Happy Chinese New Year.....

The Year of The Ox

If you were born in any of these years, the Ox is your sign:

1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997

Check here to find your sign, and what other signs you are compatible with. Grandma J's sign is the Dog.....anyone surprised?

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back to the business of the day, or the business of yesterday.

Week Three Results

After three weeks on the Blogger Butt Smackdown diet hosted by Big Hair Envy...I don't have good news. I confess to falling off the wagon, and wallowing in a pool of sinful sugary delights full of carbs, calories and vitamin B19.

Between birthdays, deployments, root beer barrels basketball games, and JJ, the temptations have been overwhelming. On top of all that....we welcomed a new neighbor.....

Yeah, The Colonel of all people made a grand entrance into town.

The good news is, I bought a bottle of gin decided to forge ahead and get back track with the Blogger Butt Smackdown diet.

The Letter B

is for Blogger Butt Smackdown

or......

Mary Mary, Quite Contrary, .....How does your diet go?

This is my results for week two of the South Beach Blogger Butt Smackdown that Big Hair Envy is hosting. I'm a bit disappointed....I lost weight, but only 2 lbs. This brings my grand total to 6.4.

It's also Alphabet Monday, hosted by Suz....go check out her blog.

CHANGING TIMES

Did I tell you I was on a diet? Well, in case I forgot, guess what? I am on a diet. No, don't run for the hills...I promise, I won't beat it to death....but seriously, hear me out.

I was looking for a bit of history on how people tackled their weight problems in the past. By past I mean way past.....like in the dark ages early 1900's.



You could stay thin by eating tape worms. I'm guessing they ran around inside you and ate up all the fat....until what?

And, as time marched on, and men fell in love with their trucks, the options they were looking for went far beyond the cosmetics.


Yeah, they were concerned about how they were gonna haul that overweight woman around? All I can say is, "Hello, Big Three!"

Of course it was also considered just fine to be the family who loved.......




LARD!




OR the mothers who gave their babies Coke!

Now, excuse me....I think I'll go have a bowl of jello.


Tomorrow is my one week weigh in......I'll be reporting my results at Big Hair Envy's Big Butt Bikini Smack Down....or something like that. Lord help me!

Another Grandma J Tutorial

Now that I'm on day three of my diet.....specifically the Atkins Diet, I thought I'd share one of my favorite recipes. Those of you who have been on Atkins probably know all about this tasty, easy snack food.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Atkins Diet, it's basically a high protein, low carb diet. Finding snack foods with little or no carbs is not easy.

Let's pretend for a moment that you want to find something easy and simple on Rachael Ray's website.

Well, of course, you will have to schlep through tons of fluff like contests to bid on a Rachael look-a-like made out of Legos!

That's right, it's a life size replica made out of Legos! Well, you can thank your lucky stars that you won't be distracted by such rubbish prize winning games on Grandma J's site....no sirree.

I won't bore you with a feature called Weekly ROUND-UP, because if you're on Atkins, it would more than likely be called a Weekly BOUND-UP.

You won't find a Yum-O Menu section for kids on Grandma J's site. You can always get the recipe for "Orange You Hungry?" Tangerine Dream Chicken with Curry-Carrot Couscous straight from Rachael's Yum-O site. What's a couscous? And be honest...is this a dish your four year old will be asking you to fix for dinner?

Without wasting anymore time, let's get on with the tutorial...which is really a one ingredient recipe.

This is my favorite snack food on the Atkins Diet. It's a crispy cheese snack. Don't judge it by it's looks! It tastes cheesier and crispier than Cheez-It's. I used to bring this yummy snack to work to help me with the munchies....before long I was making it in large quantities to satisfy the moochers who loved it.

Let's make some, shall we?

Finely grate some cheese, any cheese. I buy it all ready grated, and prefer it finally finely grated. Just remember, American cheese, and cheese products aren't real cheese, and won't work.

Spread the grated cheese evenly on parchment paper. Microwave safe plates are OK but you have to spray them with Pam, or something similar, otherwise you will never get the cheese off. The parchment paper is so much easier, and the results are better.

I microwave the cheese on high for 3 minutes. Now, my old microwave took 5 minutes. The first time, set the timer for 5 minutes and watch it carefully. You want the cheese to melt and continue to bubble and cook until it starts turning brown. If it's not done enough it will be rubbery.

This is what is should look like when it's done...sort of, if my camera could only capture the right coloring.

Break it up, and you're ready to enjoy your cheese snack. I love this with a taco salad, basically lettuce,cilantro and ground beef with taco seasoning. You can make taco shells out of the cheese too. I'll show you that later.

Be sure and make plenty. I bag some of it to take with me for a quick snack, like when I go to the movies.

Here's the icing on the cheese....NO CARBS! Eat all you want.

COUNT ME IN

When the New Year made it's debut, Big Hair Envy, decided Grandma J needed to lose weight to host something called the first South Beach Blogger Butt Smackdown. Not be be confused with a South Beach Blogger Vacation. No, a Butt Smackdown is a kinder gentler way of saying diet.

So here's how it works. If you sign up on the South Beach site, and create an account for just $5.00 per week, you get all kinds of benefits.....like a daily newsletter, menu plans and a shopping list. You can also track your progress, and schmooze with your "Beach Buddies". The thought of joining was a bit of Déjà vu...like when you play with your Webkinz.

I saw all the other bloggers saying stuff like "count me in", or "I'm ready", "I'm scared, but I'll do it", "I'm sooooo ready to do this", and finally, "I'll have a beer because it's five o'clock somewhere". This is where I start to make the hard choice of jumping in with both feet. I decide to do the Atkins diet....not much different, but one I know will work for me once I commit to it.

Off to Walmart to buy a scale...a nice one. It measures body fat mass, and hydro stuff as well as pounds. Since I've gain 1/2 ton in the two and a half years since I quit smoking, I was sure that I had all those components. I spent a couple of hours trying to program the thing. Once I thought I was done, I kept getting a huge "E", which is short for ERROR.



Back to the instructions.....the scale kept wanting me to program persons 2 thru 6, and there was no getting around it. By eleven o'clock at night, I was back at Walmart, getting a cheaper scale....one that would allow me to be a one girl team.

That was Sunday.

I also bought all my meat, cheese, eggs and green veggies. For dessert I have a plethora of flavors of sugar free jello.



I've been doing two fifteen minute exercise sessions a day.

Now I can tell the Host of the South Beach Blogger Spank My Fanny Butt Smackdown,

"Count me in!"