Encouraged...with a side order of Yuck.

I stepped on the scales yesterday morning and was pleasantly surprised to see I have lost 3 lbs since I checked a week ago. And I haven't even started my new cleanse program yet! However, since making this decision almost 2 weeks ago, I have been more conscious about what I eat. I have been resisting snacking after dinner. It helps that we moved to a new house that has stairs and the kitchen is downstairs. Once I go upstairs for the evening I don't want to head back down again! So even though my tummy was rumbling and I really really wanted to go look for something to munch on, I just stayed in my room and drank water instead.

This weekend I plan on baking some healthy snacks for the kids. Muffins and oatmeal cookies. I need to go buy applesauce and some other more wholesome sweeteners to use in my baking. I love the two websites Chanci shared with my new support group and will be printing out some recipes to try over the next week.
Here is one of the websites:
http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/

I bought myself some chickpeas to make hummus. I need to buy some wholegrain tortillas to turn into my own tortilla chips. And I need to go look for those organic raw almonds still.

Thanks to Priscilla the rat, I was forced to make brown rice for dinner last night. It was actually very tasty. So I need to buy more of that too.

Now that I mentioned Priscilla, I guess I need to share her story. Adam, my 23 year old, wanted a pet rat. So he conned the kids to catch a baby one for him. There are plenty of rats at our beach office. Phillip, Cassie's friend, was patient enough to catch one. Adam put her in a cage and worked on taming her. He had her eating out of his hands, and willing to be held by him. I was a little freaked out. I mean, this is a wild rat, not some clean pet store rat. But after observing her bath herself in her water dish every day, I saw that she was quite a clean rat after all.

Then Adam had the brilliant idea to clean up our old birdcage and turn that into a rat cage. I had my doubts as I thought there were too many places for her to get out of. But he was determined. He even bought some mesh wire to cover up the areas she might escape from. Finally, last week, he put her in the bird cage. She stayed in it for exactly 12 hours before escaping. Kids tried to catch her but she evaded them.

Well, a week goes by and no sign of the rat. Until I started to smell a funky smell in one corner of our kitchen. I looked all over trying to find the source. Threw out our compost bucket, pulled out the stove and looked under it. Nothing.

Then I went to make rice for dinner last night. Pulled out the bag of white rice and noticed a bunch of gnats fly up, and there was a wet looking stain on the bottom of the bag. And something rather squishy inside the bag that didn't feel like rice.....I admit to not exploring further and just flinging the bag of rice outside into the jungle valley behind our house. And I don't want to tell the kids that I highly suspect Priscilla the rat met her demise in the bag of rice. After all, I had served it to them the night before! YUCK!!!

So brown rice for dinner. That bag had been unopened. And it was actually very delicious and filling. So maybe I can make the switch to brown after all!.