from What Did She Do Today -thank you, again!) for breakfast, cheese sticks, and lots of salads with chicken or tuna on them.  I am hopeful that this will prove to be a banner weigh in next week!

In other news, the whole family has been sick so that has made it hard to exercise.  I’m hoping that once we get over these colds that the husband and I can spend some quality time at the gym together.

blerg

mollie is enjoying they great outdoors this week

This picture pretty much sums up our week.  Although the weather has been gorgeous up here in New England we have not been feeling too great.  My apologies for neglecting my blog in the last several days.  Here is why:

• Mollie came down with a nasty cold/fever last Friday and the boogies and cough are still hanging around.  Fortunately she is back to sleeping 11+ hours, although we had a few rough nights at the beginning.
• Erik and I promptly got the cold on Sunday/Monday and now we are trying to recover.
• I got my first ever UTI today.  Yay.  Thank you Jesus for antibiotics (and for Jan and Mary willing to watch the baby while I went to the doctor).

Hope life is treating you well… we’ll see you when the snot clears.

losing it:week 2

This is week 2 of the Losing It challenge.  Head over to Giving Up On Perfect to see how everyone is doing!

Goals for last week:

• maintain my goals from last week (track, run, drink): Track – did ok; Run – not at all; Drink – yup
• lose 3lbs (yikes!): not so much… but I did lose 1.2lbs (.82%)

This past week I had to pay for Weight Watchers.  I am a lifetime member which means that I don’t have to pay to attend meetings/weigh in unless I’m 2+pounds above my goal weight.  When I returned to Weight Watchers after Mollie, they said I could have 9 months to get back to my goal weight before I would have to start paying. Woot, woot!  Yeah, that was about 5 months ago… and I am still 12 pounds away from my goal.  But it’s ok.  I actually think this might help me be a little more motivated knowing that WW is getting my money!

My weight loss journey began in my early 2os and it was a time of spiritual, emotional, and physical growth for me.  I first joined WW(for real)  in 2001, when I was 23.  I was out of college and I was at my highest weight, ever.  I had always been heavy in high school, and then heavier in college.  Food was a comfort, and I was ignorant about how to manage my intake of food.  A close friend from college joined Weight Watchers and this motivated me to try it out.  It was right around this time of year, late Feb/early March, and I remember attending a worship service at a local church where they invited us to write down a ‘burden’ and leave it at the altar.  I wrote down, I tangibly acknowledged, my struggle with food and my weight.   I truly believe that this, along with WW, was a turning point for me and was a HUGE part of the reason I was able to be successful with my weight loss.

I had joined WW in high school but didn’t ever really do the program seriously (that was before POINTS and the whole thing confused me and seemed like too much work), and I never stayed for meetings.  But this time, when I was 23, I attended meetings (with my Mom at first because she had to lose like 2 pounds) and really committed to the program.  And I saw results.  Over the course of the next 18 months, I lost about 45 pounds.  I never quite made it to my goal for my age/height range but I was pleased with where I was at and eventually stopped attending (I’ll let you know how I got to lifetime another time).  Not only had I changed physically, but as I went through the process of losing weight, I had become a healthier person in all aspects of my life.  I was less focused on finding comfort from food, and more focused on finding comfort in God; I was able to step out and become a part of a new church and new group of friends (which included my not-so-soon-to-be husband); I moved out and began my life as a single, independent woman.

I know this sounds corny, but I am so grateful for WW.  Yeah, I know.  BUT, I feel like the program truly gave me the tools to reach the goals I needed to attain to become a healthier person.  And I don’t mind giving them my money because so far it has been worth every penny!

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Goals for this week: 

• Track
• Run – I NEED to do this!
• Drink

wednesday weigh in:eggs

Thank you What Did She Do Today? and husband for the eggs that you surprised me with this afternoon!  It was so thoughtful and they are much appreciated!  In honor of the fresh, local eggs (both duck and chicken) that are sitting in our fridge now I’m going to talk about eggs today.

In one of my weight loss episodes along my journey, I tried South Beach.  Of course, I did South Beach within the confines of Weight Watchers POINTS because I have ‘drank the splenda sweetened cool-aid’ and can’t look at a piece of food without seeing a points value floating above it.  It’s just my frame of reference.  In the first two weeks of the South Beach plan you cut out all carbs, which meant that I was basically eating tuna on salad, chili, veggies, cheese, and eggs.  Do you realize how many breakfast foods have carbs?  Pretty much I just ate eggs every morning.

And it worked for me.  I did the South Beach plan for about 4-6 weeks and I lost over 7 pounds to get me down below my goal.  However, my theory as to why it worked was this:  I was paying attention to what I ate.  Sure, I bet the cutting out all the bread in my diet helped some, but I think the fact that I was thinking about what I was eating, tracking my points, and making healthy choices is what really made the difference.

Since I was single at the time, and had to be to work early, I used to make up a batch of eggs and portion it out into little containers for me to grab and zap in the microwave on the way out the door.  Here is how I prepared my eggs when I was on South Beach:

• 4 eggs
• 4 egg whites
• veggies – as much as you want.  I used frozen chopped onions and peppers, broccoli, and tomatoes.  The more veggies you use, the bigger the servings will be. 
• 1/4c ched cheese (optional)

Whisk the eggs and egg whites and then just throw everything together in the frying pan and mix occasionally as it cooks.  Easy-peasy.  Makes 4 servings.  2pts per serving without cheese, 3 pts per serving with cheese.

I think I’ll be adding this recipe to my morning routine this week!  (Especially since I’m falling behind with my Losing It goals for this week.)