Category: Miscellaneous

NEW L👀K FOR NJSD!

I am so excited for you to check out the new Not Just Sunday Dinner! The new-look makes me sooooo happy!

Not only is the new layout and colors easier on the eyes, but I think it is user-friendly.

I have found several posts with pictures that are a little blurry. I have made a list for “remake and retake”. Hopefully, I will have fresh, clear photos for them soon.

In the meantime, as you check out the new blog, please let me know if you see anything that I need to fix.

As always, thank you for visiting NJSD!

Amye

Life Update

Greg and Amye

I know that I have been MIA for a while. Where do I start? Life has been very full lately, and the time to do anything other than focus on my family has not been there.

I have fallen off the keto wagon. I still think keto is the way to go, and as of today, I am trying to start again. I am hoping it will be as easy as it was the first time.

Savannah graduated from grad school in May and Greg, and I moved her to Atlanta mid-May to start her career there. She lived away from home during college, but that was only 30 minutes down the road. She loves it; however, it is an adjustment for mom! I have not even been up for a visit yet, but I am making plans to go very soon.

Sav grad

Wes married the love of his life, Ashley, here on the farm two weeks ago. The wedding was beautiful. We could not have asked for better weather. They are back home from their honeymoon, and it is heartwarming to watch them start their lives together.

wedding two

Leading up to the wedding, Greg and I spent every spare second in the yard. We have pretty much relandscaped the entire yard. That is something we probably should have done before it was a must, but we are thrilled with the results.

Now, we are empty nesters and trying to relax a bit. It’s been a busy, but happy, few months watching our children follow their dreams. Over the next few weeks, I have a few trips planned, but I will be back sharing recipes very soon!

Learning From My Mistakes

nutrition facts

I have no recipe, which is very different for me.  I just wanted to take a second and “talk”.

First of all, to those of you who may have missed a few posts.  I started a new way of eating eight weeks ago.  It started as a low-carb diet but I have phased it into the keto diet.  I have read books and blogs on this subject.  I quickly learned that for every book and for every blog there are just about that many opinions on how to do it.

When I was still “low-carbing” I picked up a couple of keto cookbooks simply for the recipes.  However, as I got to reading them the whole concept made sense and I decided to give it a try.  My favorite book to explain the diet is The Keto Diet by LeAnne Vogel.  I like some of the other books better for recipes, but if you want to learn about the diet I suggest LeAnne Vogel’s book.

I’ve always considered myself a visual learner.  I was in a little bit of a fog when I read through the book for the first time.  It has taken applying the diet to my life and rereading the book for me to understand it.  This being said, I still have a lot to learn.

I’ve always heard that you learn from your mistakes. If that’s the case, I should be learning a ton right now. Eating for a better life has me puzzled at times. I am losing weight. As of this morning, I have dropped 15.3 pounds. I am more than thrilled about that and I feel great. In all of my 54 years, this is the FIRST weight loss attempt I have tried that I did not feel hungry, grumpy, jealous of what others were eating, or cheated because I must have ended up with the bad genes.

I’m not perfect at getting the macros on point every day.  I struggle daily with getting all of my fat. I know, I know, I know…I have read to eat fat bombs, eat avocados, add olive oil, and so on. It’s all well and good, but I still struggle with it.

Another thing that blows me away is nutrition labels. I want to say NO sugar but do you realize the number of things that have sugar? I have a recipe coming out later this week for Keto Taco Seasoning because I just realized that the little packets of taco seasoning that I always have on hand contain sugar!

I posted a recipe recently where I went on and on about the Chipotle Rotel.  In all honestly, it is one of my favorite things in the whole world! I could open up a can and take a spoon to it. While working on a new recipe this morning, I decided to look at the Chipotle Rotel nutrition facts. It’s still not a habit to look at every single nutrition fact before I purchase…I am learning though.  I knew there would be carbs, but I was not expecting to see sugar! After comparing it to the Original Rotel, it appears there is a “one” carb difference. Not a lot unless you are trying to stay at 17 or under for the day.

I have friends on the same diet. We are there to cheer each other on and share recipes. It’s great having someone you can talk to about all of this. I have stayed positive, and I have not hit a pothole during the entire eight weeks. This Chipotle Rotel has me shaking my head though.

So, do you think if it’s a life change that you have to go at it like raising kids? Do you pick your battles? Do you eat the Chipotle Rotel, loving it and not stressing? I think maybe you do, but I’m surely not an expert.

This post was probably pointless to most of you, but maybe someone is reading somewhere that can relate. Please do not take your “life change”  or keto advice from me. If I find a recipe that we enjoy I will share it but please use your judgment to figure out if it fits into your macros. It’s clear that this gal has a lot to learn!

Quick Update

Hi there!

I just wanted to send out a quick note to let you know that Not Just Sunday Dinner has an updated Privacy Policy effective May 25, 2018. The update is to ensure you of NJSD’s commitment to protecting your privacy and data security.

Here’s a copy for your convenience:

Who we are

My website address is: https://notjustsundaydinner.com.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

The New Beekeepers in Town

Since I am not posting recipes at present, I thought I would share with you the big news here at the farm. We have bees!!

A couple of years ago we came home from a weekend trip to find hundreds of dead honeybees in the living room floor. Not being familiar with bees or their activity at all we freaked! Well, maybe I freaked! I was sure that we had a colony in the walls of the house or possibly in the attic. I wasn’t sure where they were, but I was sure they were going to attack us in our sleep.

Turns out they were swarming and looking for a new place to live.  I’m not sure how they died and as much as I want honeybees around here I do not want to live with them!

A few weeks later, while mowing grass, I saw them.  They were flying in and out of an old pop-up camper that’s behind the barn. You may notice it in some of the pictures because one of the hive boxes is set up near it. They lived in the camper until this past spring. Even after a local beekeeper, Michael, came over to set up a few boxes and caught a couple of swarms.

A few months ago we noticed they were there one day then all of the sudden there was no activity. They had moved out. While another box was set up to catch a swarm, not only did a swarm move into that box, but to our surprise, another swarm moved into the camper! We have not opened the camper in years and have no idea what is inside of it now, but one day we are going to open it up to take a look.  I’ll take pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We now have two active colonies on the farm. Greg and I did our first hive inspections over the weekend. With only three stings between us, I think we fared pretty good. Notice the white part on the frames. That is capped honey. Once 80% of the frame has capped honey, we can harvest. We ordered a small extractor over the weekend along with a few other tools, and when the time is right, we will be ready to harvest.

I’m looking forward to this new adventure. We have so much to learn that it’s almost overwhelming but having honey in our backyard is so worth it! I will continue to share pictures with you throughout our learning process.