Yeah!!! I lost one pound this past week, so that’s a start to losing “5 Pounds in 5 Weeks.” This is what I did:

• ate smaller portions and didn’t get second helpings
• drank lots of tea (regular and green tea) sweetened with Stevia (natural herb with 0 calories) and lots of water
• ate low-fat although we did eat at Chick Fil-A one day. Woops!
• ate three smaller meals and two healthy snacks with protein every day which works best for me (I ate nuts every day – good protein snack)
• chose healthy carbs and tried to limit processed foods, which are usually high in empty carbs, to a bare minimum. I must admit I did make cookies, but I limited myself to three cookies out of the whole batch instead of the usual half a cookie sheet’s worth. (I love cookies fresh out of the oven!)
  
• limited my candy to one small piece of chocolate on two different days (sigh!)
  
• stretched daily and went for a long walk on three days

If you would like to subscribe in a feed reader, that option is now available. Sorry it’s taken me so long to get that installed. Just click at the top, right-hand corner of the home page if you’re interested.   Subscriptions are greatly appreciated!  If you subscribe, let me know and I would be glad to subscribe to your blog, too.

Lori over at A Cowboy’s Wife is having a contest. The contest is a $25 Giveaway to Sudz N Bubbles where “soap is a form of art.”  It’s interesting to read the story about how this mom, Cindy, started making this soap because her son had eczema. 

The contest ends tomorrow on Friday, March 21. Sorry this is such late notice! I meant to post this days ago and completely forgot. But there’s still time! 🙂

Mega Brands has recalled around 2.4 million Chinese-made toys.  They are recalling 1.1 million Magtastik and Magnetix Jr. preschool toys and around 1.3 million MagnaMan magnetic action figures. Some of the stores where the toys were sold are Wal-Mart, Target, Toys “R” Us and Kmart between January 2005 and December 2007.  Tiny magnets could fall out and be swallowed by children and possibly kill them.  For details on how to return the toys and receive a free replacement, call 800-779-7122. Information is also available at http://www.megabrands.com or http://www.cpsc.gov.

Check out this new site called Zero and Up where you can “learn to grow your earnings.” It has great information for seasoned bloggers as well as for those just starting out. I’ve learned helpful tips and also learned about some things I didn’t really fully understand. For example, on his most recent post, I learned about using Entrecard. I signed up for it today and have already started using it.  The site is really doing great for being less than a month old.  The writer has a good sense of humor which can be noted in the post, “Fail-proof plan to make your blog comment free!”  And by the way, there are some good comments on that post so check those out, too.  🙂