Lebanese food and oil paints!

I had a really nice Saturday. I switched to oils in art class, and I don't think I'll ever go back to acrylics. Oils are great! I think I use less paint with oils, because it never dries out! My instructor told me that it is worth the investment for me, because I'm a serious artist! I took that as a real compliment....she is a very accomplished artist with a master's in art, and she has taught on the university level. I listen to every word she says in class, and I never get bored. I love it. I am starting to think I should have majored in art instead of music and English. But I love music and writing, too. I don't want to be a Jerri of all trades and a master at none! :) I need to seriously focus on my children's books and writing, though, because I do want to accomplish something tangible with my work if I am going to invest the time and money into it.

My new friend Patricia asked me to go help her choose frames that would look good on her for her new glasses and then to go have lunch at a Lebanese restaraunt nearby. Hmmm....well, I wasn't sure about the calories of Lebanese food, and Fitday.com was pretty silent on the matter as well, but I ended up dissecting the ingredients online and getting a pretty good calorie count. As you can see, it must not be low calorie, even though it is vegetarian and the oil they use is olive oil. All I ate today that wasn't Lebanese was a bowl of oatmeal and biscotti with my coffee. Needless to say, dinner will be light. I did get a good walk in, and Patricia appreciated me having the prayer team pray for her brother. He made it through his open heart surgery just fine. She asked me if I prayed for him, and I said that I did and the prayer team did. She said that may be why he made it through surgery. I said that I believe in God and I believe He answers our prayers--sometimes with a no...but I'm glad it was a yes this time. After lunch we walked and then visited the galleries. Then, after Patricia left to get ready for a Ballet she was going to see, I walked up and down the streets in Old Town Alexandria. That's a good workout, because it is all up and down hill. I spoke with another class member today about church...and her church. She is really nice, too. This class seems to have a lot of really intent artists in it. I'm so thankful that Diane Sterrit told me about the Torpedo Factory. I never realized what a great resource for artists that it is. One of my classmates is a man who just got home from Iraq--a military man who recently retired. He is a comic book artist who wants to improve his craft, and he comes straight from class after working all night as a security guard. He doesn't drink coffee either! The thing I like the most is getting to talk to the artists in their galleries. They are SO encouraging, and I get so inspired by watching them work. There is so much I would like to try!

On a sad note, Little Man had his first mishap today. Chris called me when I was at the Lebanese restaraunt. He had set up Conner's bouncy seat--hanging from the door jamb kind of thing--following the directions to the tee as only my OCD son can do...just kidding about the OCD part. It's a family joke....started by his wife! Anyway, Chris is a perfectionist when it comes to getting things right. He lifted Conner up to test something, like the instructions said, and then I guess hung him up on the door.....Conner was bouncing away when the seat....the cloth part....broke!
Conner fell backwards out of the seat and banged his head. He had a bump on it, so they called his pediatrician....she gets called a LOT! Anyway, he had no scarey symptoms, so they just kept an eye on him. (I called back a few times. Patricia bet me that I would go check on him, but I assured her that I wouldn't, because I trust Chris and Cameron's judgement.) Chris already tried to call the Evenflow people--it was a brand new product just out of the box....a gift from the baby shower. He's also going to call the consumer safety people and maybe even 7 on Your Side to make sure they do a recall or something. It definitely should not have ripped like that. Conner was well under the weight limit.

Well, Don wants us to go out for dinner. I'm going to have a lot of fun trying to find an 80 calorie salad! :) I'll check in tomorrow.

POST DINNER OUT: We went to Golden Corral to allow many choices for eating healthy, and I did; although, I didn't eat only 80 cal. I ate one ounce of baked fish, one half cup mashed potatoes, one half cup each of boiled carrots and mushrooms, one salad and one dinner roll....calories for the day 1913...a little over but much better than I could have done! (I really wanted carrot cake, fried chicken and more dinner rolls....but resisted....something to be thankful for! And that food is more plentiful than we need in the USA) Tomorrow back under 1500. I told Don we are eating at home all day tomorrow. We try not to eat out more than once a week usually anyway.