For the Thousandth Time

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Cammy Chapel

You probably woke up thinking this was just another average Monday. You’d be wrong. Today, you are part of a most historic event: my 1000th blog post on The Tippy Toe Diet!

And you thought about hitting the snooze button. See what you would have missed?

There are a whole host of great reasons to blog, but I blog because I like to talk and I like to write. It’s as simple as that. I can’t NOT do either of those things, and I’ve been that way for as long as I can remember. In fact, way (and I mean waaaaay) back when I was in kindergarten, this passion for communication was documented in the press:

I don’t know that we can consider what I post here “news”, but I still have lots to say. Sometimes it’s about me, sometimes it’s about something I’ve read, sometimes it’s an opinion piece or a bit of inspiration. But it’s not often I can’t think of something to write about. What can I say, I’m chatty! At least these days I’ve got all my teeth! For now.

In the greater blogging universe, The Tippy Toe Diet is a tiny blog, a miniscule corner of the interwebs, and yet, through some extraordinary bit of fortune, I’ve made some amazing personal connections through the blog and grown friendships that I hope will last a lifetime. I’ve met many wonderful readers and fellow bloggers in person, and my TBM (to be met) list gets longer every day. I’m so blessed to be among such great people.

Considering that I break most of the “blogging rules”, I’m a little surprised that people show up here at all. About the only thing that’s constant here is that I post from my heart and try to do it in a way that’s authentic and represents the real me, goofy and flawed though I might be. I’m so very grateful for those of you who either embrace the silliness or graciously overlook it. Thank you for your part in making the first 1000 blog posts so rewarding!

So now I’m off to conquer the next 1,000 posts. I’ll try to make most of them worth your while for stopping by. To that end, feel free to share topics YOU would like to see covered here.

And for the thousandth time, thank you for reading The Tippy Toe Diet!

Mélange

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Cammy Chapel

Nothing new or profound to report on the weight maintenance front today, so this is one of those ‘off the top of my head’ (and my phone camera) posts. Good thing I’m not charging for this stuff, right?

Possible Mr. Cammy Candidate?

I’ve been giving some thought to ramping up (or perhaps, starting) a search for a Mr. Cammy with whom to share my domicile. Preferably before the lawn needs mowing again. Unfortunately, most of the men I meet who are in my age bracket seem so…old.

Here’s a representative sample from my dating pool:

It’s a pity you miss the full effect, which included black wing-tip shoes and the hamburger he was munching on as he walked along.

On the positive side, he seemed quite relaxed and comfortable in his colorful, if mismatched, ensemble. (That sounds so much nicer than ‘oblivious’, doesn’t it?)

Am I the only one who notices these things?

I dashed into Dollar General the other day and noticed this oddity:

Don’t you think it’s weird to have the veggies and the insecticides sharing space like that? Maybe not, considering these are canned vegetables that were likely already treated with some of the same products on the neighboring aisle. *sad sigh*

Garage Sale Makeovers

I’m trying to catch up on some of my garage sale “finds”, the kind I buy thinking, Oh, I can make this better, and then get home and realize I don’t have much talent in that area. But I did get two pieces into acceptable states yesterday instead of writing a useful blog post.

I have a shelf along the back of my tub and with my love of bath salts, scrubs, and potions, it was a bit cluttered looking. I found this plant stand for $2 and gussied it up with a spray-on hammered metal finish. I don’t LOVE it, but it will do nicely for a while. And then I’ll sell it for $3 at my next sale.

This cute little table was an early morning find. Too early, apparently, because I didn’t notice some major chewing on the bottom shelf. I probably overpaid at $5, but you’ll have that sometimes.

I had the apple green paint on hand, so I gave it a quick two coats to cover the chewing. I’ll let it rest this way in my front porch pondering spot for a while, while I sip some iced tea and contemplate giving it a light antiquing.

Now, only a dozen or so more projects left.

When Back Pain is Not a Sign of Over-Training

Did y’all hear about the woman who was training for a half-marathon and thought her persistent and increasingly intense back pain was the result of overdoing? She finally went to the ER and left with a 6-pound, 6-ounce baby girl. Yep, she was pregnant and had no idea! (I thought this was a made-up reality show thing, but apparently it’s not that unusual.)

If you’re like me, this story will have you noticing every back twinge today.

Reader Error

Lori pointed me to The Old Reader as a potential replacement for Google reader, and my transition to it was smooth, but not without error. I didn’t realize until yesterday that I had a setting in place that would mark a post as read even if I just scrolled down the screen. At least, I think that’s what happened. Anyway, I missed some posts because of it, and I apologize to those of you who got skipped. I’ve changed the setting and it’s working better now.

I do like this reader, but like so many others, it’s going through some growing pains as they gain more users. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes random RSS feeds don’t make it into the reader for a few days. But they do seem to be tweaking and working toward making it better, and they entertain you with cute cat pictures when they’re doing updates.

In Conclusion

It’s time for my walk, so I’d better get going. (You can bet I’ll be monitoring my back for any discomfort!)

No big plans for me for the weekend, since I opted out of the family reunion this year. If the weather cooperates, I hope to “rescue” some more garage sale treasures.

What are you up to this weekend? Fun stuff? Quiet stuff? Whatever you do, I hope you have a fantastic weekend!

Scenes from the Weekend

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Cammy Chapel

I hope you had as enjoyable a weekend as I did! I didn’t do anything spectacularly interesting, but that’s not going to stop me from yammering about it.

Since I’m currently staying in a different part of Memphis, I explored a couple of new-to-me restaurants.

First, I went to the Mediterranean Grill and Sandwich Shop, which advertised Fresh! Healthy! Delicious! food. I have to say, they are not overstating themselves if my Chicken Tekka wrap was any indication. The man who took my order seemed almost apologetic in telling me that it would take about 15 minutes to prepare, but I assured him that I’d much rather have freshly prepared food than something pulled from underneath a heat lamp. That earned me a smile…and I’m pretty sure, some extra chicken as well.

Another new-to-me stop was La Michoacana, a local paleteria, or ice cream shop that makes its own ice cream and popsicle-like treats in amazing flavors. They even have a corn ice cream!

I somehow let myself get talked into ordering the Tres Marias–three different flavors of ice cream with a drizzle of chocolate and caramel, a sprinkling of pecans (whole!), and 2 sugar wafers (those were a surprise). There were other toppings I could have had on there as well (coconut, granola, raisins, whipped cream, etc.), but I do try to watch my calories. Hah!

Anyway, it was delicious and I’m glad I had it, but it’s a bit much. I’ll try it again when I have one or two friends along to share.

Fortunately, I don’t think I did too much damage with the ice cream indulgence since I way overshot my target on exercise for the week:

That’s my SparkPeople total for the week, with the numbers on the left representing actual and the numbers on the right being the goal. I rocked it this week, if I do say so myself. And I do.

On my walks and bike rides last week, I spotted some more pretty flowers:

I know the day lilies on the left well, but I don’t know the flower on the right. It’s blooming in abundance along the Greenline, which makes me think it’s probably a weed. If it is, it’s a pretty one.

Another interesting sighting in the neighborhood:

My mom would love to have these lawn statues in their yard; my dad would have fits about having to mow around them. I kind of see his point, but they are eye-catching.

Those are just a few of the scenes from my weekend. It was mostly quiet and always enjoyable. I love when those two things work together.

What fun and exciting–or perfectly ordinary–things did you do over the weekend?

Signs of Summer

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Cammy Chapel

Well, that was a short weekend, wasn’t it? Funny how that works out.

After a cooler than normal spring, Memphis is seeing its first glimpses of summer. We went from jacket weather on Friday to shorts and flip flops on Saturday. The hair on the nape of my neck is damp by noon and stays damp until…October. That’s the surest sign of summer that i know!

Other observed signs of summer:

Honeysuckle! Along with roses and fresh-cut watermelon, I can’t think of another scent that so represents summertime. Whenever I see a honeysuckle vine, I’m instantly transported 30 40 the many years back to my childhood when we would pull the stems and dart out our tongues to taste the tiny drop of nectar. I should do that again to see if it still tastes as sweet. (I wonder if Sparkpeople has “honeysuckle nectar, single drop” in its database.)

Lavender is another sure sign of summer. This bed is in the neighborhood in which I’m pet-sitting, and I’m making it a point to route my walks so that I pass it every day.

For me, another sign of summer is a BLT (bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, for folks who might not have experienced the joy). On a work excursion last week, I stopped at a local diner (Blue & White Restaurant in Tunica, MS) for a long overdue lunch. Since it was 2:00, I wanted something “light” and went with a good old-fashioned BLT. It was even served on Wonder Bread! (Yes, I ate Wonder Bread for the first time in–heck, I can’t remember when I last ate it–and didn’t die!) Perfect lunch alongside a glass of unsweetened iced tea.

Later on the drive home, I thought something sweet might be nice, so I stopped for another summertime treat:

I wanted some awesome-looking molten turtle sundae concoction, but I figured the Wonder Bread was enough of a dance with danger for one day, so I ordered a nice, refreshing ice cream cone.

Another favorite summertime ritual: al fresco dining.

I took advantage of my pet owners’ bbq grill (with permission, of course) and grilled up enough burgers and bbq chicken for the next few weeks. Last night I enjoyed chicken, salad, and oven-roasted corn on the patio, under the watchful eye of Jasmine and Dali.

One sign of summer I had hoped to show you didn’t happen.

On early evening weekends, the Greenline is normally over-crowded, but I had it all to myself for the most part late Saturday afternoon. It was a little humid, true, but there was a nice breeze in places. I quite enjoyed myself, but I’ll enjoy it more after a little more “seat time”. (Ow. Cyclists know what I mean, I’m sure. )

Those are the early signs of summer. We’ll have fresh tomatoes and melon and complaints about the heat in no time, but for now I’m just enjoying the change of seasons.

What are your favorite signs of summer? Have you seen them yet? (Equator-South, please convert to winter signs. )

Special Report: Neighborhood Dessert Social

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Cammy Chapel

Busy, busy week, but I’m thinking/hoping the pace should start slowing down now.

One thing that kind of slipped up on me was the annual Neighborhood Dessert Social, which was held last night. As y’all know, I usually spend ~~way too much~~ some time contemplating my offering, but I had to come up with something in a hurry this year. Thanks to a big sale at Kroger, I have an abundance of cottage cheese (10/$10) in the fridge, so obviously I chose to make cookies:

Okay, maybe not the obvious choice, but I needed to go with what I had on hand. I knew I wanted to make something bite-sized (or two-bite sized for the dainty eaters) and I did have all that cottage cheese, so I googled “cottage cheese cookies” and found a recipe on Food.com.

As published, the recipe says it makes 9 dozen cookies, so I halved it. (It also says it has 895 calories for the whole batch, but the butter alone tops that, which is why we should check these things out for ourselves.) Anyway, like I said, I halved it…and got about 9 dozen cookies out of it. Seriously, people, I had cookies everywhere!

But y’all don’t care about that. You want to know about the cookie, and I’m pleased to let you know that they turned out quite well. I didn’t do a whole lot of substituting. I swapped out for some whole wheat flour, cut back on sugar, added vanilla, omitted the nuts, added a few chocolate chips, but other than that…

The result was a chocolate-y, cake-like cookie–sweet, but not overly so. Not a hint of cottage cheese taste, so I’m not really sure what it’s purpose was exactly. But I digress. I’d make the recipe again (maybe with coconut oil in place of the butter), but that won’t be for a long, long time, because I have about 4 dozen leftover cookies in my freezer.

Despite the goodness (yes, I tasted “a few” before going to the meeting), I didn’t think these cookies were prize winners. I mean, after the Red Velvet Massacre of 2011 and last year’s debacle, I know my ‘hood has no taste. And the prize is not the point anyway.

It’s a good thing I didn’t have any expectations, because for some reason, they’ve taken the competition element out of it, and we just enjoyed the desserts (and a presentation from the district attorney.) I’m glad of that because there were at least three desserts that were homemade and delicious.

Thanks to my tracking and attention to details, I’ve been logging a few hundred calories under my target most days, so I was able to sliver my way around the table to sample the red velvet cake, pecan bars, and strawberry shortcake. (Out of courtesy, I also took a sliver of some kind of “poke cake”–box cake mix with holes poked in it and drizzled with something red–that only had one small square taken from it.) Everything I sampled was delicious and had there been a contest, I would have been delighted to lose to any of those desserts. But knowing my neighbors, the winner probably would’ve been the Kroger bundt cake with cherry pie filling dumped on top of it. (It did look good, I have to say.)

Most of all, I was really pleased to see a good many of my cookies disappear and several people took extras home with them. (It could’ve had something to do with me encouraging them to take a bunch while holding a butcher knife.)

With that, it’s back to basics for me for a bit! The family reunion is next month–say, I think I’ll take cookies this year!–and I’ll be saving up my sweet splurge for that.

In the interest of a balanced post, I’ll share a healthier “recipe” I made a couple of times this week–Flatbread Pizza:

Y’all remember the Whole Wheat Flatbread Roll-ups I found a few weeks ago? I cut one wrap in half, topped it with marinara, 2 oz. lean ground beef I’d browned and stuck in the freezer, 1 oz. mozzarella, 2 tsp. Parmesan cheese, and peppers, black olives, and Italian seasoning and baked it for about 10-15 minutes. The whole thing was around 250 calories, 10g carbs, 14g fat, and 24g protein. Best of all, when served alongside a nice, fresh salad, it made a filling and delicious meal!

With that, I must run. I’m moving across town for a few weeks for pet-sitting duties, and I need to get my bag & bike (hello, Greenline!) packed up. I hope you’re planning for an awesome weekend! Anything special on your dance card?