Thankful for Three Things Thursday

It's Thursday. It's rainy and dreary and gray outside and I'm finding it difficult to be in an upbeat mood today but suck it up I will do since it is Thankful for Three Things Thursday.

Today I am thankful for:

1) Sleep. When I get it, that is. Last night didn't get off to a great start with Milla waking what seemed like every twenty minutes but eventually there was a stretch of time when I got close to three hours of unawakened sleep. Three hours!! What a delectable little treat of total physical inactivity. I'm sure for some that sounds like torture - and it is - being thankful for sleeping three hours straight. However, I've gotten used to being so incredibly sleep-deprived that anything more than an hour or two straight feels like pure dormant bliss.

I have GOT to remember to give Milla some Vitamin D liquid before bed each night.

2) Rain. Really, I don't like that it's raining out and has been for days now but if I show some appreciation for it, maybe it will move on to another part of the world for someone else to loathe. After all, I might as well be thankful for it now, with summer coming we may not see it very often. And crispy, brown, sunburned grass in front of my house doesn't make for a beautiful window view.

3) Excellent public services for special needs children in our area. Well, so far, anyway. I am very happy with the speech therapy services and the speech therapist helping Milla along with developing words other than just "Ma-ma-maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!" Actually, it's kinda ironic that I wish Milla would say more than just "Mama" because I always wished for Reiss to call me "Mama" or "Mommy" when he was a baby and all he would ever say was "Mom." Too grown up sounding, if you ask me. He does call me "Mommy" now though and that's fine. For some reason, I have this little visual in my head that nothing is as precious as a little baby calling out "Ma - ma" for their maternal figure to come rescue them from whatever situation they may find themselves. Yes, it's silly, I know.

It would be nice and I would like to be able to once again say I am thankful for weight loss but this week has not been stellar, by any means, for me and trying to eat well. My first "infraction" was when I decided to give up the fight and lose the battle in finding a suitable sweetener to replace sugar in my coffee each morning. I have tried a product called Just Like Sugar - which, by the way, is definitely NOT just like sugar. There have also been trials of stevia, Sucanat, honey, maple syrup, Zylitol, agave syrup and my apologies if I've left anything out.

The initial goal was to find a natural sweetener that provided zero or close to zero carbs and could be considered natural. Nothing tasted right so I loosened the reigns on my dietary rules and allowed natural sugar replacements that are considered low on the glycemic index. Still a no-go. Nothing tastes as good as plain old white refined really-bad-for-me sugar. So Tuesday morning marked my reunion with a really good cup of coffee. It could be even better but I'm trying to persuade my tastebuds into believing that half the sugar I used to use still tastes better than the full amount of any of those other things. I may be back to sugar but it's been cut in half.

Tuesday also ended up being a bad day for fiber intake as well. Unfortunately, I didn't eat a whole lot of produce that day and to make up for it, as in, to (ahem) keep things moving, I ate five prunes that evening. What? Prunes aren't a bad thing? Well, no traditionally they're not bad but they are when the person eating them is trying to stick to lower carbs. If the sugar and prunes were not enough to blow it all, Milla must have felt certain I was starving because she kept bringing me pieces of Pirate's Booty. Suffice it to say I will be pleasantly surprised tomorrow morning if the scale reflects any loss at all this week. Wish me luck.