Privet, China Berry and Honeysuckle are all currently blooming and they make the air fragrant and lovely, something you can almost taste but not quite. It's a time I look forward to each Spring. I am not nearly so allergic to these things as I am to the earlier, heavier pollinators. I love to just take great deep breaths and enjoy these fragrant days.
Speaking of fragrance, back at Christmas time I went on the hunt for a new scent. I ordered samples of several scents and liked several but one really stood out hard for me. It was called Love by Coach and it smelled faintly of strawberries and died to a lovely herbal citrus scent with a light musk undertone. But pricey! Gracious goodness it cost a lot. Then Katie offered me a sample she'd gotten of another scent, and I liked it quite well. It was more affordable, so I ordered that one.
But I couldn't forget how much I truly loved the Coach scent. I was ordering bras the other day and for fun went to look at the scents and lo and behold I could get a big 3-ounce bottle of Love by Coach eau da parfum for one fourth the original price! I immediately ordered it. It came today. Sam sprayed a tiny bit on my wrist so that he could smell it and I've spent the rest of the afternoon lifting my wrist to sniff. I always feel I've been given some special gift when something I really want becomes affordable for my budget.
I decided today to stop worrying about being 'perfect'. The app I'm using is wishy washy about how things are worded when logging foods. When I listed the ingredients for my smoothie supper on Sunday it complained that the drink was 'too full of sugar, too high in carbs' and overall poor nutrition. I had half the mixture leftover and this morning; I simply logged it as 10 ounces of unsweetened fruit and yogurt smoothie. Great score. I threw up my hands and contemplated yet again why it is I'm paying for this app. The accountability is part of it, as well as a very real need to understand why a meal is ranked as it is with carbs, sodium, fat.
I mean I do understand something about carbs having spent the past ten years mostly managing diabetes with just diet. I've always understood that fruit had carbs, albeit better ones than say a candy bar, but still, too much fruit will lead to too many carbs. And for that reason, I've tended to limit my fruit choices when opting to have fruit as a side or finisher for a meal and I've never bought into the 3 cups of fruit for a smoothie drink (!) because I calculated that as a lot of carbs. But when I add frozen unsweetened peach slices to a meal that has only lean meat and green veg why is this app screeching "It's too much sugar!"
By the same token, I try to choose lean meat options. I don't have fried foods very often and I tend to avoid adding fats to most meals. So why is the app screeching "That's too high in fat!" Ditto for salt. Today I sauteed cabbage, bell pepper, celery, onion, carrot and broccoli as a side dish for luncheon. I didn't salt this. I added ginger and powdered garlic, sesame oil and rice vinegar and then finished the entire pan (four generous servings) with less than 2 tbsps of soy sauce. "Too much sodium!!!" the app said.
Later I went outdoors and decided that I was done procrastinating. I have all these containers for planting; most filled with soil already. I want flowers and to grow things (I'm vague on 'things' beyond flowers). I've been telling myself that the soil mixture wasn't right, there wasn't enough space, it would look odd, etc., so I hadn't planted anything. Today I said, "No more perfectionism holding me back from my dream!" I planted herbs, basil, mint, oregano, topped up the chives with fresh soil, moved the sage that hung on from last year. I planted flowers: impatiens, cleome, zinnias, snapdragons, cosmos.
And I made up my mind that I'll just do what I can and make it better when I have more time and better materials, but at least I should have the satisfaction of trying!
Then I decided that shall be my approach to this whole journey of regaining control of diabetes. I want to lose weight, and perhaps to wear a smaller size or two or even three. But what I really want is to control diabetes with diet but continue to enjoy eating. For me, enjoyment doesn't mean just eating whatever I'd like when I'd like but to truly enjoy what I am eating. I want to be sure I'm controlling portions and understand how foods work together. For instance, the doctor had suggested that I simply cease to eat rice altogether. I've never had a particular issue with rice, and I do know how to make it a better option for controlling carbs (use brown rice, chill for a few hours after cooking so it has a lower glycemic impact).
However, I was watching a video the other day and noted this one person often added a small, cubed potato to his dishes. He finally explained he opted for potatoes because they had more nutrient value and fewer carbs than rice...That makes a lot of sense to me. The other night I baked a potato and John and I shared it. I topped it off with a Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joe recipe I'd made. More nutrients and fewer carbs than serving the meat mixture on bread. What's more the potato adds fiber and that kept me feeling much more satisfied as the evening went on. And it was good! I didn't feel I'd missed out on anything in eating that meal.
Enough. I'm going to go get started on our supper for tonight and I plan to spend the evening with a book. Not sure which one...
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