A Changed Me Living a Better Life: It's April already?

Can you believe it's already April? I honestly don't know where the time has gone. Before you know it summer will be here and then fall. I will enjoy each and every day as best as I can.
We have been busy in our household. Keeping up with the house, the kids, the animals, while we are so busy at work can be challenging but we make it happen.
My mom came to visit on Easter Sunday.

It was nice to see her but I am sorry I didn't get to spend more time with her. Maybe soon, she will come again to visit....Right mom? Our weekend was a blur. We spent a lot of time in the yard, replanting the front planters, and planting a vegetable and herb garden.

In the past we've had the worst luck with the snails and dogs getting to our plants. Hopefully this will fix that problem.

In addition we bought a HOME DEPOT dwarf avocado tree to plant near our fig and tangerine tree.

It's supposed to only grow between 6-12 feet.

Hass? Who knows. :)

Christopher gave us a hard time on our purchase of the Avocado tree but oh well, sorry Charlie! We will see.
Carissa will be graduating high school in 7 weeks! She will be attending Cal Poly Pomona in the fall. We are excited for her. She is preparing for Prom and Grad night. I am thoroughly enjoying watching her compete in the track events at her track meets.

I can't believe that this will be it. No more anything within the Burbank School District. It's a bit sad but I will look forward to what the future holds for these kids/young adults.
I have been keeping up on my activity. I am riding my bike, and have continued with running. I really enjoy the running because it keeps my heart rate up, with higher intensity for a shorter period of time. I love my biking because I go for a minimum of 2 hrs. while keeping my heart rate up. I have increased my time on the bike and am challenging myself with going up grades that I would have never done before. I am burning a lot of calories, either way! I think it's working because I am losing inches. I lost a lot of weight in a short period of time then kind of maintained my weight with dropping a few more pounds in the last couple of months. I am 5 lbs from my goal weight. I am still planning to get there but I am pretty happy with how I feel about myself now.
I have continued to change and grow with the learning and trying of new foods. Foods that are better choices then I have made in the past. I am not perfect by any means and have the "bad" choices on occasion but it has become less and less frequent when I do. While I am still learning this, I can honestly say I feel better about making good choices physically and mentally. The good food choices taste GOOD! I have been trying new things like making recipes with Kale and Quinoa. I have baked a few times making lighter versions while using less fat, and sugar while using whole wheat flour,FAGE non fat greek yogurt, and applesauce for replacement of the traditional ingredients. I would have never done this...EVER before. I still struggle with the fact that no matter how you look at it, it is a sweet or a dessert. Do I really need this? Like I said before, only a few times I have baked for this reason.
I gave up Chocolate of any kind for Lent. I started a week late but I committed and stuck with it. It helped me in many ways with taking the "hard" choices away. I love Chocolate anything. So when you take out chocolate, it cuts out a lot of foods for me. This has helped me tremendously! So as Easter was approaching I had decided that I was going to make this most delicious Chocolate Cake that one of my favorite food bloggers had posted and raved about how it was the BEST cake EVER. This was going to be it, I was going to make that and have only that. I was going to cut out potatoes, the bread at the meal to make room for the cake. In the end, I decided against my plan...with the little help of a birdie named Chris Jackson reminding me that I was setting myself up for failure, disappointment in myself. I have to say, he is right. Who was I fooling? Who can have just one little portion and move on without eating more and more until I feel sick. That was it. I know not to put myself in that position. So I told myself "One more day...one day at a time with no more chocolate." Here it is Wednesday and I still haven't had it and honestly feel like I am not missing out on anything. I don't know for how long but for now, this is how it will be. I am helping myself with knowing myself by taking out so many "hard" choices.
Today I made Granola for the first time ever. I tried a Coconut Granola and a Traditional Granola and I have to say they both are delicious!