Reading, Muffaletta's & No Shave January

So as you might know, my son is in kindergarten this year. He loves it. On Sunday evening he asks if he has school tomorrow and when I say yes, he jumps in the air and says "YES!". It's an awesome feeling to know your kid enjoys school and looks forward to learning. Last night he says he has homework which is to read a little book he brought home. We then have to sign it saying he read it. I was a little skeptical since I've yet to hear him read. He's been doing good sounding out words but he's lacked the confidence to string the words together. Until now. We all sat down on the couch and he read his little book like a pro. It was amazing. To think 5.5 years ago I gave birth to that child and now he's reading, it just makes me smile. It was truly a moment I doubt I'll forget.

If you didn't notice my last post was kind of blah. I was in a rut this week for some reason and I decided to remove myself from the rut by getting myself all spiffed up and taking my husband out to lunch today. I think I need to plan events for the week to keep looking forward to something. Sometimes just sitting in the house all week doing laundry or sculpting is enough to make a gal crazy.

We went to Jason's Deli which is one of my top three favorite places to eat. They have some seriously delicious sandwiches. My favorite is their muffaletta. I get it every single time I go. Until today and my blasted calorie counting. I curse the day I ever started counting calories because now I find it hard to enjoy the foods that I once loved. I visited their website before leaving this morning and just about fainted when I saw the nutritional information for my beloved muffaletta. I always get the quarter muffaletta and it was 800 calories (for a QUARTER of a  sandwich)....let's not forget the 55 grams of fat and 1200 mg of sodium. Ick. I just couldn't do it. So I scoured the site for something that sounded good and was not going to kill me with salt. I picked the Zucchini Grilled sandwich. Oh my gosh was it good. Tasty bread with a big chuck of marinated grill zucchini, humus, onions, olives and peppers. I'm drooling now. I'm going to have to recreate it at home soon (and look what I found in one click). I got a half sandwich with fruit and baked chips and it was all only 440 calories. I did not miss my muffaletta at all. As much as I complain about counting calories I do like feeling in control and being at my high school weight is just an added bonus.

"No shave January" has come to an end. My husband is officially a mountain man. Well not really, I think one has to have a six inch beard to qualify as a mountain man. I think he can rock facial hair pretty well. He's my good looking husband with or without facial hair. So now it's just up to him as to whether he wants to make it "No shave February" too. We took a family vote: Greta and I voted to shave, Wesley voted to not shave. It's up to Sean (you know since it is his facial hair).

Thursday Thoughts

-Greta will dance around to nearly every country music song on my iTunes list except Taylor Swift. When one of her songs starts up Greta immediately tells me to turn it off. This makes me laugh for some reason. Perhaps I've instilled some taste in her after all (hehe...please note that these are my Taylor Swift songs).

-Sean and I had a date night last weekend and went to Olive Garden. I decided to be a good girl and ordered off of their "Light Entree" menu. Each meal was under 550 calories. So out comes our waitress with two dishes, one piled high with linguine, mussels, scallops and shrimp (Sean's meal) and next to it was this big plate with this tiny square of vegetable lasagna. I mean tiny (smaller than a deck of cards). It was so disappointing. Never again will I order from the light menu. Next time I order regular lasagna and take home half of it.

-The Volt hates the winter. It won't run off of electricity very often, keeping the gas engine going when it's under 20 degrees, for my short drive to school and home. We both will be very happy when Spring comes.

-I love Sue Grafton murder mystery books (you know...the "I" is for Innocent series). I'm devouring about one a week, nearly halfway done. I'm on "J" is for Judgement. There's nothing much better on a freezing cold day than to curl up under a warm quilt with a mug of green tea and read a good book.

-I've been having fun changing many of my regular recipes into low sugar recipes and replacing the vegetable oil with coconut oil. I just put two loaves of Double Chocolate Banana Bread into the oven and the smell is divine. Each slice will have less than 150 calories. I even snuck chia seeds into the recipe and I bet the kids won't even know.

-Yesterday I was upstairs putting Wesley's laundry away and Greta comes running upstairs gleefully yelling that she went poo poo in the little potty. I congratulated her and proceeded to go get the little potty and empty it into the big potty. Except there was nothing in the little potty except "remnents". But there was Chance (our terrier) who was licking his lips. I know, gross. So I decided to shame him. Perhaps he'll think twice before eating the human brownies again.