Breakfast of Eggs and Vegetables

I am lucky to live in a climate that allows for growing herbs (and some vegetables) year round. My little backyard garden provides me with parsley, fennel and peppers regularly. Because I can simply pick them any time, often I will incorporate veggies into my breakfast.

garden vegetables
Garden bell peppers, basil, fennel and hot peppers

Many aspects of our diet are picked apart and we are warned of so many foods these days, but vegetables are rarely demonized. Corn has too much sugar, but that is about the only negative thing I remember being said about a vegetable!
Because vegetables have always proven to be good for us, I constantly try to eat as many as possible.
Frying garden peppers, beans and onions

I am not a big meat lover, and prefer fish to chicken or beef. Eggs hold so many good nutrients and provide protein to start the day and I usually eat one egg for breakfast. I used to make omelets, but these days I simply stir fry vegetables and herbs from my garden, then drop an egg into the mix, cook it up and eat! Super simple.

breakfast of eggs with garden vegetables
Once the veggies are fried, add eggs and scramble

I don’t grow onions or garlic, but I do usually add those to my morning stir fry. To keep me using these nutritional foods without all the fuss, I keep leftovers in a container in the fridge. The easier it is to grab something the more you will use it. If I had to wash, de-seed, and chop peppers at each meal I may skip them altogether. If I had to skin and slice onions, same thing. But with them sitting in a handy container, ready to chop, adding to meals is much simpler.
storing peppers and onions for later use
Keep leftover bits of pepper and onion in a container

To change it up a bit, sometimes I forego the eggs and eat apples and oatmeal. And when I have too much food in my fridge, sometimes I will eat leftovers from the night before. Fish and sweet potato fries are good for breakfast too!

My Brilliant Idea For Getting In Shape

Getting “in shape” is all relevant.  It depends on what kind of shape you are in in the first place.  And my shape is getting rounder by the day.  So I’m not in good  shape.

First of all I don’t really care that I am a size 12. I am in midlife, have given birth to 4 kids and sit at a computer all day working. I won’t ever be a size 8 or probably even a 10 again. I don’t care. I have no one to impress and just care about being healthy… and I know it is not healthy to lead a sedentary life, which I hate to admit is happening.

Yes, I am writing about the boring and all too many times written about – weight loss, but not really. I just want to be in better shape. I won’t get much smaller, but I refuse to get larger. I am acquiring a spare tire around my middle that is quite depressing and I know it’s from sitting at this computer so much.  There is no movement happening!!

Today I had a hard time finding clothes to wear when I went out to the DUMP!!! Now that is bad.

My excuses are these: I don’t have a yard of my own and I used to work constantly in the gardens, digging and expanding and weeding – all that. I have no incentive to do that now. It’s not my yard and I am just doing it for someone else. And who knows how long I’ll even live here. There is no future in it, if you know what I mean, and you might not, but anyway….

Same thing with the house. It’s not mine so I take care of it, but don’t spend time wondering how I could make it cuter or nicer. Again, there is no point. Those are the two big changes in my life and because of them, I have to concentrate elsewhere and it happens to be working online. So I sit from 3 or 4 AM until at least 3 PM with a few breaks in between to let the cats in ..and out…and in… and out…AND I do laundry and dishes etc. to make myself move.

I’ve had excuses all summer for not going walking in this beautiful area. We’ve had one of the hottest summers in recent northeast history, the besides that, when I have walked, the horse flies have been so horrendous that I wished I had just stayed home.  Also, there are ignorant people on my road let their dogs run out and bark at me when I walk. So I’ve gone walking very little.

Today I got a brilliant idea. My rental is a ranch, but there is a cellar with a straight flight of stairs going down to it. I am going to use those stairs to get into better shape.

I am going to set the timer for an hour and when it goes off I will walk up and down my stairs for 3 minutes. (I checked to see how long I could do it and 3 minutes is a good starting point – I told you I was out of shape!)

Then I will set the timer again and do it again. All day I will do that and it’s got to help some! Three minutes every hour? Who can’t spare that. No excuses!!!

In 18 minutes I’m going for a walk.

Check out this funny postcard by my friend Tom aka Swiss:

Simple Dessert For Kids

I have fallen in love with this “recipe” for easy Cookie Pie. My 12 year old loves it and I love to make it for him because it takes about 5 minutes to throw together – no baking, very little clean up.  Kids could very easily make this by themselves.

I don’t eat it, but he and his friends gobble it down!

Cookie Pie
"Cookie Pie"
    graham cracker crust
    one package of chocolate chip cookies
    one tub of cool whip (I buy the medium size one)
    a little milk

Dip each cookie in milk and make a layer of cookies in the crust.
Plop a layer of cool whip on top.
Repeat with a layer of cookies (dipped in milk) and more cool whip.
Make 3 layers and end with cool whip and crumble a cookie on top.
Put in the fridge – or eat right away.

Yuk… I mean … YUM!