Four Days Until Show Day

    It’s 4 days until show day and I still have a lot to do. This morning we had Travis’s IEP meeting. So I had a spare hour and 15 minutes after he got on the bus and before we had to leave for the school. Last night I was thinking I would make Halestorm’s halter. But what I started to do instead was trace out, and start cutting out, chaps and chinks. I like to have at least a small stock of them available. Recently I have been taking them out of my stash when I make working dolls. It saves me time while I am making the particular doll but leaves me with no chaps for sale. I got a good amount traced out this morning and I got one pair cut and mostly assembled before we needed to go. So that was good. 

   Tuesday is laundry day and I end up spending close to an hour and a half in the laundromat. A lot of that time is inactive time, waiting for the next thing I need to do. A lot of times I play on my phone, sometimes I listen to Mares in Black podcasts, or read. Today I was working on the chaps. I managed to get a bunch more cut out and after I am done writing this I will go and get them put together. I'll still have some left to work on, but I at least have a good start. 

     I have some really great news on the props front. One of my orders is definitely on the way, as I have a shipping notification. Which is fantastic because I had a real need for the stuff in that order. I have had some contact with the artist working on my other props, but no shipping yet. Not sure if that batch is going to make it. We'll see, there is still a little time. 
     I have a new recipe to share. I made some pulled pork in the crock pot recently and we had a lot of leftovers. I didn't want them to go to waste so I looked up some recipes for low carb pulled pork stir fry. I found one that looked reasonable but I messed with it a little bit. So here is what I came up with:

low carb pulled pork stir-fry

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/2 pounds leftover low-carb pulled pork
• 12 ounce bag (frozen) Cauliflower
• 12 oz. (frozen) Broccoli Florets
• 8 oz. (frozen) Asparagus
• 1 Medium onion sliced
• 3 TBSP Garlic, minced
• 6 TBSP avocado oil

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees
2. put the cauliflower, broccoli and asparagus in a casserole dish or roasting pan. Coat with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. 
3. Roast in hot oven for 30 minutes.
4. Slice the onion and mince the garlic
5. Add 1 TBSP of avocado oil to a hot, large skillet
6. Add the sliced onion and sautée for a couple of minutes or until the onion gets soft and a bit translucent
7. Add the garlic and sautée for another 30 seconds to 1 minute
8. Add the roasted veggies to the sautéed onion-garlic mix and stir to combine
9. Heat up your leftover pulled pork in a separate pan with a bit of oil and more salt and pepper. 
10. Add the pulled pork to the veggies, stir to combine.
11. Continue to sautée until mix it evenly heated.
12. Serve and enjoy.

      If the recipe looks a bit wonky it is because I copied this recipe for low carb pulled pork stir-fry and altered it above. I thought it came out pretty well but it could have used more garlic. And maybe more onions. But it was a really nice way to use up some leftover pulled pork.
       I almost forgot, I wanted to mention something I am really proud of. So if you have been reading this blog at all this year you know I am in a weight loss competition at school and that for awhile I was sort of obsessing over winning and sabotaging myself a bit and making myself (and Ethan) sort of miserable in the process. Every week, after we all weigh in, the nurse sends us out an email of how much weight (percentage) everyone lost and who won for the week. I didn't win, but I did congratulate my friend on winning another week (I think this is his 3rd win during the competition). But what I am proud of myself about is that I looked at the email, glanced at what my percentage was (I don't remember) and I didn't care about anything else. I didn't look at how far from the lead I was. I didn't start obsessing and comparing. I went cool, OK, and I went back to what I was doing. This morning I was down another .2 pounds from yesterday. And yesterday I was down .6 from Sunday. I am losing weight. I am feeling wonderful and super happy. Today I had a really excellent IEP meeting, I got a lot of work done towards my show stuff goals and I ate a really delicious dinner and ended with a cookie dough fat bomb. It was really nice. 
     Oh, did I mention my goal to do a real push-up? I can't remember if I did or not. But I have been slacking on practicing that. So Ethan, who as I've mentioned is incredibly supportive, challenged me to a contest. He said he would do a real push-up for every modified push-up I did. OK, challenge accepted! Neither of us counted so I don't know how many it was all together. More than 5 and maybe close to 10. Hard to say. I am bad at push-ups. But trying happened. So I will keep working at it, keep looking for new and fun things to eat and I also need to continue on my mission to find the perfect birthday cake recipe. And make Halestorm a halter.