Okay, I agree it’s not quite normal to decide after a minute of waking up and brushing your teeth to look at the clock and decide “I have time to make granola bars!”  While I love my Copycat Nature Valley Granola Bars recipe, it’s sometimes hit or miss, and I can swear I make it the same every single time.  Sometimes it’s perfect, other times it’s too soft and doesn’t stick together.  While there is a time and place for crumbled granola, my first love is granola bars.

So I decided to do a test batch yesterday adjusting the amount of honey/brown sugar ratio.  This batch made 8 squares – each one coming in at 261 calories and 36 grams of carbs.

  • 2 cups old fashioned oats
  • 1 cup mixed nuts
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix the oats, nuts and cranberries together.  In a stock pan, heat the honey and brown sugar together and cook over medium low heat for about 5 minutes, or until the sugar is completely dissolved.  Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and salt.

Toss the oat mixture with the brown sugar mixture mixing until combined.  Press firmly on a baking sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.  Let cool completely before cutting.

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So with the carbs of the granola bar and the carbs of the vanilla yogurt, I gave myself a bit more insulin than I normally would.  That kind of backfired on me – about 15 minutes before I wanted to leave for the gym my blood sugar was a perfect 99.  Too low to work out.  So I did the next best thing – went to Goodwill!  Janine, you would have gone gaga over all the snowmen!

PicMonkey Collage - snowmen

I didn’t buy any snowmen, but I did buy a new wallet.  I’ve had my old wallet for years, and for some mysterious reason, it always feel a bit . . . moist.  Not sure why, but it’s funny because whenever I am with Hannah, I’ll ask if she wants to touch my moist wallet.  It cracks me up!  Ha!

What I found was an all leather wallet, about the same size as my old one, and it really good shape.  It’s a Rolfs brand which from what I can find online sells at Kohl’s, and so far I love it!

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I love the price tag too $2.99!  I had leftover black bean soup for lunch and realized when downloading my pictures I never got a shot of it – so I’ll use this old picture from a couple weeks ago.  You can find the recipe here.

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So Tony didn’t feel like pizza (shocker!) so it was Party Pizza Friday for One!  I made a small, 7 inch pizza for myself – Italian sausage, baby spinach, mozzarella and lots of oregano.  I puffy heart oregano!

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Thanks for all your wonderful comments on yesterday’s post.  You are the best!  I am coming clean with my weight gain, and have restarted my zero scale – my only goal is to lose something each week between now and December 31 – whether it be –1, or –2.1!  I’d have to say that most of that weight gain was from January through now.  It is what it is, and it could have been worse, so let’s just move on, shall we?!

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I am posting late because I had to take my car in this morning to get the oil changed.  What was quoted as a $48 job for the oil change and removing a nail from one of the tires and patching it, suddenly turned into a $1093 job because he suggested I needed two brand new tires, and everything that goes with a 30k tune up – which I am not close to being at.  Assholes.  Just because I was a woman by myself, they feel they can go from $48 to over a grand?!  No thanks!

Alright, time to get moving on this weekend – I can’t believe it’s already almost one in the afternoon already! Open-mouthed smile

Have a great weekend – stay warm!