Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezie!

(image from: http://www.fittothefinish.com/blog/2011/08/easy-does-it/)

Hey, my last posting was in April! That's not as bad as I thought!

Well, it's been a whirlwind with school winding down, again, finally, and Mr. Man out of work then back to work then out of work... blaaaaah Mostly, for me, though, it's been school. The last while I've been working in the school's massage therapy clinic at first just on Saturdays, and then on Saturdays and Wednesdays, in addition to regularly attending all-day classes (ohmigoodnes, a 7hr lecture followed by an 8hr lecture I KID YOU NOT. Without lunch break. It's been BRUTAL) on Sundays...I haven't had much time to myself, to my housework, to my family... so yeah.

Anyway, I finally had my last day at clinic this week (WAHOOOOO!!!) and have only 3 more Sunday classes left, so minus frantic studying and trying to retain and perfect everything by the time I take my board exams.....BOOyah. (That booyah will be bigger after I'm actually DONE classes...stay tuned...) ;-)

Lately, I've been trying to figure out some stuff about myself that has landed me here, writing on the good old, oft neglected, blog today. You may or may not recall (having maybe or not previously read) me posting earlier in the year about learning MY specific nutritional needs and losing a bunch of weight. Well, I'm fine, I feel fine, I'm not here to wo-is-me-I'm-so-fat today, so don't worry about that! Just lately, I've been struggling. I said in my posting before that I can eat whatever I want, I just, usually DON'T eat certain things anymore i.e. wheat, oats, and spelt. And while my general eating habits haven't changed back to how they were - we as a family do NOT have pasta multiple times/week anymore - I'm also not eating, for me, what I need to be eating.

Part of it is, honestly, I'm just too exhausted all the time. I can't do it if I don't have the full week's meals planned out on my fabulous wipe-clean meal planner I made myself. I LOVE having my meal planner all done and the corresponding groceries in my fridge/storage. But some weeks, with school, clinic, a 4yo, an unemployed hubs and a mountain of dust on the piles of crap around the house, I just don't get it done. And those weeks...we eat whatever the heck we can get our hands on.

 If Mr. Man is in charge of dinner we eat Kraft Dinner, almost exclusively. Which I LOVE, but is definitely not wheat-free (nor a bunch of other crazy stuff we shouldn't be ingesting REGULARLY...cheese isn't really powdered flourescent orange, you know). If we're in a hurry and haven't come up with anything else, we grab a burger somewhere. Or instead of taking thirty seconds to wash myself a piece of lettuce to wrap up my fajita I'll just grab the whole-wheat tortilla. So then when we're out and presented with wheat/oat/spelt options only by some lovely folk kind enough to feed us i.e. parents/friends/family, and I go ahead and have seconds 'cause it's delicious...it's not so much a one-off thing.

Anyway, I haven't put a TON of weight back on - I still fit my skinny clothes. I just have some extra fluff... that whole muffin-top thing. Which is...fluffy.... hahaha Little Miss LOVES to play with it! She was sitting in my lap this morning repeatedly 1-2 punching my gut, squealing as her fists disappeared into my bulge. It was hilarious and delightful...but it's not so pretty in a dress!

 So yesterday, I said to Mr. Man: "I've heard a lot of people suggest and say like, once you buy the veggies actually cut them up and leave them ready-to-use in the fridge, so you CAN easily open it up and grab a fistful of carrot sticks/pepper slices/whatever, instead of landing in the pantry for chocolate chips" (which totally happens in this house, by the way, I do eat fist-fulls of chocolate chips if I can't find anything else 'immediate' to munch on). "AND I'm going to cook up soups and stuff we can keep in small freezer bags in the freezer, so we can just grab them and heat them up for quick lunches/dinners etc." I know, right? BRILLIANT!

So this is my new strategy: I AM super busy, and arguably overworked (my own fault, of course!) so why not make my life EASIER instead of harder and prepare what I want/need to be eating in ways that will make it as super easy and speedy as a box of KD to get from my kitchen's storage into my hungry tummy!?

Yesterday I made kale chips to have on hand for snacks, cauliflower-cheese soup to freeze for quick meals, as well as popping a pork roast I'd gotten on sale at the grocery store in the crock pot with Epicure's Pulled Pork packet (this makes a huge amount that we can then keep in the fridge and slowly make our way through as the week goes on! And it's DELICIOUS, and EASY!) for dinner. Mr Man had his pork on a giant crusty bun, and I did not.

 So that's that! That's the plan. Get back to better at what I was doing before, but make it EASY for me to do. Because while prepping 3 meals a day for my family isn't HARD, it's exhausting, and I'd rather be doing a number of things OUTside of my kitchen. And I can do that now because I have prepped a bunch of meals that will be as easy to get read to eat as popping the can open on Mr. Boyardee, but a bazillion times better for me, AND my little family.

To quote LIttle Miss: "easy peasy lemon squeezie!" :-) My new food mantra!

I wanna be Batman when I grow up.

(image from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/rosenwald-md/post/who-is-the-route-29-batman-this-guy/2012/03/28/gIQA8nPjgS_blog.html)

True statement.

Seriously!

Okay, no, you're right. I don't want to be Bruce Wayne, forever psychotically scarred from childhood trauma, raised by my butler, and with nothing to do with my vast fortunes (though I'll take the vast fortunes!) except pretend I'm a superhero and fighting equally-psychotic villains throughout the rough-and-tumble of Gotham City.

I have already admitted I wouldn't be against being unbelievably wealthy (so sue me. And really, can you REALLY say you wouldn't LOVE to take a book out of Scrooge McDuck's book and BE ABLE to swim in your money-pool? Come on!)  But, aside from my wish to someday own a house...at LEAST a wee little bit larger than the wee little bitty shoe-box of a war-home we currently live in (which I love), ...I REALLY want to be Batman.

Or at least, the so-called "Route 29 Batman."

You have GOT to read this article if you haven't already.  My heart sings for this fantastic man and the fabulously silly and ridiculously important work that he is doing.

It makes me wonder, what CAN I do, what AM I doing, and what WILL I do in the future?  In all honestly, I really hope to be at least a fraction as amazing as this and so many other unsung heroes out there, and to make some sort of change for the better for someone.  Isn't that kind of the whole point?

Yes, I really do want to be Batman.  Well, woman, I guess.

Time to be a little bit selfish...

I know it's Menu Monday today, but I didn't cook anything, really - we had dinner at friends' tonight and lunch was...not spectacular - AND I don't have anything pre-planned to post (whoops), so this week, you'll just have to get over it.  hahaha In fact, if you are so inclined, leave ME one of your favourite recipes to try out in the comments - I'm always looking for new, yummy things to eat!  You know, as long as they're not super weird...

No, today, in lieu of food, let's talk about me.

(image from: http://teachmelife.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/teach-me-not-to-be-selfish/)

You know, the me that you are.  And that I am. And that guy is.  You know. Me.

Here's the thing.

I am a mom. And a wife. And a daughter, sister, student, friend, daughter-and-sister-in-law and auntie.  A role model, teacher, (very small) business owner, housekeeper, pet owner, church-goer, music director and blogger.

But really. How can I expect of myself to do BE any of those things with any degree of success if I'm not, also, ME.  If I'm not someone who looks after herself, loves herself, and works on herself. Because I am NOT perfect, and do need work. 

Lots of it.

Think about it - when are you your best me.  What things do you do that make you just....aaaaaahhhhhh..... FABulous.  Reading a favourite book? Playing video games? Going for a run? A bike ride? Crafting? Cooking? Driving?

I am my best me when I make SURE to take time for me. When I say "SCREW IT!" to my housework, homework, whining family (not that my 4-year-old EVER whines 'cause I'm such an awesome mom she knows NOT to.... hahahahahaha yeah right.... Oh, man, that would be awesome!), and take the evening to go to a kickboxing class. To participate in a musical presentation, and rehearse rehearse rehearse rehearse ahead of time.  You know what? Sometimes, to lay my lazy butt down on the couch and watch some silly chick t.v. (Have you discovered Drop Dead Diva yet? I LOVE it. Netflix, I need more!)  I read books.  I occasionally craft something - I love the finished product; it makes all the work totally worth it to see something awesome and say, HOT DIGGITY I made that.

So, am I a horrid person? Selfish?  I don't know. Maybe some days.  Maybe the days where I spent a good chunk of YESTERDAY on the couch buried in a book and do the same thing today. That's not really ideal. 

But it's about balance, right?

So much easier said than done.

But you HAVE to do it. You HAVE to.  Seriously.

Think about it.  How are YOU your best self? What do you have to do for YOU to be me.  Think about people you like to be around - are they happy people, who are pretty good at being me, or are they....not.  I find lousy me people can really suck you dry - it can be such an effort to be around them a lot because you're almost trying to compensate for their lack of meness or something. I don't know what happens. It's like Eeyore or Tigger: who would you rather invite to a party? You know?

If I'm not my best me, I CAN'T be Mom. A good wife. The world's greatest daughter, sister, an A student, best friend, world class daughter-and-sister-in-law and favourite auntie.  A decent role model, exemplary teacher, successful (very small) business owner, capable housekeeper, loving pet owner, avid church-goer, talented music director and blogger extraordinaire.  I cannot. 

And frankly, when I'm NOT being me, when I'm not taking care of myself and I'm depressed, in a funk... no one else likes me either.  Well, obviously not no one - Mommies always love their kids even when they're idiots.  But I'm not a ray of sunshine for anyone to be around when I'm not looking after myself.  And it's indicated by my interactions, or incredible lack thereof, with people around me.  When I'm ME I'm..."popular" for lack of a better, non-high-school-term.  When I'm lost?  I'm alone. I'm a mess. I withdraw from people and they're not overly disappointed to see me go.  I'm not missed or wished for because I'm so difficult to be around. I lose potential for friendships and have rock relationships with the most important people in my life.  Little Miss gets antsy with me because I'm such a crap mom.

So yes, I'm ALL for putting others first and doing for others and service.... ask my family; they accuse me regularly of being a "people-pleaser," and I have a heck of a time saying NO - I don't like confrontation and never want to step on toes.  Don't get me wrong, I really am a huge advocate for service.

But gosh darn it, if I'm not taking care of me, myself, and I then what the heck good am I going to be TO serve anyone else?

So...go look after you, okay?  Stop making excuses.  Bob Harper tweeted this morning: "Your challenge this week is to not make any excuses! Live in the present, not on yesterday or tomorrow!"  So STOP telling yourself you're too busy, that you'll start exercising TOMORROW, or at the end of the week, or as soon as that project is over.... you are WORTH it. You DESERVE to start now. You HAVE to look after yourself, I promise you.  You will be happier and everyone you're sacrificing your me for will be happier with and for you.

And that is the end of my soapboxing for tonight.  Now where's my book...

Thankful Thursday: Everything

A few days ago my MIL sent me the above picture in an email: "Just thought this was too cute and might fit into one of your Thankful Thursdays..." 


And I LOVED it. It IS cute!  But it made me think a little - usually my Thankful Thursdays I like to pick five things I'm thankful for and write about those five things.  But...what if today, I AM just grateful for everything? Not just five things, but EVERYTHING??  


Except, maybe mosquitoes. I don't think I can ever figure out how to be grateful for mosquitoes. 


I'm thankful for my girlie - she makes my heart warm and my face grin.  She is my everything, and today I am grateful for everything. 


I'm thankful for my hubs - he drives me crazy and some days, honestly, I have to sit and wonder what on Earth made me fall in love with him in the first place because he's driving me SO insane I just want to call it quits.  But he is a fabulous man, with a fabulous heart.  He is strong where I am weak, and weak where I am strong.  Being together makes us a whole team, and I know that together we can get through anything and everything.  And today, I am grateful for everything. 


I thankful for my family, both old and new - the amazing family I grew up in, married into, and have created together with Mr. Man.  I truly believe there is nothing stronger or more important than family, and I have some of the greatest people ever in mine.  My family is everything, and today I am thankful for everything. 


I am thankful for my friends - a while ago I posted about not having friends. And I think at least sometimes, we all feel that way.  But I do have friends. I have best friends who know me and love me anyway, who accept that I am not superwoman and that sometimes the ball I drop is on our friendship, but who will never let me down and are willing to give me and my family anything, and everything.  And today, I am thankful for everything. 


I am thankful for my home, my bed, my comfortable furniture, my clothes and shoes. I am thankful for food - OH how thankful am I for food! - for the nourishment and incredible enjoyment I derive from it. For water.  I am thankful for technology, music, talents, education, books, toys, games, sports.  Photos - I love photos.  Looking at photos makes me smile.  


I am thankful for sunshine, rain, wind and snow. For falling leaves and fresh-cut grass.  For bugs and worms with their worlds to explore.  For cats and dogs, and all the beautiful creatures we share this world with. 


For flowers and trees, and the spider-plant in my living room that keeps sprouting 'babies.'  


For paint, play-doh, glue and scissors. Beads, wire, and string.  


Yes, today is a good day.  As all should be.  And today, with a cold, no work, an unemployed husband and an incredibly messy home, I am thankful.  For everything. 

Menu Monday: Cauliflower Cheese Soup

I was scowering my Mom's large collection of cookbooks a few weeks ago, looking for some new recipes to add into the rotation with my new, fabulous, totally different regular diet - lotsa' produce, protein, and DIFFERENT carbs - because, well, you know how boring it is to eat the SAME thing over and over and over and over.....   ANYway.  I found some great ones!

This is one of them (for which I had to get my hot little hands on an immersion blender... hooray new kitchen gadgets! Thanks, Mom!)

Cauliflower Cheese Soup, from Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Food Revolution

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots
• 2 celery stalks
• 2 medium-sized onions
• 2 cloves garlic
• 8 cups cauliflower florets
• olive oil
• 1 3/4 quarts chicken or vegetable broth
• salt & pepper
• 8 oz cheddar cheese
• 1 tsp English mustard (I had Dijon mustard, so that's what I used)

Directions:

Peel & roughly slice carrots.  Slice the celery.  Peel & roughly chop onions.  Peel & slice garlic.  Cut cauliflower into 1/2 inch slices.  Grate the cheddar into a bowl and put to one side for later. 

Put broth in saucepan & heat until boiling.

Put a large saucepan on medium heat and add 2 tbsp olive oil.  All all your chopped & sliced ingredions and mix together with a wooden spoon.  Cook for approximately 10-15 minutes with the lid askew, until the carrots have softened but are still holding their shape, and the onion is slightly golden.


Add the boiling broth to the vegetables.  Give the soup a good stir and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat & simmer for 10 minutes with the lid on. 

To serve your soup:
Remove the pan from the heat.  Season with salt and pepper and add the cheese and mustard.  Using an immersion blender or liquidizer pulse the soup until silky smooth.  Divide between your serving bowls and grate over some nutmeg, if you like. 

Lovely topped with some lightly fried crisp bacon.

It was SO SO SO SO SOOOOOOOOOOOOO good!! And makes, as you can imagine, a nice big batch, so I had it...most days last week while trying to recover from my death-cold. (Having a cold at the same time as your four-year-old is...not pleasant. 'Cause I don't know about you, but the secret to MY recovery is SLEEP, and I CAN'T sleep if the kid is up on and off on and off ALL FRIGGIN' NIGHT, EVERY night. It was brutal.  Mr. Man finally caught the cold, but Little Miss is better, so like, he gets off easy! GAH! What is WITH that??)

Okay, that's Menu Monday (plus a mini-rant - you are welcome!) and...time to plug into Netflix and lose some brain cells! O:-)

Thankful "Thursday": Disgusting Things

Alright, forget it. Here I'm ALL ready for Menu Monday, but I haven't put it up yet because I didn't get my Thankful Thursday finished last week.  I'm sorry, but when my head is THAT full of cold AND I'm just getting back into the swing of my gratefuls...it's just...not pretty.  hahaha  BUT I didn't write NOTHING!  So, HERE is what I wrote on Friday for Thankful "Thursday" - I only got 2 done (I had 5 listed, but just...couldn't...do it!) but better LATE and partially completed than never and nothing at all, right??  And THEN I'll go grab the camera and tell you about this fabulous soup I made JUST in time to have in the fridge for being sick - hooray!

Enjoy!
____________________________________________________________________

I KNOW it's Friday. I know. It's been a pretty crazy week. We started off well - I got my Menu Monday posted on MONDAY (I've even taken pictures for next week's already! HOORAY!), got my Crafty Betties post planned and posted on time yesterday...Little Miss has been home sick since Wednesday, there was a bed-wetting incident with emergency laundry, piano lessons, a Scentsy party, ME getting Little Miss' cold after nighttime coughing-consolation...  It's just been a WEIRD week. A good week, generally - neither Little Miss or I are deathly ill, we just have this icky, stubborn cough - but having her home throws us off a bit.  And so between not feeling well tomorrow and looking after my house and family, obviously, I didn't get THIS post done.

Though I planned it, so I wasn't totally blog-free yesterday.  Well, that's my story, anyway.... O:-)

But having Little Miss home for a few days, NOT with a crazy, hectic-with-fun, filled March Break, has been delightful.  And I've some things to share today that may or may not be classifiable as T-M-I.

...You've been warned.

Thankful "Thursday"

The Disgusting Edition

read ahead at your own risk

1) Farts

Okay, really. They're gross, smelly, embarassing...a nasty byproduct of your digestive processes...  But goodness me, they're HILARIOUS, aren't they?  WOW.  I mean, really. Is there anything else in life that is universally comical to such degrees? 

Even our attempts to not be crude regarding flatulence is funny - 'toot,' 'pass gass,' 'cut the cheese,' or my personal, childhood favourite 'gas attack."  GAS attack. For real. I was raised to think that F-A-R-T was a four-letter word and always said 'gas attack'.  When my childhood best friend and her family all used the 'f' word liberally it made me blush and embarassed!! hahaha  Meanwhile, I'm farting up a storm saying "Oh, excuse me. I gas-attacked."  hahahaha  (Don't worry, Mom - I have lots of great 'gas attack' stories I would never had if we hadn't had this crazy rule as kids! I LOVE that we did!)

AND, they feel amazing. hahaha  I mean, really.  Just.... aaaaaahhhhhhhh.....

Anyway. Little Miss and I are very proud farters - you know the saying 'girls don't fart, they fluff?' TOTAL crap in this house.  This gorgeous little girl has been a FARTER since....forever.  I remember being just absolutely astonished at the incredible decibles her adorable little butt was able to produce so early on in her life.... it hasn't changed.  And Mr. Man? Well, let's just say that between her two parents, Little Miss comes by her farting expertise very honestly. 

But yesterday morning, laying in bed with a sick Little Miss post her peeing-in-her bed accident....I farted.  

And she GASPed! And said "You fawted!" And I said, yup - 'scuse me. And then SHE farted, looked at me with a big grin on her face and said "I fawrted, too!  We're best fweinds." 

Farts are now one of my absolutely favourite things, and I have a new bestie because of it. :-)

2) The Disgusting Book

image from: http://www.amazon.ca/100-Most-Disgusting-Things-Planet/dp/0545197759

A little while ago, we were out for lunch with Mimi and Little Miss got a $5-free coupon for Indigo books from the server; I dunno for sure if it was part of her meal, a special promotion, or if she's just so darn stinkin' cute people throw gifts at her...I think it's most likely that last option.  Anyway, here we're sitting with a crazy little 4 year old who loves books!  With her MIMI, who loves shopping for kid stuff FOR the kid!  With $5 burning some crazy holes in all our pockets.

(I think the Becky Bloomwood tendencies may be genetic...at least, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

Really, the whole set-up couldn't have been more ideal.

So we head off in search of a big box book store!  And FIND one with relative ease.

Little Miss LOVES big book stores - so many books to look at, and there are always TOYS, too - we told her she had $5 and she went around to anything and EVERYthing that interested her in the remotest and said "this is 5 dollars. THIS is 5 dollars." ....of course, most of the most-desired items were like, SIXTY-5 dollars. hahaha Try explaining that one to a 4 year old having a conniption because of all the awesome she's surrounded with; it was like taking her to Santa's workshop.

Finally we told her she could pick a book. ONE book. We figured it was unlikely she'd pick one for $5 or less, but the difference between the $5 and actual price wouldn't be unaffordable. So one book, she set out to find!

Well, you can guess what she picked.  I don't even know where she found it, or WHAT on Earth made her see it and think, hot-dang THAT looks GREAT!  I mean, really?  It looks DISGUSTING.  In case you missed it up there, the cover is COVERED with brains, beetles, various worms, spiders in noodles that appear to be actually PART of the meal.... ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew eeeeeeewwwwwwww!!!

I TRIED to talk her out of the book. I TRIED to tell her how great THIS book, or THIS book....or ANY OTHER BOOK are.  But she was convinced - THIS is the book I want.

Shudder


The book? It's DISGUSTING.  Some of my 'favourite' entries? tick; tapeworm; tongue-eating louse; eyeballs (AS FOOD!!!!!); chocolate-covered ants; spit; phlegm (ew, looking at that one just made me gag); pus; poo; maggot therapy.

Can I just tell you, PEOPLE eat some REALLY REALLY REALLY nasty things. OHmigoodness. Wow.

Little Miss LOVES this book. She loves it. Nights when Daddy asks at bedtime "do you want to read the disgusting book?" she almost always bounds up and down and says YEAH!  She loves it.

I won't read it to her.  hahaha  It's way beyond too gross for me.

But you know what? I LOVE that she loves it.  I LOVE that she's her own little self and so grateful that she can just BE that. That she can PICK The Disgusting Book over some more conventional happy story about gumdrops, lollipops or princesses and fairies.  That she likes herself some princesses and fairies, but she, at LEAST equally, likes her disgusting things too. 

Menu Monday: Chicken "Parmesan"

One of my FAVOURITE things about having married my husband...is my mother-in-law's SUPER easy, delicous recipe for chicken parmesan hahahaha.  It's SOOOOOOOOOOOO good.   It has become one of my absolute favourite meals, one of my favourites to cook when I have company, and a couple of my friends' must-not-miss meals at my house.  hahaha  It was also a cheat meal back in detox days - YUM!!

Here we go!

Chicken Parmesan

Ingredients: 

• boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 3/4 cup bread crumbs
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning or 1/2 tsp oregano + 1/2 tsp basil
• butter
• lots of shredded mozzarella cheese
• parmesan cheese
• can of spaghetti sauce

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Melt butter in large frying pan. Meanwhile moisten chicken with water and shake in bag with breadcrumbs and seasonings. Place coated chicken in pan and fry in the butter until brown (both sides).  Place chicken in a baking dish and cover with mozzarella cheese.  Cover with spaghetti sauce (if you have more than five pieces of chicken you may need another can of sauce, FYI).  Cover AGAIN with more mozzarella.  Top it off with parmesan cheese (fresh grated or the shake-shake-shake kind) :-) Place in oven and bake for 45 minutes or until cheese is browned and bubbly.

like this!

Mmmm...fresh from the oven! YUM yum yum!

Serve with (whatever you want) spaghetti noodles.  You can use the excess sauce (if you used a large enough sauce to chicken ratio - 3 chicken breasts to one can of sauce works pretty well) from the pan on top of your noodles OR..I LOVE to add a yummy white sauce to my noodles so that when I put my chicken on top I end up with a scumptious orangey/pink mixed mess.  It's SO SO SO yummy! 

White sauce: equal parts (unwhipped) whipping cream and FRESH grated parmesan cheese, and a pat of butter.  Cook and drain the noodles, and then add the cream, cheese, and butter, and stir.  That's IT and it's AWESOME. (Stole it from Better Homes and Gardens "new cook book" or whatever it's called. hahaha

And now I have laundry to fold. :-)  Cheers!

Procrastination....again...

So, I know it's Menu Monday, and I actually have two recipes all ready to go, but I haven't had a chance to sit and write yet today, and NOW...I can't be bothered. hahaha I'm tired, my 14-year-old bud is here for a sleepover (High School Musical marathon tomorrow - booyah! hahaha) and I really just...don't want to. hahaha SO...I'll post today's recipe tomorrow. :-)

Here's this FABULOUS thing my darling friend RaeDawn posted on Facebook, like, a minute ago. I LOVE it.

haaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

One of my other favourites, for while exercising: I'm not sweating - that's my fat cells crying!!

Okay. Time to pretend I'm a teenager for the night! Cheers!

Thankful "Thursday" (2 days late)

Hi!

I know, I'm two days late.  But I'm HERE aren't I??

I've had so much rattling around in my brain after coming up with this brilliant Thankful Thursday idea, and then so much actually going on in my LIFE, that I didn't get my post done on Thursday.

But, here we are.  Thankful Saturday! hahaha

Thankful "Thursday": the Unemployment edition

1) Clearance Racks

(image from: http://kristinemaeadelante.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html)

You may or may not know about me, I'm NOT the most, um, FEMININE of all the females ever.  I don't always (or even often) enjoy....I don't know how else to put it, but stereotypically 'girly' activities. Some of them even make me gag, balk, cringe, or just full-on LAUGH.  My poor mother, I think, has been somewhat regularly 'disappointed' in how non-genteel I can be, as she laughs in astonishment wondering how she got ME when she was told she'd had a baby girl! hahaha (Which is not at ALL to say I think my mom is disappointed with ME, she just may have occasionally over the past 29+ years thought GAH where's my little GIRL?!  If only in jest.... sheesh, don't WORRY. My mommy LOVES me BECAUSE I'm a nutcase.  Promise!)

Despite my somewhat, um, DIFFERENCES, though I will be the first to admit: I LOVE to shop.  And while the mall is actually NOT one of my happy places - I ALWAYS feel unattractive, frumpy, chubby, plain, and filthy when I catch my reflection at the mall, I do NOT know why - there is something just BRILLIANT about retail therapy.

And while my mommy and I have had a BLAST on three separate occasions now since Mr. Man was laid off in October, shopped until we dropped and had some seriously fabulous times together (which could honestly be a whole post in and of itself, and it would not be short. Mom and I....are a force in the mall. People LOVE us.  hahaha We scored a family and friends card at the Gap the other day JUST because the cash lady found us so delightful she didn't want to charge us full price for our loot! BOOyah!) I have to tell you how wonderfully empowering CLEARANCE racks are.

On a clearance rack this week I found a BEAUTIFUL skirt, my NEW size (it fits me PERFECTLY and I look skinny in it - hooray! Eat THAT mall mirrors! Muahaha!) and another one housed five-dollar blouses! FIVE FREAKING DOLLARS!! Well, I LOVE me a nice blouse, be it casually thrown over a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, paired with some nice dressy slacks, or over a skirt so I tend to go through blouses relatively quickly for a wardrobe.  And I found two for five bucks each.  NEW ones. Nice ones!

So, we haven't much income at the moment, but I make more than $5/week teaching piano. And you know what? I'm WORTH $5 AND looking neat and tidy and put together.

Yes, I absolutely know that there's a closet Becky Bloomwood inside of me. But one thing I LOVE about Ms. Bloomwood - she TOTALLY gets the satisfaction of a great new outfit.  Made zillions of times better by a FABULOUS deal.  I'm grateful for that rush of pleasure that helps ease the pain every now and then.  (And no, I am not an addict. hahaha)

2) Happy Pills

(image from: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=unraveling-the-mystery-of-antidepressants)

Another thing you may or may not know about me - I can never remember which of my deep dark secrets I've spilled on this blog over the past few years! hahaha - is that I suffer from clinical depression. I know, right? Sometimes people are SHOCKED to find that out about me, and other times (like after reading all my boo-boo-woe-is-me sporadic postings over the past year or so) people are NOT surprised. hahaha  Depression isn't as cut-and-dry as I think most people think it is.  But I digress. 

So I suffer from depression. Not CONSTANTLY - since first being diagnosed and treated (and HELPED - literally saved) in 2003 I've been OFF medication for a few years, symptom-free.  But, post graduation....yeah.  It came back and reared its ugly-butt head again.  And so I got chunky, which made me more depressed, unable to function...the whole thing made starting up at school again REALLY dicey... Little Miss and I were constantly bickering (which is pretty lame considering she's now four so would have been younger when I was at the height of my awesomeness - go me!)  Yeah, a depressed me is just...not good.  hahaha 

Anyway, I went to my doctor, honestly to have my hormone levels checked out. Depression this time around hadn't occurred to me - been there DONE that! Got better! MOVED ON.  Anyway, after testing and observation and lah-dee-da YES my depression was back.  But not like, full-swing.  I was suffering a 'moderate' case. 

So, we, my doc and I, decided that I did NOT need a prescription; moderate depression I can beat with nutrition, EXERCISE (which I was not regularly doing at the time), and just accepting my problem and facing it head on.  It's really, for me, just once I get moving I'm GOOD...I just have to get that first step done.  It's excruciating. 

For months I did what I was supposed to do.  I tried to eat better. I tried to exercise. I signed up for kickboxing to make a financial and temporal commitment to ME to get my expanda-butt in gear and boost my endorphin levels! I tried to study.  I got counselling.  

It didn't work. None of it.  I made NO improvement.  It was kind of crazy, actually.  How little affect my actions were having.  

Nothing worked for me until I got back on medication. 

And I know there's OODLES of controversy floating out there in the world about the usefulness of antidepressants, the placebo effect, overprescription.... Tom Cruise we all know is a strong advocate AGAINST these drugs while the big evil drug conglomerates are pushing pills down our throats faster than we can say "I'm having a grey day today."  Well, WHATEVER you want to believe is going on with me, that's totally fine, and you can have your opinion.  But placebo effect or WHATEVER happens to me when I'm sick and I get back on my medication to help... IT HELPS. 

And honestly. Do you really think I would have been able, thus far, to handle my husband's laying off and HIS emotional struggles around that for the past five months if I didn't have this incredible resource in my life, helping me be the best me that I can so that I can be there for him, for Little Miss, and for ME as we struggle through the humiliation of having to ask for help with our finances, facing increasing debt loads instead of our previously-planned elimination, and sometimes interesting dinner selections?  

I guarantee you there would be no way.  I needed to get better, and this time around the only way for me to do that was a drug intervention.  And for that option, I am truly thankful, because I can do what I need to do now. 

3) Exercise

(image from: http://www.thecolor.com/Category/Coloring/Sports.aspx)

My mom, over the years, has learned about both my brother and myself, that whatever it is about us, we are two individuals who NEED physical activity to like, survive.  My bro is a BMX biker (what a psycho - hahaha LOVE you, Bravo!) and if he hasn't gotten out for a while I swear it's like he gets the shakes.  He just HAS to ride.

Me? When I'm not exercising regularly, doing something I LOVE to do...I shut down.  I mean, I get chunky pretty quickly, which is a bummer, but my depressive tendencies? Yes, not exercising doesn't help. I can get pretty bad.  And getting OUT of that non-exercising funk is SO. INCREDIBLY. DIFFICULT. It's SO hard.

But right now? I'm totally out. I'm out.  I'm exercising regularly.  I'm exercising HARD.

I LOVE IT.

I try my darndest most weeks to give myself 3-4 sessions at the dojo for kickboxing. Just...for me. Because it feels awesome.  Because I'm a better me after I've done it.  I can just release all the crap and tension that I've let build up in me all day, and just..... aaaaaaahhhhhhh...... it's fabulous.  I'm SO much more myself after a bout of exercise than before.  It's the weirdest feeling, but immediately before I'm sluggish, I often have a difficult time talking myself into going, I tell myself that just this time staying home and watching tv is okay for me.  And you know what? Sometimes it is, and I do stay home.

But usually I go.  I NEED to go.  I get out of the house. I get away from our troubles.  My only focus when I'm kickboxing, running, playing soccer, is the SPORT.  It's the sport, my performance. Gritting my teeth and getting through the pain. Feeling super-human when I survive an 'F-U' day, or a full hour-and-a-half on the soccer field.

I have FUN.

When life's got you down, who doesn't need fun??

I'm SO thankful that sports are fun for me. That I can combine so many of my physical and mental needs into one fabulous experience and come out on top.  Even on the days when I can't remember which is jab, which is cross, or keep my rear leg from stepping in front of my lead.  I feel like a superstar.

4) School

(image from: http://www.layoutsparks.com/1/209887/massage-therapy-1-hands.html)

This one's short! Promise!

But ohmigoodness, can I just tell you how AMAZING it is to know that (assuming I pass all my registration examinations and requirements - EEK!) I WILL NEVER BE IN THIS SITUATION AGAIN!! EVER! EVER EVER EVER!!  If Mr. Man gets another fabulous job that he love, that we live close to, that pays our bills and buys us food and clothing and all those things jobs are supposed to do....and he LOSES it?  PSHT! No big deal! I'LL be ABLE to work!  I'll be a skilled health-care PROFESSIONAL, with my own income to help the family.

I cannot tell you enough how insanely grateful I am for all the stars to have aligned to bring me this incredible opportunity.  The school for offering the accelerated program for kinesiologists, the incredible people who've made it possible for me to participate in the program - you KNOW who.  My friends and family for helping me, supporting me, yelling at me and knocking a wee bit of sense into my maniacal brain, encouraging me....  I wish the timing had been better and that Mr. Man's layoff had happened AFTER I had finished this course and was a viable help, but I think we needed to experience it this way to ensure we're going to be the best people we can become.

And that, is that.

5) People


I say quite often, I'm sad to admit, that people suck.  Day to day, that's my opinion. People suck. I don't generally care for people.  I find them annoying, nosy, intrusive, rude, insensitive, stupid...  I don't like people knowing my business, knowing me, slowing me down.

But lately I'VE been down.  I've been struggling with Mr. Man's struggling with unemployment.  I've watched him hurt, flounder, and get stuck.  And it's made it hard for me to be the awesome he needs me to be that my happy pills, shopping, schooling and exercising are pushing me towards.

So, I did something a little crazy.

I told some people.

I've told my parents - they're my go-to persons for just about everything. They're safe.  They're my home-away-from-home, because Mr. Man and Little Miss are my home now.  But my mommy is my sounding board.

I've told my in-laws.  I figure it's silly for them to be unaware of what's going on with my family because my family is part of their family, Mr. Man is their baby, and he has a mommy too who loves him like my mommy loves me.

And I've told some of the men at church.

You know what happened???

My parents mobilized - with smiles on their faces they've chatted with Mr. Man, drawn him out of his shell. Helped him set some short-term goals for job-hunting, current programming projects he's had.  Given him advice on HOW to present himself.  And taken him shopping. My mother and my husband. In the Gap buying khakis and collared shirts. Anything in the store professional-looking and interview worthy Mr. Man tried on.  Even my FATHER who HATES shopping offered his two cents on a blazer discussion.  And then took us out for dinner instead of letting me cook for them so we could save our food for ourselves.

My in-laws - My MIL phoned to offer her support and service as a conduit to our church's employment specialty team. An hour-long drive down to our house to pick him up for a meeting up near her house isn't a burden, but an opportunity for quality time with her son.  The whole family has come together to make family visiting easier on us and committed to come to OUR place more often so we don't have to worry about gas money. My SILs brainstorm ways we can work to increase our menial income RIGHT NOW while he's still in hunting mode and I'm still in school.  There are offers to take Little Miss for sleepovers and visits.  We are welcomed with open arms to mooch meals when we're in town, or invite ourselves over.

At church - I first wrote our bishop, not sure who exactly I should talk to about the problems we're experiencing at home.  I was immediately referred to his counsellors and the Elder's Quorum president (the, uh, 'extracurricular' church group Mr. Man is part of aside from our regular sacrament meetings - boys go to various priesthood quorum meetings, ladies go to Relief Society - it's very club-like hahaha), to make sure that neither my husband or my family fall through the cracks.  The next day the brand-spanking-new EQ president phoned to check in, offer his services, and arranged an in-home visit to do an even more thorough job in person.  We've been visited, ministered to, blessed, heard, and loved.

You know what?  "People" don't suck!  And I am SO grateful to be learning this now, when we need it so desperately.

And even though it doesn't look like this video will play on blogger... I thought of this song right away when coming to the realization that I'm thankful for people. :-)   Enjoy!

Menu Tuesday: Chinese Chicken Salad

Okay, so this is one of my FAVOURITE meals.  It's SO SO SO good.  And while you can make all sorts of arguments against it's health value, it always results in my eating a GIANT amount of cabbage, onions, it's FRESH made, not full of preservatives and all whatever garbage (you know, all the garbage that was in last night's Kraft Dinner meal....) .... it's DELISH. (I tend not to share food I don't find absolutely delicious...that just seems like it would be mean! Here! Here's this meal...it's kinda' crap...)

Here we go: Chinese Chicken Salad

Ingredients:
1 can mandarin oranges, drained
1 head Chinese cabbage (Nappa, or you could use Romaine lettuce)
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 package noodles, crunched up (use the noodles from a package of Ramen, or some other uncooked chow-mein type noodles)
2 tsp sesame seeds
1/3 cup almond slices
cooked chicken breast, cut up in chunks, as much as you want in the salad
DRESSING -
1/4 cup vinegar
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Directions:
Brown sesame seeds and almond slices in 350 degree oven.  Let cool.  Combine dressing ingredients in a  saucepan and bring to a boil.  Pour into a jar and let cool.  Before serving shake well.

Break up Nappa cabbage and mix with all other salad ingredients.  Toss with dressing and serve immediately.

*make it even healthier for you by substituting in xylitol or stevia for the sugar in the dressing, gluten-free soy sauce, or rice or some other type of dry, oriental noodle for that extra crunch without the wheat, gluten, or whatever your intolerance may be for.

Easy and fabulous. My two favourite things in food.

Enjoy!

Pre-tossing

Tossed and ready to eat!

My brain hurts!

Hiya!

So, I KNOW it's Menu Monday, but today I have a Little Miss home with a sore throat, so I'm thinking we're sticking with good old chicken-noodle soup and Kraft Dinner type meals today - she's EXTRAORDINARILY picky when she's sick and, frankly, I'm okay with that. hahaha  Anyway, I realized I won't be cooking anything really worth talking about today (except the horrible, mass amounts of MSG, preservatives, colour number 6-bazillion and goodness only knows what else I'll be feeding my family today - hahaha) so I'm going to do "Menu Monday" TOMORROW, okay?  Look for the deets on a very very yummy Chinese Chicken Salad - just thinking about having this for lunch tomorrow is making me salivate. YUM!

AND I know I didn't post on Thursday.  Thankful Thursday I DID remember, but let me tell you, I'm so out of the Thankful-Thursday-groove at the moment, I couldn't come up with anything to write about!! Isn't that awful? And I don't mean that I'm not thankful for anything, I mean that I'm so out of it I couldn't come up with my five things.

All the ideas I had to write about were the things I've in the past purposely AVOIDED writing about - they're so cliche and HUGE I've steered myself away from writing about them specifically: my family - holy CRAP I am thankful for my family, but what do I write about? My kid? My hubs? My mommy? My in-laws? My infuriating baby brother (who's SO OLD now! hahaha), my goof of a father, oozing with wisdom?  Just saying "I'm thankful for my family" isn't what Thankful Thursdays are supposed to be about aaaand so I didn't write about it.

I started Thankful Thursdays to help ME. To help me look at the piles of crap laying around my house and to find something I love and am grateful for.  So, what have I written about in the past? Kraft Dinner, for pity's sake. My stereo.  Naps.  Being SICK for goodness' sake.  So to cop out and write a post on something so OBVIOUS as my wonderful friends or my cannot-live-without-them family? Psht. SO not what it's about.

So I didn't write anything.  Obviously.

My goal for this week is to get my head back in that game and come up with my five things to write about. I don't even know or care if anyone reads my Thankful Thursday posts; they're for ME. They help me have perspective and be a better, happier, positive person.

Fingers crossed I can get it together and get it done.  Maybe we'll do "the unemployment edition" or something.  Actually, I'm liking that idea... hmmmm.... :-)

I am thankful for my family, for sure.  It's the middle of the day, so Little Miss is feeling, I think, as good as she's going to today, and Mr. Man is busy giving her a mani/pedi over in the living room.  Who could possibly NOT be thankful for a life that includes that fabulousness?? Ohmigoodness, for all our faults, I have the GREATEST family. My little nuclear one here at home, the one I grew up with, the one I've been added to, my 'adopted' families.  I love these folks.

Anyway, that's enough of that. Excuses for not doing what I said I was going to do, rambling through my fingers...lah-de-daaaaahhhh....

Hope everyone had a great weekend and has a great Monday! I'll be back with a food post tomorrow. :-)

Menu Monday: Garlic Roasted Potato Wedges

HELLO! Hello, hello hello.

I know, I know. I'm ALL over getting back to blogging and then...it just stops.

I HAVE A LIFE, people!  hahaha

Honestly, between school, Mr. Man being out of work (waaah!), Little Miss, and just, BLAH! I've found finding the time for ME that I want/need to get things like blogging, reading, crafting, whatever (even checking my TWITTER has gone to the wayside - it's SO SAD! hahaha) difficult to find.

Which isn't to say that I'm NOT taking time for me. I'm just, doing different things with it, maybe?  Like I painted my kitchen cabinets (white) and half the walls (I need Mr. Man to do some repairs on the other half before I can paint the rest...but the finished section looks amazing, so the whole finished kitchen is going to look FABULOUS, too).  I nixed Little Miss' playroom, moved all her toys and movies and everything to the basement which I turned into a 'family room,' and the 'play room' is now my massage treatment area!  AND in anticipation of starting my massage practice later in the year I joined Scentsy so I have full access to their amazing products - I have a warmer going in my treatment room and LOVE LOVE LOVE it (not to mention two in my living room, one in the kitchen, a scent pack in the bathroom.... my house always smells AMAZING.)  And kickboxing, of course.

Anyway, here I am today.  HOPEFULLY, as my family works out this...weird/difficult time in our lives I'll figure THIS little part of mine out and YES be here regularly.  Because I LIKE posting and rambling on about nothing.  I just have a place to dump my brain out without making my poor Mr. Man wish he could bash his head through the wall because my motor mouth won't stop running and running and running.... ;) (don't worry -he's never said that's how he feels....I just imagine that's how I'D feel sometimes if I were stuck married to me! hahaha)

So, all that blah de blah blah aside, guess what day it IS today?  That's right!  It's MENU MONDAY!

Today, I cooked for my bud, who turns a whopping FOURTEEN YEARS OLD tomorrow.  She rocks my socks, and usually crashes at our place for dinner and FHE (family home evening - we hang out as a family + extras) on Monday nights.  She loves it when we have steak because she and her mom don't get around to steak very often.   So we had steak, with fried onions, mushrooms, and green peppers, steamed cauliflower, and then these FABULOUS potatoes that my mom gave me the recipe for YEARS ago that I never got around to actually trying until sometime last year - I think I thought they were outside my skill-set...which they totally aren't.

And so, without further ado.... GARLIC ROASTED POTATO WEDGES

FRESH out of the oven - YUM!

Ingredients:
4 large red potatoes *
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 tsp fresh garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Directions
Heat oven to 425 degrees. Cut potatoes in half lengthwise, and then each half in four, lengthwise.  Place in pot and cover with water.  Bring potatoes to a boil and cook until just tender.  Drain.

Melt butter and mix with other ingredients.  Add potatoes and coat.  Put in a 13x9" pan.  Bake for 10 minutes, turn and bake another 10-15 minutes, until brown.

*I never use large or red potatoes - I'm too lazy to bother with large potatoes, so always just grab a bag of smallish potatoes, and then cut them lengthwise in quarters.  Also...I don't bother to turn them.... O:-)

THESE. ARE. SO. GOOD.  And a wonderful, natural source of carbs instead of some crazy processed whatever.  Just, you know, don't eat ALL of them yourself 'cause there's a whole whack load of butter in there....  

Okay, that's that!  Between massaging yesterday, kickboxing today, and now typing on my lap my forearms have HAD it, so I'm....going to fold some laundry... hahaha

Cheers, all!

Say hello to MENU MONDAYS! Beef Vegetable Soup

Hi ho, everyone!  Well, everyone who is kind enough to take however long it takes to read one of my long-winded blog-ramblings to visit and read the latest ramblings I have.... I don't pretend to think there are too many of you, so "everyone" is a very select group of folks...

I totally lost myself in that non-thought.  What am I here for??

OH yes.  Welcome to: MENU MONDAYS!


So, I'm pretty jazzed about this - I've been thinking, honestly, for months to start doing this and then, obviously, never did.  But then I've found it so relatively easy recently to share DAILY what I'm eating that I figure, YES! I CAN do this sometimes!  hahaha

Basically, when I eat something absolutely fabulous, I'll take a picture, post it, and share the recipe.  Sound good??  It does to me, but I'm kind of NUTS about food, so....

FIRST UP: Mom's Best Ever Beef Vegetable Soup

Not my best ever food picture, but I took it on my phone, so let's all be sufficiently impressed, yes? Fabulous.

First thing you have to know...this is really easy to make. And DELICIOUS.  And my mommy used to make it. She may still (why wouldn't you??)


Ingredients: 
1 lb ground beef
2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup thinly sliced carrots
6 cups water
3 tbsp beef bouillon, or 2 oxo cubes
1 28oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup pot barley (or pasta stars or some other such thing - I use pot barley)
2 bay leaves
2 tsp each chill powder and basil
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1 7.5oz can tomato sauce
1 or 2 cups green beans (can use 2 14oz cans, a small bag of frozen, just as long as they're cut up)


Directions: 
Brown ground beef in large pot.  Drain off fat.  Add onion, celery and carrots.  Stir and cook 5 minutes.  Add remaining ingredients except green beans, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 50 minutes.  Add beans, cook until heated through.  Discard bay leaves.

This one I made up earlier in the day, simmered for the 50 minutes, and then left Mr. Man in charge of chopping up, adding, and cooking the green beans.  Soooo.....the beans were a little on the long side O:-) and a little on the crunchy side.  hahaha BUT I happen to love green beans so it was still pretty fabulous.  Just cut them up however you like them, and make sure they're heated through so they, you know, go with the soup!

Even Little Miss ate it.  Which is saying something.

Texting Dad

(image from: http://lmg.letmeget.net/blog/texting-symbols-list-facebook)

Recently, my Dad has skyrocketed himself into the twenty-first century and figured out how exactly to work the text messaging function on his phone.  It's kind of fabulous, and really cute to hear how he's been regularly texting my mom while she's been away (in Florida - horrors! hahaha). 

Anyway, to mark the occasion, I sent him a text message congratulating him on his newly acquired skillz, and we have since become text buds.

Then, a few days ago now, we got a phone call at the house.  Mr. Man picked it up, listened, and hung up before announcing that Dad had texted us to find out about Mr. Man's job prospects.

This made me smile - it's not the first time someone has accidentally selected our home number instead of cell number(s) when sending us a text message, and we always just smile and return-text from our cells. 

So I texted Dad:


You texted our house phone. :-) :-) Always makes for an interesting phone call! 

AND I got THE GREATEST RESPONSE EVER:

Sorry.  Made a mistake.  I remember phones that had a crank on the side and you placed a call by verbally telling the operator what number you wanted.  Our number at home when I was a kid was 346 ring 1 3. When the phone rang it was not always for us.  Only if there was on long ring followed by three short ones. It was called a party line. Anyone on the line could pick up and listen in.  I have come a long way but apparently have far to go. :s

BAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 

Ohmigoodness, I love my Dad! 

5 AM Phone Calls

(image from: http://thetwors.blogspot.com/2011/04/sleeping-in-and-saving-environment.html)

I'm tired today.

Currently, I'm not feeling it.  Adrenaline and all that. You know how you get so tired you just can't help but function on overdrive?? That's how I feel at the moment.  But my need to overdrive is currently finished for the day - we're having family snuggle on the couch Sunday (except for Little Miss, who is mimicking Pete's skipping in the movie we're watching, Pete's Dragon.  So I'm sure the adrenaline will pass in a bit and I'll crash.....

The past few nights have not been good sleeping nights for me.  Which is honestly, really weird, because when I lay down at night, I fall asleep, and then I am OUT until Little Miss bombs me out of bed in the morning.  I would sleep until the afternoon every day if I could, I kid you not, and still be able to sleep at night. I LOVE sleeping. sigh 


Thursday night I realized how insanely busy Friday was going to be, rushing to fit everything in we needed to get done and get to my SIL's to surprise the nieces after school, so stayed up late crafting the birthday presents I wouldn't otherwise have had time to make.

Not ideal, but no BIG deal or anything.  I watched silly tv on Netflix and made oodles of earrings and necklaces for the 8-year-old dear to accessorize with now that she's got pieced ears.  It was fun!

But then Friday morning around 5 Little Miss decided she needed to come crash my sleep for some snuggles.

Fine, no big deal. I love snuggles.

Then Friday night we slept away from home, which again, I don't usually have a hard time with. When it's time for me to sleep, that is that!  I'm lucky that way, I guess.

But I stayed up a little bit late blogging about the epic fail and by the time I got to bed Mr. Man was definitely asleep.  And laying on his back.  Which for me, means a NOISY night.  MAN can he snore.

And then my nieces all wake up at like, I don't even know - some hour of the morning I've never seen before! hahaha So I didn't really sleep in yesterday either.

Okay, but LAST night.  Really.  UGH.

Mr. Man knew I was getting tired going a couple of days without ideal amounts of sleep - some people function just fine and dandy, but I'm one of these for whom a lost hour's sleep equals a disproportionately huge shift in mood, so it's usually in his best interest I'm well rested ;-) - and so insisted that we get to bed at a decent hour last night.  He made me go to bed BEFORE 11 even.  I mean, REALLY!!

But then I couldn't fall asleep!  WHAT??

I finally fell asleep sometime after 1 AM, after listening to his slow, NON-snore for EVER, and fighting the urge to get up and do ANYTHING other than lay there like a useless lump... if I'm awake I may as well be productive and DO something, right??

Anyway, I finally, eventually fell asleep.  Yay for me.

5 AM. FIVE IN THE MORNING.  Mr. Man's cell phone, out in the dining room, rings.  Mr. Man's cell phone.  Mr. Man's cell phone NEVER rings.  Not EVER.  I don't even call it.  He has this pay-as-you-go plan where texts are unlimited and phone calls are limited, so no one EVER calls him 'cause he won't answer it anyway!  hahaha Sometimes my brother forgets and calls Mr. Man's cell phone, but that's it. It NEVER rings.

It rang.  At five o'clock in the morning.

Did he hear it??

Gosh, no, of course not.

And so I lay there, having been aroused by someone ELSE'S cell phone probably having been accidentally drunk-dialed or something stupid at 5AM, with a wandering, wide-awake mind.

And then I thought, gee, you know, the only person who ever really calls Mr. Man's cell phone IS my brother.  I wonder if it was him calling.  I wonder if everything is okay.  I wonder if everyONE is okay.  I mean, why do people ever call other people at five o'clock in the morning?  Not ever for anything except to say that someone's died or something other such fabulous news.  I wonder who's DEAD?! Why didn't I run and grab the phone? Did Mom get in a plane crash coming home from Florida? Even though she's not flying home until Friday??

Wait. Wait a second. If someone's dead then whoever called will call again.  They won't call once and not get us.  When you call people at 5 in the morning you expect that they're asleep and you'll have to call again.  They'll call again.

...........

Then MY cell phone rang.

Ohmigoodness, someone IS dead!  WHO'S DEAD?!?!

I GRABBED my phone, looked at the caller ID to see: "unknown caller," and frantically pushed the button to answer the phone.

Except I pushed the wrong button.

I PUSHED THE WRONG BUTTON!!

I accidentally pushed the lower right button instead of the upper right button to answer my phone.  Now, I totally understand why I did it - my phone really doesn't ring very often either; as popular as I am people just don't call me (it's okay - I don't call anyone either. Phone chat isn't really my thing).  So I don't have oodles of practice on automatically pressing the 'answer' button. When my phone does ring I have to look at it and register which button is answer.  And in the pitch-black of 5:05 AM I hit the wrong button.

NO! NO NO NO NO NO!  Someone's DEAD and I just DIDN'T answer the phone!! OHMIGOODNESS!  PLEASE call back! Please call back!! I'm sorry! I know which button it is now! I know!  CALL ME BACK!!

I lept out of bed with my cell in my hand and raced to the living room to grab the portable off of the charger - we have a charger in the bedroom, too, and keep a phone in there for just such an occasion, but of course it's migrated to somewhere else in the house so was of now use to me this morning.

With my cell phone in one hand and the house phone in the other - obviously someone who wants to get us badly enough at 5 am to call both our cell phones will next try to rouse us with the landline, right?  Right?? - I headed back to my bedroom.  Where I proceeded to turn the ringers way down so as not to wake up Mr. Man before necessary when one of the phones inevitably rang again.   And then sat there.  One phone in each hand.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And imagined what the news was.  WHO called?  Maybe Mom was coming home early for something and the plane went down?  Maybe my dad's cold this week wasn't just a cold and he succumbed during the night??  WHO IS DEAD?!?!

And I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And WAITED.

Finally around 5:30 I put the phones down on my side table - if I heard Mr. Man's cell phone in the dining room I'd hear the land line from the other rooms and the turned-down ringer by my head.

And I lay down and waited.  Waited for the phone to ring. Waited to fall back to sleep.

Back to sleep. HA! HAHAHAHAHA!  As IF!

I was SO worked up.

No one ever called.  To the best of my knowledge all my family members are alive and well.   Mr. Man checked his phone when he got up and the only missed call was a 'blocked number,' whatever that means on his phone.

I don't know who it was, what was going on.  Was someone trying to get a hold of us to tell us something?  We were both pocket-dialed by someone, one after the other? Were we both wrong-numbered at 5 in the morning? That's happened to us before.

NO IDEA.

But, promise me something, please.

If you ever accidentally pocket-dial, wrong-number dial, or WHATEVER to someone at 5 in the morning and you don't talk to an actual person? LEAVE A MESSAGE and say  "SORRY! Wrong number!!" so that at 5:01 AM when the poor unsuspecting, used-to-be-sleeping-and-is-now-going-insane-with-worry soul can say "Oh. MORON!" and then go back to sleep!!

I'm going to go take a nap.

Detox Days 8-11 & the epic FAIL

Howdy, folks!

So, the past week has been fabulous. I've eaten great foods, lots of variety, lots of yummy things.  Eggs in the mornings, meat & veggies and snacks in the non-mornings.

And as I've gone I've even taken photos of some of my favourites so I can share them with you.

But, today, I have to confess.

And every time I have to confess, I feel like it's OKAY, because, this IS "Confessions of a Kin Major," and while I may have graduated my Kin degree and have moved on to....more school....I still make "mistakes" and have things to fess up.

So, here's what happened.

I have four nieces. They are spectacular.  And today the oldest one turned 8.  And Little Miss had a day off school today - is it PA or PD day now, I don't even know - soooo we decided to trek up to visit the family and surprise our nieces with a Happy Birthday visit and sleepover.

HUZZAH!

So after a morning kickboxing class (I got four classes in this week!  Including what Sensei G calls an "F-U Day," and yes, F & U stand for....exactly what it sounds like. hahaha The idea is that by the end of it everyone in the class should be yelling that particular expletive at him or he's not worked us hard enough... it's a brilliant workout) we ran around like mad and got ourselves organized, and out of town.  To surprise the girls getting off the school bus, play some games, craft some jewellery, make birthday dinner, and then eat said dinner.

Dinner was chicken parmesan with whole wheat spaghetti, shrimp, escargot with bread for dipping in the garlic butter, caesar salad with homemade croutons (I made them!), broccoli, & sparkling grape juice.

I did NOT eat that.  Promise.  My darling SIL kept a hunk of chicken from being smothered in cheese for me, and I didn't eat bread dipped into melted garlic butter.  I didn't eat the croutons in my salad, nor the escargot (um, ew?), and I had water to drink.

Dinner was delicious!!

Then we cleaned up, gathered gifts, and the celebratory birthday dessert started coming out of the kitchen.  Including a rousing version of "Happy Birthday To You" from everyone, of course!

So, the birthday girl, for her 'cake,' requested the following:

brownies

vanilla ice cream

whipped cream (the icky kind in a can, that tastes deliciously like whipped butter.....drool)

chocolate sauce

jujubes

Oh. My.

And for some reason, the brownie 'cake' which was decorated with jujubes, ended up right in front of myself and my other SIL at the table.  Just sitting there.

Taunting me.

..... I don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden an orange jujube found its way into my mouth....

And since the detox is kind of ruined with a jujube....it seemed a little pointless to bother keeping up with it after that point! 

Yes, those white flecks all over the table are from my liberal application of whipped cream to my, uh, mountain of dessert.

I swear it didn't look that big from where I was...nom nom nom...oh, never mind!

So... I totally caved.  I just gave in.  I WANTED brownies, ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce!  I mean, who in their right mind WOULDN'T want those things?? 

And you know what? I'm totally FINE with the fact that I ate that giant mound of dessert.  IT WAS YUMMY.  It was a special occasion.  I haven't eaten dessert since Christmas.  I AM back into the pants I busted out of over Christmas, with a little bit of wiggle room.  I went to four kickboxing classes this week instead of 'just' three. I've learned how to eat properly for MY body.  

And except for the GINORMOUS zit that's taken up residence on my face at the moment, I look fabulous. 

So, I'm good. 

Tomorrow I won't have dessert.  Or bread.  Or crepes (which is the planned breakfast - I'll think of my last delicious outing with crepes over Christmas and then whip myself up some eggs).  And in another few days or so, maybe I'll have 'earned' my next splurge/cheat.  But I'm good with today's.  

It was delicious. 

Detox Days 5, 6 & 7

Hi!

Sorry for the weekend hiatus, but I had a fabulous weekend and kind of kept away from the computer a bit.

Saturday we actually had NOTHING on. NOTHING!  It was FABULOUS. All three of us lounged around the house in our pjs until about noon, playing games, chill axing, eating breakfast.... huh - totally drawing a blank on what we ate. hahaha PROMISE I didn't cheat, though.  Okay, chatting with Mr. Man I think I had a couple of boiled eggs. Oy, how we forget such monumental moments! ;-)  Snacked on nuts, crab meat...don't remember if I grabbed any veggies....probably not, WHOOPS! Anyway, we ran some errands, cleaned the house, played some more, and then Mr. Man and I, get this....WENT ON A REAL DATE!!

I KNOW, right? CRAZY!!

We got a baby-sitter and the whole nine yards!

Dinner AND a movie!!

We went to Jack Astor's for dinner - there is ONE detox-friendly salad on the menu, and it was DELICIOUS.  AND I didn't have to make it!  And, because we were dining out and having some fun we even splurged and had SPARKLING water. hahaha  OOOOOOooo CRAZINESS!

Then we FINALLY went to see the new Sherlock Holmes flick.  I, personally, LOVE the first one, and got a big kick out of reading one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's collections near the end of last year.  I find Holmes to be just a hilariously delightful character and LOVE Robert Downey Jr in the role.  So yeah, basically it was the perfect evening.

We even TALKED over dinner.

GASP


And then Sunday I was off to class for the day!  Ate some eggs and nuts for breakfast, took some leftover spaghetti squash and sauce for lunch (it's yummy cold, too!), and then came home to a house full of family!  My in-laws trekked down for the afternoon/evening to celebrate Mr. Man's turning even OLDER, and spoiled us with a fabulous, detox-friendly meal of flank steak, asparagus, cauliflower, and a scrumptious salad (and for non-detoxers, potatoes, cheese sauce for the veggies, escargot & bread, plus black forest cake).  Another FABULOUS detoxing meal I didn't have to prepare.

See?  TOTALLY spoiled over the weekend. FABULOUS.

Today, I weighed myself, just to see where I am, post Christmas eats (for the record, it was NOT my mother's fault that I totally binged on cinnamon buns.  I did it willingly and knowingly...and even made myself a pair of elastic-waistband pj bottoms so I had pants that would grow with me as I gorged on...everything in sight! Whoever said 'nothing tastes as good as thin feels' has NOT eaten at my mother's house!) and with almost a week of detox and back to kickboxing, and I was happy to see that I'm not imagining feeling better - I'm 5 lbs down from my last weigh-in before Christmas.  Which was great to see!

Then, tonight, at kickboxing, I thought, what the heck, let's see where I'm at since last Monday night, 'cause I was weighed to start off our 'biggest loser' challenge at the club.

I'm down 5 lbs from last MONDAY.

Holy COW.

So...there are multiple reasons.

1 is definitely the detox, no question.  I feel fabulous.  And it's funny, as much as I LOVE all the stuff that's proven to be not great for me, when I'm cooking for myself now I don't WANT it, you know? I want a giant plate of veggies with some sort of meat.  Dinner tonight was a chicken breast smothered in Epicure's Italian sansel (I prefer the Red Garlic for sure) with carrots and green beans. It was DELISH.

2 is definitely...I was being visited by my, uh, monthly 'FRIEND' last Monday. hahaha And that usually, honestly, puts about 5 lbs on me each time anyway.

3 - I'm working like crazy at kickboxing. It's kicking my butt but I'm kicking back. MUAHAHAHA!

Anyway, that's the weekend re-cap.  Detox goes 'till next Monday, then I'll be reporting on Cheat Meal Tuesday (BOOyah!  ...unless I do it Wednesday 'cause I teach piano on Tuesdays and it's hard to make dinner....so if I hold off a day and do it Wednesday I can spend ages in the kitchen prepping my feast...which will totally include a giant cookie, by the way.)

Okay, I have some chillaxing to fit in before falling asleep tonight!  Happy Monday, everyone!

Oh, and check out my post on Crafty Betties today, if you're into crafty stuff - we post Mondays and Thursdays about all sorts of different things!  It's very Holly-Homemakerish, and very cool. ;)

Cheers!