Good morning! It’s been a pretty good week for me, aside from an unexplainable yet substantial increase in back pain.

Monday, I did treadmill and upper body weights.
Tuesday morning, I took the dog for a walk.
Wednesday was the second day without the kids, and I didn’t exercise.
Thursday was back on the treadmill, and physical therapy exercises.
Friday I spent an hour doing a full body workout on the weights and physical therapy exercises. During which time I could tell my abs have taken another leap in strength. That was exciting. I wish I could see them.
Today, I hope to get some aerobic exercise in.

I ate pretty well this week. My main downfall was the extravagant meal we ate Tuesday night at my favorite Thai restaurant. Plus dessert. Other than that, I’ve done pretty well. AND, I’m down 2 pounds from last Saturday, which puts me at 225.5. I’m not dancing in the streets or anything, because I’ve been fluctuating like crazy, but still, I’m happy.

I told you I’d tell you about the juicing books Nate and I bought Tuesday night. We came home with two. The Big Book of Juices and Smoothies is a well laid out, beautiful book that I’m very excited about using. I’ve enjoyed learning about different fruits and vegetables and their particular health properties. Did you know celery is a natural diuretic? I had no idea. I love celery anyway, so now when I’m retaining water, I can eat a bunch. There is a lot of great information in this book, but I’ll have to read it a few times before I can remember it all.

We bought the second book, Ultimate Juicing, because it had wheatgrass recipes, but also, it has the most ridiculous juice names and bylines. We were both sitting on the floor in the aisle of B&N, he was looking at juice books, and I was trying to read Ultimate Juicing to him, but I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t get the words out, so I’d just hold up the book and point, while doubled over in laughter, eyes watering and mascara running. So that one came home, too.

Let’s see. In other news, I made soymilk this week. It went pretty well, except for the fact that I turned on the burner to cook it, left to check something on the internet, and forgot about the stove. Nate yelled from the kitchen a few minutes later, and I ran in to find a huge, boiled over mess. Fortunately, the only thing that burned was the soymilk that left the pan and hit the heating element. The milk still in the pan was fine. I picked up a fabulous tip from this recipe, telling me to put a chunk of either orange rind or ginger in the milk while cooking, to diffuse the “beany” flavor. I had some ginger on hand, so I tried it and was amazed. There was the tiniest hint of ginger flavor in the milk, and the strong bean flavor was gone. So cool. I’m going to need to continue fussing with the recipe to get it right. My first batch was certainly usable, but it was a little watery. If anyone out there happens to have successfully made soymilk, I’d love some suggestions.

Ok, enough about me. How was your week?