We've got babies!

Well my lovebirds have started hatching! So far we've got 2 babies, one born on the 29th, and one today on halloween. Aren't they the cutest? I LOVE the 2nd picture!

We're gonna be 'grand--feathered--parents'

We have 5 Birds right now (1 Congo African Grey, 2 Lovebirds and 2 Parakeets), well October 6th, my lovebird Kira whom is 2 years old decided to start laying eggs, so every other day for about 10 days she laid an egg, so we've got 5 eggs. We are hoping they are fertile as both my lovies are both DNA'd sexed 1 Male 1 Female.
Here are the pictures:

This is her nesting box, his and her feathers, and then lots and lots of shredded paper towels, they shred their cage lining EVERY day. Thinking gonna have to get something else for the bottom of their cage! They've got about 4 or 5 large piles around their cage. BUT it's best not to disturb them too much or mommy will get really upset!

Here's the happy couple. Kira (mommy) on the left she is a Sea Green Lovebird, and Kai is on the right he is a Green Violet Peach Face Lovebird. They both came from the same breeder in West Jordan. Kai is fairly recent addition after Kira's '1st Mate' had an unfortunate accident with my cat DeeJay.......Kermit was 6 years old. But Kira and Kermit weren't bonded very well. But Kai and Kira are VERY VERY close! He takes her food into the nesting box so she doesn't have to leave the babies for very long! What a sweetie....wish all men were like that :)

The eggs have to incubate for about 23 days, so beginning on the 29th of October we will begin watching for hatchlings! I'm so excited, I've never really dealt with baby birds before other than the baby sparrows/robins that have been brought into the clinic. So this is a DEFINITE learning experience. Rob has had lots of birds...so this is one 'animal' species where he 'dwarfs' my knowledge :).

I'm Deficient LOL!

Well I got my blood test results back yesterday...WOW only 1 week! I STILL haven't heard from my other Dr other than that my pap was normal. Anyways I'm Vit D Deficient. Normal ranges are 32.0-100.0 My level was at 30.3. It says Recent Studies consider the lower limit of 32.0 ng/ml to be a threshold for Optimal Health. So I guess I need more sunshine :). He wants me to start taking 5000mg twice daily for 2 months then down to 1x day with rechecking levels in 6 months. It explains some of the bone/muscle weakness/pain I've been experiencing while exercising.

My weight loss journey

I work as a Vet Tech and I LOVE to wear different designer cute print scrub tops. I always try and get some for the Holidays. Well I have a Halloween one that I loved but it was a size Lg so I couldn't wear it last year well guess what! I can wear it! I have been wearing 2X tops! My butt still needs to shrink but other than that it fits GREAT! Excuse the hair; I only had 4 hours of sleep the night these pics were taken:

Here is a before picture back in July do you think I'm making progress? This picture was with 12# extra in WATER WEIGHT!

I know I can see a difference in my thighs and my waist line. Hmmmm gonna have to have hubby take a pic of my butt LOL, no really, A LOT of my weight is in my butt and thighs. He's told me it's getting smaller though.

For anyone wanting to follow my journey: http://notime2weight.blogspot.com I am doing online Weight Watchers/Slim Fast have lost 28# so far and hope to lose about 70# more.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Ever since I saw the movie way back when I've wanted to try some and have just never gotten around to it. Well here in Utah we had SNOW this weekend....and this weeks forecast is 71! LOL! You know you live in Utah if you have SNOW and 70's in the same week :). Anyways my mom and dad had a TON of tomatoes and a lot were green so I picked some up and made some Fried Green Tomatoes tonight!
YUMMY! I really enjoyed them! Here's the Recipe I used:

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES from Southern Living

Yield

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, divided
• 1/2 cup cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 medium-size green tomatoes, cut into 1/3-inch slices
• Vegetable oil
• Salt to taste

Preparation

Combine egg and buttermilk; set aside.

Combine 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, cornmeal, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper in a shallow bowl or pan.

Dredge tomato slices in remaining 1/4 cup flour; dip in egg mixture, and dredge in cornmeal mixture.

Pour oil to a depth of 1/4 to 1/2 inch in a large cast-iron skillet; heat to 375°. Drop tomatoes, in batches, into hot oil, and cook 2 minutes on each side or until golden. Drain on paper towels or a rack. Sprinkle hot tomatoes with salt

***IMO they could have used a little more flavoring in the breading...not sure what though.

Natural Medicine?

As many of you who know me know, I have a lot of different health issues (PCOS, Arthritis, Gastric Reflux (GERD), Allergies, SEVERE Dry Skin & more), anyways I was looking for a new Dr here in Lehi, and called one that my insurance was good with, they told me the next opening wasn't until February with the Dr but their Nurse Practitioner (her hubby) could get me in sooner. BUT they were a more Alternative/Natural Medicine Philosphy. So I weighed my decision and decided what the heck, I already take a bazillion supplements so why not give it a try!

Wow! I was SOOOOOOO impressed! They took a THOROUGH history of all the medications/supplements I'm taking right now, then the Nurse Practitioner spent OVER AN HOUR with me going over my issues, the different meds I currently take, and supplements, what to change, what to discontinue and what to add, as well as doing a full blood panel with some vitamin levels as well. He also informed me of the risks of the GERD drug Prevacid I take, it depletes your calcium as well as you become 'addicted' to it because it stops you from forming acid, so therefore if you ever try and go off of it, you produce acid in WAY EXCESS....so we are trying to wean me off of it using Licorice Root (DGHL) on an alternating day schedule. So far the Licorice Root seems to be working GREAT. EVEN with the Prevacid I am BAD Refluxy right now no matter what, and the Licorice Root seems to be helping and can be taken every 15 minutes with no side effects if needed. It just upsets me as my Dr nor Pharmacist has EVER mentioned the problems with the Prevacid.

Then I am adding some 'mood' supplements as soon as we can afford them ($65/month), and added a cheaper one that will help with my Mood issues. We also scheduled an appt in 3 weeks for a followup/discuss results of the bloodwork (my previous Dr I have to call and BEG the results out of them!). He is also going to send me a copy of all results. He thinks that if I lose weight, a lot of my issues will be lessened/dissappear, which is true as a lot of them are aggravated by weight loss, he also commended me on the weight loss so far. I also added a steroid inhaler as if you have to use the rescue one more than once or twice a week you should have that one too. And discontinuing a nose spray that my other Dr put me on as it causes Reverse Congestion. I am doing saline rinses instead now. I feel somewhat better

Although he did tell me that my issues would probably be pretty bad for a while until we got things stabilized going off of some of the drugs/supplements so it's gonna be a rough ride, but I think it will be worth it! SORRY if TMI for people, I know some people have some similar issues so wanted to try and be 'helpful'. Let me know if you have any questions.

We also made Apple Sauce & Apple Jelly

Rob decided that since we were going to be canning might as well do some apples too. So he picked up 3 different varietes of apples and we peeled them using our nifty apple peeler

We got it from Walmart last December and LOVE it! Picking up some applesauce after it's been cooked. We left some chunks in there, it's pretty good!

Putting in some of the apple jelly. Again we used Splenda/Sugar mix and it was 1/2 of what the recipe called for and was still GREAT!

You can see the chunks in this. The Applesauce is almost the consistency of apple butter but not quite.

And of course Quality Control at it again:

BTW....it was DEFINITELY DeeJay Approved! She went NUTS for it kept pawing at my hand to get more!

It's hard work being the supervisor! DeeJay asleep on our Satellite Receiver....it's warm and one of her FAVORITE spots!

Canning Peaches

So my mom and dad gave us a BUNCH of Peaches from their peach trees....granted they sat in my dad's truck all day on a semi-warm day so they were REALLY REALLY ripe. I've never really put up anything on my own (remember helping my mom when I was younger). So Rob and I spent Conference Sunday (only day off before they were WAY too far gone to use) canning peaches while we listened to General Conference. Here's some pics/proof :)
We basically had a large apple box and 1/2 of a large laundry detergent bucket full! The Pint Jars were ALL we could find, we went to 4 stores all together and NO ONE had ANY Quart Jars, I guess canning is popular in Utah County! Look at how pretty they are!

Rob was the official peeler etc, they were so ripe we didn't even have to boil them to peel, it just slid right off!

I was the offically "Lid Putter Onner" :) This is what happens when you ask your husband to take a picture :) He's usually the camera PRO! We made the light syrup with 1/2 Sugar and 1/2 Splenda to cut calories!

Starting to heat up. We don't have the canning supplies yet so we had to improvise a little!

Finished Product! We got 18 Pints! We did have to throw some out probably could have gotten at least another 10-12 pints! My mom and dad got 24 pints out of the peaches they kept!

Quality Control: DeeJay was supervising!