Cats and No Carbs

We have this cat door in the door that goes from the kitchen to the garage. A cat door that Keith put in when the youngest three were kittens so that they could all go hang out in the garage and use the litter box that we keep out there in the hopes that they wouldn't fill up the one in the house quite as quickly. Well, the litter box part hasn't worked out all that well because they prefer to use the one in the house maybe because it's a little chilly out there in the garage sometimes.

Anyway, the cat door has a lock on it that you can set so that cats can go in and out or not go in and out or just go one way out or one way in. The biggest problem with the lock is that the cats would go through the door so fast that they would somehow trip the lock so that they would be stuck out in the garage or vice versa, trip it so that the next time they ran full force at the door expecting it to be open they would instead crash into the inadvertently locked door. So we taped the lock in the open position. Which then made it necessary for Keith to build a slot around the cat door to slide a piece of wood into to close off the door when he has the big garage door open so that cats won't get into the garage and then out into the street. That is why our cat door looks funny.

All of the cats enjoy the door with the exception of Harri who has never ever gone through the door. She wants to go out into the garage but is afraid of the cat door so she will sit by the door patiently waiting for one of us to see her and open the big door for her to go out into the garage. Where she will stay for a while and then want to come back into the house. So she will sit in the garage and stare at us through the cat door flap until we see her and go let her back in. Like this.


And speaking of litter boxes I was sitting in the workroom working on something and Bear comes in and gets in the litter box and then proceeds to dig dig dig dig dig dig dig her way to China, a huge pile of litter being generated behind her, a huge pile of litter that is sliding back into the hole that she is so fervently digging, and then she is finally satisfied with her hole and turns around to go poop but misses the hole entirely and deposits said poop on top of the huge pile of litter. And then tries to cover it up which is difficult because it's on top of said huge pile of litter. And very stinky. So stinky that I went and got a plastic bag and cleaned the litter box right then and there.

Don't we have such excitement around here?

I was googling low carb snacks yesterday trying to find something, anything that I can eat in the late afternoon or evening when it's not mealtime but I'm really really hungry because this no carb thing leaves you pretty hungry most of the time.

Here are some of the suggestions.

Celery with tuna salad.
Carrots and celery.
Hard boiled eggs.
Mushrooms.
Cheese.
Lettuce roll ups with lunch meat.
Almonds.

and my personal favorite.

Sugar free jello.

This is exactly why you will lose weight on a no carb diet. There is nothing to eat. And, I'm sorry, but when you are ravenous carrots and celery DO NOT FILL YOU UP!!!

And sugar free jello (or any jello for that matter) IS TOTALLY DISGUSTING AND REMINDS ME OF FASTING BEFORE A COLONOSCOPY WHEN JELLO IS ALL YOU CAN EAT!!!

I have lost a few more pounds according to my not so accurate bathroom scale so at least there is a little reward and incentive to continue to never eat bread (or anything else that tastes good for that matter) again.

Anyway.

We were talking about the Thanksgiving holiday coming up and since I can't eat anything but turkey and vegetables I think we are skipping Thanksgiving this year. Either that or we will go to Sizzler because we got an ad for their Thanksgiving dinner that only costs $11.99 and they have a salad bar so I could just eat the turkey and the salad bar for Thanksgiving. I don't think I can even have cranberry sauce with my turkey since it's full of sugar and I don't think they make a sugar free cranberry sauce and you know what, cranberry sauce is the only reason I like turkey in the first place, so on second thought I think we will just skip Thanksgiving after all.

Oh, and here is a picture of Buddy just for fun. He was sleeping next to Keith, that is why there is a big hand in the picture.

It's Monday Again

Last Friday it was 94 degrees here. Today it is supposed to be about 64 degrees. And we actually had some rain last night. Weird.

And how is the no carbs thing going you might ask? Or not. Well, I'm already tired of salad and yesterday was starving all day. I went over to Foods Co Saturday morning to pick up a few groceries. I can't stand Foods Co, it always smells like somebody's underarm in there and the store is a warehouse type store with no frills and a bare concrete floor and it always looks kind of dirty but they carry a low carb yogurt that doesn't taste too bad and I can't find low carb yogurt at any other store. Regular yogurt has tons of carbs in it not to mention lots of sugar even if you get the so-called light yogurt. Anyway, I was looking at the meats and found some turkey burger patties and got a package of those and yes, I could make my own turkey burger patties but I'm lazy like that so I got the pre-made ones. I cooked them on the George Foreman grill for 6 minutes and they actually taste pretty good. You don't have to cover them in ketchup like I do with a hamburger patty. The last package of low fat hamburger patties that I got are sitting in the freezer because they just don't taste all that great and are very chewy and tough. Yuk.

So, anyway after a day of a couple of eggs and a low carb yogurt for breakfast, a turkey burger patty, cottage cheese, a sliced tomato and a few nuts for lunch, I was really really really hungry and lazy so we got a thin crust pizza from Pizza Hut for dinner because they are only $10.00 for a large pizza and part of it could be Keith's lunch for today. Pizza Hut pizza isn't all that great so I only ate 2 slices and the crust was very thin so I'm thinking I did okay on the carbs there but I was at the point where I didn't care anymore.

The McRib is back, not that I've ever eaten one of those because they just look and sound so very disgusting. The commercial they've been playing for it on TV is even more disgusting, something about close up shots of people taking big bites of a McRib and ending up with sauce and breadcrumbs all over their faces makes me a little queasy.

We have to go to Keith's work's Christmas dinner again this year. He didn't want to go but he wants to ask for a raise since he's coming up on his 3 years of working there with no raise yet and if you don't go to the Christmas dinner you end up on the sh*t list and he doesn't want to be there because of the whole raise thing. So, we have to go to the dinner, which is basically one long meeting with awards and speeches and all that kind of stuff, but hey, it's free dinner even if all that I can eat is the meat and vegetables. Plus, they give out the bonus checks at the dinner, which is usually a couple hundred dollars or so. They have a $1000 bonus for your three year anniversary with the company but he missed the deadline on the hire date cutoff by 2 weeks so he has to wait another year for his 3 year bonus. Darn.

So, onward and upward and I'm starving so I'm going to go eat some cottage cheese or low carb yogurt or something.

So....

The doctor's office called me yesterday about my blood work which surprised me how fast they got the results back, but anyway, I forget exactly what they said other than everything looked okay except my triglycerides are still too high so take fish oil pills twice a day (which I've already been doing for a few years now) and continue to cut carbs. The only good thing is that I don't have to actually go in for my appointment next week since it was just to go over the results and they gave them to me over the phone.

So....what to eat? Is my morning oatmeal (supposed to cut cholesterol) too many carbs? How about yogurt, that seems to have a lot of carbs listed on the label. Beans? They have a lot of carbs too but also fiber. Do I just eat chicken and lettuce? Maybe some cottage cheese in there ? I have to watch the sugars, too, so that eliminates a lot of lower carb things that have too much sugar, like fruit, so...

Besides no bread, pasta, rice or potatoes, what else am I not supposed to eat?

I was doing a little more research on a diet to lower triglycerides and while there isn't a whole lot of information I've found yet (will do more searching today) I did get the impression that sugar is the main culprit, not fat like you would think. So while I'm looking at one site that I found that just basically said to eat fish and vegetables, both kind of yuk as far as I'm concerned, there is this big huge ad right in the middle of all the text that I'm trying to read and this is what I see.


Is that rude or what to have this big ad for a big juicy hamburger on a big carb laden bun staring me in the face while I'm trying to research a low carb lowering your triglycerides diet? Yes, it's RUDE and CRUEL!

Anyway.

Bear was laying on our bed yesterday and along comes Mimi to snuggle up next to Bear's chubby cuddly body. They really like our blanket, it's so soft and cushy but you have to be careful because it's usually full of static. The other night I was throwing it off of me because it gets too hot and you could see all sorts of blue sparks flashing. I haven't taken any pictures of them lately since when cats get older they get kind of lazy and boring and all the pictures kind of look the same because they are just laying around, but...

Here are some new pictures of the girls.



And now it is once again time to go clean their cat box. Again.