I love Christmas!

Ok- I'll admit, I haven't been in the Christmas spirit all that much in the last couple of years. Oh, I've always loved Christmas, but I think the youthful anticipation of Christmas hasn't been as strong for me recently. However, this year has been different. Perhaps it's because I've gotten more involved with the youth ministry at my church (going to Winter Camp Jan. 1-4. Totally can't wait). Or, perhaps it's because with my sister being here, Christmas memories from my childhood just seem to burble out of me. Whatever the reason, my heart has grown 2 sizes this year and I'm so thankful for it. I'm really getting into the mood this year and have felt more like Bob Cratchit rather than Scrooge while shopping and decorating.

Some of the fun we've had is making candy cane reindeer for my sister's class she teaches at church. Here's a sampling of what we came up with:




















We had so much fun! My husband is actually quite a crafty fella- he created some of the cooler ones up there including the # 1 Fan Deer, Santa Deer, and Rhianna (with her umbrella, ella, ella.) My personal faves are the one with glasses (named Maude), and the one with a green trucker hat named John Deer. Hee. We do have a lot of fun in our house :)

On the crocheting front, I have been on a scarf rampage. I'll be posting in the next day or two a plethora of pictures of all I've been doing.

Until then, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a bright, wonderful New Year!

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup All Grown Up

It's funny- so many people think that my sister and I are very alike- our voices, laugh, and mannerisms are so alike that most people mix us up. Especially now that my hair is MIA. However, she is a vegetarian whereas I believe that PETA stands for "People Eating Tasty Animals." I see a cow in the field and have an ungodly urge to run out and start gnawing on its legs. Another difference is that I love to cook....she...not so much. However, she does make a mean grilled cheese sandwich. I introduced her to the awesome pairing of grilled cheese and tomato soup and she hasn't looked back.

Today for lunch, we had a very grown up, and healthy, soup and sandwich combination.

For the sandwich, we used a high fiber, omega-3 enriched bread. With 5 grams of fiber, 3 grams of protein and only 50 calories per slice, this is a nutritional powerhouse bread. LOVE.IT.

We added 1.5 oz of Co-Jack cheese (160 calories, 10g protein, 14g fat- but, it's fat from cheese, so it doesn't count....or so I like to tell myself. It is saturated fat (bad for the heart in large quantities)...but it tastes sooo goood!)

Then, the most awesome combination of soups since chicken + noodles: Butternut Squash and Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato soups.


Butternut Squash: 90 cals/cup, 2 g fiber, zilch protein.
RRP/T: 110 cals/cup, 1g fiber, 5g protein.

I combined 1/2 C of each to create this scrumptious meal


So, there you have it. A vegetarian meal created by two very similar yet very different sisters. Granted, all I did was pour the soups together into the bowls, but I did it with gusto.

So, all together, 405 Cals (including the tsp. of butter used to make the glorious sandwiches), 10g fiber (I'm all about the fiber folks. A clean colon is a happy colon), 25g fat (again, cheesy goodness), and 16.5g protein.

Ahhhh....a simple, tasty meal made entirely of comfort food. I love ya sis!

Joss Whedon can crochet! Shiny.

Who knew? Joss Whedon can both knit and crochet. It's true! Kim Werker, creator of CrochetMe.com and current editor of Interweave Crochet, had called for an all hookers (i.e. crocheters for you non-hookers) task force to track down Joss Whedon in an effort to interview him. Why? Because he mentioned that he was bummed his Dr. Horrible show didn't get a writeup in Crochet Monthly, of course.

The result? An interesting, educational, and entertaining interview about crocheting, craftiness, art, and internet. A really good interview, actually. You can hear it here.

I've not been a huge fangirl of Joss. Started watching Buffy when it first came out, but then had too much school and work to really get into it. However, I LOVED Firefly and I literally bawled like a baby through the credits of Serenity. If you haven't watched this wonderful movie, then there must be something seriously wrong with you. Netflix or buy it- it's really good. Have some tissues nearby. You'll thank me later.

I actually got to meet Joss- twice. Once at a Screenwriter's expo in LA and again in NY at a charity event for Equality Now- an organization with which he is very involved. Very cool guy- talented as heck, and exceptionally funny.

Hey Joss- if you ever decide to do a show about a crocheting crime fighter who always hooks her guy (groan), then call me! You still have my number, right? I mean, I haven't heard from you since...well, ever, really, so a girl starts to wonder....

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Sooo...I tend to be VERY impulsive. Case in point...yesterday. I had just finished a shoot- we actually finished early, so I had loads of time to spare in the afternoon. Spare time and I don't really mesh well together...either I have a plan for the day, or I get panic attacks thinking, "Ack! I have so much to do and I have no idea where to start! I guess I'll get the nap out of the way..."

But, I didn't want to take a nap yesterday. Well, actually I did since I love to nap and I can usually ALWAYS sleep- anytime, anywhere. It's a gift I got from my dad. I literally slept through 2 earthquakes and only awakened because my dear, brave, gallant hubby was frantically shaking me and yelling, "Wake up woman! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" He's my Foxy Loxy- Rawr! But I digress.

Yesterday I impulsively decided, "I'm going to chop my hair off."


Princess Toadstool ("Peach" kinda sounds weird to me) approves. (That's my newest scarf I'm working on...almost finished...Mario was lonely)

It's REALLY short! I haven't had it this short since...well basically 6 years ago. I had an impulsive day that time, too. I left work and saw a beauty parlor and went in. Came out missing about a foot of hair.

I have let my hair grow since then with just a trim here and there. About a year and a half ago, it was down to my waist. I chopped 14 inches off and it was still past my shoulders. I let it grow again, with just a trim now and then...and yesterday chopped off a good foot of hair. I actually didn't realize it was that long. I am sad to say that I didn't think to tell her to donate it to Locks of Love (which I did last year). Impulsivity does have it drawbacks sometimes.

Since I let my hair grow, I had all my headshots taken with it long, so I didn't want to cut it and not match my pictures. Then, I was shooting Lilly's Thorn this summer, so I had to have the same hair length for the duration of the film. I've become really bored with the long hair! Enough with the long hair! My name is NOT Rapunzel! (Though that would be cool.)

Thankfully, my hubby approves. He's always been a long-hair lover, but I think even he was bored with my long hair. Gotta keep it new and exciting, ya know? :)

Lighten up!

Hello y'all! To my fellow USA'ers, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving....to everyone else, I hope you had a great Thursday...at work. Hee! I LOVE to cook and Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I love waking up in the morning with my game plan ready- knowing which dish to start cooking first to ensure everything comes together by 1:00pm. This year, I clocked in at 12:54- whew! Just made it with 6 minutes to get myself cleaned up before our guests arrived. Thankfully, they were a little late since I have yet to perfect my Wonder Woman spinning change technique.

I know how difficult it is to resist stuffing yourself to the brim with all the delicious Thanksgiving fare. I love to cook because I love to eat! However, the nutritionally educated side of me does always kick in- I do have to practice what I preach! So, for each dish, I do try to lighten it up as much as I can without sacrificing taste. One of the places I turn to to new recipes is Cooking Light. I have been subscribing to that magazine for about 8 years now- I love their recipes and I love that they provide nutrition information for everything! I have made their Streuseled Sweet Potato Casserole since I first saw the recipe 6 years ago. It's one of my husband's favorite dishes and I get requests for the recipe every time I serve it to others. Phenomenal!

One of my favorite dishes has always been Pumpkin Pie- I.LOVE.IT. I use Libby's canned 100% pumpkin- I love that they don't add any salt or sugar- it's just pure pumpkin. I also use their traditional Pumpkin Pie recipe from their cans- with a few tweaks. I use Evaporated SKIM milk instead of evaporated whole milk. Also, instead of sugar, I use Splenda. I do tend to swap Splenda for sugar for most things I bake. Splenda will prevent proper rising of baked goods, so I will sometimes use half sugar half Splenda if the dish didn't rise sufficiently the first time around. I like that Splenda has zero calories, can be swapped equally for sugar (no conversions needed) and tastes almost exactly like sugar. I don't like it in my coffee because I can taste the difference- I do love it in my oatmeal, though.

Just by swapping out those 2 ingredients, I save a whopping 95 calories PER SLICE of pie! The regular Libby's pie has 250 calories per slice. My lightened version- 155!! (I use a plain ol' frozen pie crust....though I like making things from scratch, I do take few selected short cuts...so sue me.) Since I didn't know if my guests would balk at a "diet" pie, I made one regular pie (with the skim milk, though- 224 calories per slice) and one "diet" pie. I had my guests do a taste test and they could not tell the difference between the "real" pie and the "diet" pie. Their waistlines, however, could.

Nutritional breakdown per slice of pie (for standard 9" pie crust, 8 slices per pie):

155 calories
6.5 g protein
6.3 g fat
18 g carbohydrate
1.5 g fiber
162 mg calcium
11,991 IU vit. A (almost 3 times the daily recommend value!)

To shave off 5 grams of fat and 45 calories, eat the pie filling and not the crust....though a tasty crust is part of the Pumpkin Pie experience...

This is just one of the ways I lighten up my Thanksgiving meal. Even though most of my dishes aren't as calorific as their traditional counterparts, I do have to employ portion control- too much food- even "lite" food- is not good dietary practice.

Well, it's just about lunch time for me- time to bring out all the tasty leftovers and enjoy the fruits of my labor. Have a wonderful weekend!