Dumbest quote

Well, one of the dumbest.

Sunset Magazine, a gift from my sister in her attempt to make sure I never move to an opposite coast from her again... (She went to Washington State, I went to England, she went to Japan, I went to California, she went to California, I went back to England, she moved to Oregon, we went to D.C. Finally, we moved closer to her, to the immense relief of my father who really just felt that as sisters we should live near each other, but just to be annoying, we moved one state above her... ha ha ha)

It's a good magazine, lots of cute garden ideas I fail to execute as well, lots of good weekend-travel tips and vacation ideas... If she loves me, she'll renew my subscription next Mother's Day, riiigghhht?

But this quote killed me. Here's the background, it's about a vacation ranch in Montana:

"Mountain Sky is how God would design a guest ranch if he had the money."

Ummm. Gee. I bet God is just thinking, 'you know, he's right, if I DID have the money, I'd do Mountain Sky, but gee, I don't. All I have are the tools of creation. Dang, too bad. It's a good thing somebody down there does have the money to charge people to enjoy nature. Because it's not like nature was ever at one time free.

"Why, back in the day, I remember when Adam and Eve were evicted from the garden. Oh it wasn't just illicit apple picking, no, they like to make it out as though it was a slight misunderstanding, but the truth is, Adam couldn't keep a job, it's why his first wife, Lilith, left him, and Eve was no better than Adam. He was six months behind on his rent but Eve would come crying to me about the alimony he had to pay Lilith and it wasn't his fault and oh just one more chance, but finally, I had to boot him, and that ended my interest in real estate.

"I chased them out, and handed over all land management to Lucifer, who it turns out was in the middle of an affair with Eve, and I should have just washed my hands of the whole thing back then, but no, I felt I had a duty. Frankly, it got to me, I took it too personally, and lost my temper and flooded the whole place, and then felt guilty, so felt I owed it to them to give them another chance, and see how that worked out, but I digress.

"If I was still in the nature and real estate gig, I would probably open up guest ranches like Mountain Sky. It is tempting, even now, but, all my money is tied up in investments elsewhere. I had a great creation-gig going on in a galaxy far far away until some nefarious power-grubber ventured in, so I've left that galaxy and am starting on another universe entirely, but this one, completely void of the traits that slipped in with humans. I've altered free-will a bit and tweaked 'guilt' and 'sense of responsibility to nature' a bit. Nature will be free for all to enjoy, because all creatures will be bound to the greater spirit of the planet so thoroughly, their skin will be varying shades of colors found in nature. That was a touch I just HAD to add. I can't wait, it's going to be brilliant.

"Also, the concept of advanced weaponry or architecture will make them unbelieveably sad, so they will stick to dancing in meadows and chasing creatures with arrows for dinner. My greatest trick yet, however, is the isolation of what I deem to be the most devastating gene of all... and I've ensured this creation doesn't have it... yes, that's right, I've found and eliminated the gene responsible for 'economics.' I'm very excited. We'll see how free will works without it.

"As for the sons of Adam and Eve, yes yes I've neglected them it's true, but really, it's not like they ever listened to me anyhow. Look at them, look what they've done to my masterpiece... wars, global warming, financial institutions, pavement, skyscrapers, nonbiodegradable products, that Lahdeedah's back yard just brings me to tears... and so much more, it never ends.

"It makes me furious every time my eye turns that way. I'm afraid if I get involved again, I'll make true on a promise I spouted in anger, and send my four horsemen in to wipe the slate clean. Once they go in, I'll let Earth, the poor doll, heal for a couple millenia, and start with something new, maybe I'll save a few dolphins and let them evolve to have opposable thumbs, see what they can't do."

Heeaatt waaveee

It's 102 degrees right now. I'm losing weight just by existing.

We don't have air because air isn't a big thing in the Northwest. Oh, I think the new homes being built all have air, but homes built a whole decade ago or longer, not a priority. So, the basement is the place to be. But for some reason, the children would rather be up in the hot part of the house lingering around me. I haven't actually done much today, because it really is just too damn hot, and we wouldn't want me passing out from heat exhaustion now would we?

Toddler Bear is still crashed in his room, which has no fan. It has no fan because all they do is shut the fan off. No matter how hot it is. So we grabbed it. I just sent Drama girl out to set up the sprinkler and as soon as grumpy Bear wakes up, I'm going to let them run around in the water.

Tomorrow if McRed doesn't go for my 'seek the air conditioned mall idea, Drama and I are hitting the lake and leaving McRed and toddlers to their merry selves. We'd take them, but not sure I can sell McRed because of the large crowd that will be there.

The Stay at Home Daddies and their bad evil influence on my husband

We have stay at home daddies in our neighborhood. Two that I know of. One actually works, but is home more than at work, and in fact, is home most of the day, along with his wife. The other guy doesn't work at all, but damn, does he have a mean lawn. There is no greener lawn, no better-sheared hedge, pruned bush or unshaped evergreen than his. There will be no dandelions on his watch... this is all good and well. I'm all up with the equal opportunity 'stay-at-homers' be they woman, man or creature from outer space, but undertand that ALL all I hear every night when my husband comes home yet AGAIN to the dads bonding over lawnmowers and hedge trimmers, kids dancing in their perfect green lawns, is

"What do they DO? How come they are always HOME? What does that guy DO for a living? How come I CAN'T BE THE DAD THAT'S ALWAYS HOME.' and then he looks at me... because clearly, the secret of a stay at home dad...

lies in a working mom....


NOOOOOOOO

What was I thinking!!!

I went to a mom's club event (shoosh all, just shoosh) in the hopes the few moms I kinda like would be there. The day was kinda nice, it wasn't bad. I engage one of the mom's in a conversation and she asks me how I do it, with all the kids (three) and school and I said, "I don't. I'm a mess."

WHAT! WTF! DID I JUST SAY THAT! DID I JUST TELL SOMEONE I ONLY HAVE 'WEATHER IS NICE TODAY' CONVERSATIONS SOMETHING UTTERLY PERSONAL LIKE I'M A CHAOTIC WALKING MESS! WTF AND I'M NOT REALLY!

I am not like that. I normally say things like, 'Yeah, it keeps me busy,' but a personal observation like that! OMIGOSH. WTF and I'm not REALLY a mess. I'm just disorganized, my mind is chaotic, my backyard an embarassment, my house never clean and my papers rushed last minute frantically before deadline, but I'm not really a mess! WHY I DID I SAY THAT! Because even if I was a mess, I'd only admit it to like, two people I know, and they are on the other coast! I might mention it to McRed, being married to him, but come on.

Now I'm just mortified at the words that came out of my mouth.

I mean who really wants to hear that shit?

Hopefully, she'll just forget about it. Or, after talking to the other mom who moved my truck, think I just meant I'm messy, as in a slob, which brings me to my....

Tip of the Day:

If there is a remote possibility that somebody will have to move your car, because perhaps you're on a boat and someone wants to leave the event RIGHT AWAY, make sure you um, CLEAN the damn thing out.

One of the moms had to move my truck for me. The passenger side is littered, from the floorboard, under the passenger seat, the sides between the door and the seat, the seat itself, and the cup holders with: mail, cups, sparkly water cans, starbucks cups, sticky change, papers, directions, shopping lists, receipts, library books, toddler backpacks, keys et al, and then the back seat... you get the idea...

Mortification factor: High.

well, take me as I am!
But I'm not a mess.
Just verbally challenged!
And mess-Y

Wilderness garden

I found TREES trying to grow in my lawn in the back yard! YIKES.

I will not be daunted. I WILL conquer that small square of suburban not-even-an-acre-age. I planted the plants I ordered in the spring, when I felt naively that I could maintain the back wilderness. I waited so long to plant them, however, I fear they may be dead. There were many brown leaves and not a lot of green, and we're in the dry season. The whole month and a half of dry season. But I felt obligated. It's also really too late to plant.

My tomato plant is cleverly hidden from pests by a mound of what appears to be Thai Basil. The strawberries are also lost in basil, and my sunflowers choked. I don't actually mind the sunflowers being choked. From what I understand, sunflowers would just make the whole back worse. It is mid-July. This weekend I'm going to do more weed whacking. Love the weed whacker.

I could just wait til everything dies in the fall, but that just seems, well, laazy. Practical, but practical in a lazzzy way.

Inside, I pulled up some hallway carpet for McRed to lay down the rest of the laminate 'kids can't trash this' flooring.

We are sooo Split-Level Americana. Vinyl flooring in the kitchen, laminate mock-wood in the living room, idiot gardening in the back, chalk drawings in the driveway and sidewalk and the harried crazy lady chasing shoe-less toddlers down the road... but I digress...

AND

to top that off, I got my Barnes and Noble book order in and found, to my chagrin, they shipped me More Than a Carpenter instead of 'Math, Grade 3," I mean, how are they even close? One, a discussion about Jesus and his life, another, mulitiplication and fractions.... WTH? The book cost less than the shipping to return it would.

Yard gone wild

We tamed the front yard. My neighbor saw me, shears, and my unruly weird bush thing, and walked over with an electric thingamabob that shaped and trimmed the sucker just fine. Thank you neighbor, I knew it was only a matter of time before you caved to the sorry sight of me failing miserably at yard work, and handed over your cool garden tools. Just for that, I won't say a word about your seemingly pastel fuzzy morning slippers. It was early, they coulda been red and terry cloth.

I got McRed to help me. Mainly, my complete mower blow-out showed him just how serious I was when I said 'I have no clue what I'm doing.' Turns out, I didn't blow up the mower. I just put too much oil in, and it was burning all the oil. Hubby McRed dumped some out, mowed the front lawn, weed-wacked and weed-killed (I'm organic as can be, and tend to pull them, he went straight for the round-up) and even pruned. I finally got him to agree to an every other Sunday work-on-lawn-and-bond time. Go me. The kids had a blast. Being outside wore them out so much they actually napped.

Now our front yard looks actually decent, which means I need to plant some shade plants and change the dead plants in the containers to live ones.

As for the back yard, well now that the front is in order, I can go back to pulling, killing, and whacking everything I don't like. I did get quite a ways through it, but have so much more to do. We're probably going to end up roto-tilling it in September and not August like I thought. I'm not that fast at yard work. And, yes, I can't help myself. Despite swearing I wouldn't plant anything, I have this one nice bed that's all empty... and all these plants... heee heee.... but only in beds, and not along the fence. Yikes.

I hate being the one with the backyard that makes neighbors go, 'well, our yard could be worse, it could be theirs....' heh.

Oh and SWEETNESS my artichoke is coming in!!!

AMAZING

My house is....

CLEAN!

***except for our bedroom, which houses our sentient laundry, and let me tell you, that beast is a slob.

***also excepting Drama's room, but she's a tween, and her room exists in another dimension, the tweenzone, and doesn't really count as part of our house.

A moment to ponder more anger, hatred and suffering

In the middle east, has there ever not been hatred and war?

Well the news is on about major escalations, bombings, retaliations, and Israel's accusations that Lebanon isn't doing enough, and so are a valid target, and that Syria and Iran are also enemies, and there goes those years of tentative almost-but-not-quite peace, in THAT section.

And we've got the U.N. rushing over to try for peace in an area of the world that doesn't seem to really want peace. Or rather, an area of the world that wants peace only if it comes with getting their way and not compromising. I realize this is a great oversimplification. Oh but don't fear, we got good ole George W-uh at the helm, he'll steer this all aright with his foreign diplomacy talents and eye on the big picture ... ahhh ah ha ha ha ha ha...

So here's to crossing fingers and holding breaths that this thing eases up, without actually expecting it to.

Here's my oversimplification, ever since I was a child, there's been fighting in the middle east. Since the beginning of time these people have been fighting. I am not sure they will ever stop. I can't imagine an event occurring great enough to bring peace to that region. And how many innocent people die to propogate senseless wars?

Hex

I'm now addicted to Hex.

It's creepy. It's eerie. It's spooky. And, it's got a lesbian ghost! What more could you ask for?

Gnomish Warriors

Who needs real people, when I've got gnomes, dwarves and elves to play with?

Tonight I made level 5! In one night! This is not a huge accomplishment, but for me, well, yes, it is. Not too happy about getting killed by some dumb frosty troll but hey what can ya do?

My whole family went to bed at like, 7, so it's just me and time... ooh precious precious time, alone, with nobody wanting things from me, nobody speaking to me, a blissfully silent quiet house. Oh what to do what to do...

If it were winter, or late fall, I'd be cozied up on the couch practicing old-lady habits, and cross-stitching (I don't know why, but for me, cross-stitching is a seasonal thing). If it were the dead of winter, I'd probably have a nice glass of Baileys on ice (my favorite drink before the commercials thank you) and watch some britcoms... Addicted to BBC America and many many British shows. But it's summer and I am not a summer person. If I could, I'd sleep through summer. It's just too hot. So what to do...

What would you do, with such a night, with the whole dang family in bed way before their bedtimes (hubby included) and just a quiet blissful night in front of you? How'd you spend it?

Quit, unquit, quit again

Finally made a decision.

Bye bye mom's club. It just wasn't meant to be. I don't understand the hidden rules, the unspoken protocols, the culture of the suburban moms' clubs... For this reason, I probably won't be a big hit on the PTA, but can't say I won't try!

I feel like a 12 year old that just realized she'll never actually be a part of the cool kids club. The difference is it passed really quickly once I realized I'd never probably actually see any of them again. Oh there's a few that I got on with, that I might see again, but just not enough to feel, oh, welcomed. And it may be part me. But who cares. I spent too much time stressing over it all.

Also, bye bye Bunco night. All the bunco moms are part of the club. I'd just feel uncomfortable.

Saying that, I spent all of last night playing World of Warcraft. I'm an unstoppable gnomish mage in a cold, desolate land, killing bad wolfies and trolls while I find my way in the big, cruel world.

I play these games occasionally. The highest I ever got was lvl 20-something in DAoC. It's not skill, it's my attention span. Oh and skill, actually, I kinda suck. And direction sense. I have none, so I get lost in areas where the monsters are waaay tooooo muucchhh for me. I once killed an entire party in EQ, but I didn't die, because an online friend came in time to save me. Not my group, but me, and that's what mattered. While the group that I horribly atrociously got slaughtered were shouting at me in all caps (they knew me personally, so felt free to express their emotions) my husband ran upstairs to explain how he felt about the whole incident. It's been five years, and I still remember the occasion...

But it's a good stress reliever between class projects and the kids and the writing. Ah, the writing. I've decided to restructure my days so that everything is done around the writing. It'll get easier when the kiddos are in preschool but hey. We work with what we got. I mean, it is NOT POSSIBLE to accomplish much of anything when there are children in the house, especially under 5.


Overall, last night was a complete mental break night which I needed, and I'm in a much better mood today. Now if only I could gain some territory in my war against the sentient laundry...

Hummer returns manhood

Yes, it does. Because I saw it on tv. Now I know Hummer is targeting urban soft metrosexuals and their overly kind, sweet and gentle housewives. How do I know this? The second ad makes it all clear...

Grocery store line.
Metro Man is putting vegetables, fresh herbs, and a big honkin' slab of 'TOFU" on the conveyer belt.
He looks at the man next to him, who has just put racks and racks and slabs of meat down.
Realizing how emasculated he's become, what does he do?
Get steak? Laugh and say his wife's addicted to Tofu and he has been eating Outback curbside take-away for months? No no no. Better.
He grabs his bags, loads the car, and drives to the dealership.
Restore your manhood.
Or was it, regain your lost manhood?
Whatever. It was something like that.

So now I get it.

The nice woman at the park, she needed a hummer, cuz she's not mean enough. She lost her 'meanness' and in the dog eat dog world of playground politics, that's a serious weakness. It's amazing she's not been beat up by now.

The metro tofu man, totally needs a hummer. He's eating healthy, omigosh, and probably has great cholesterol levels. No man has great cholesterol levels! Only womenly-men, effeminate men, new age unisex men, the metros, have great cholesterol levels. He needs a hummer to let the world know he's a man.

Except the hummer being advertised is like, Hummer Lite because of the gas mileage issue. Nobody is buying big right now.

Ah well, I suppose we could all occasionally use a hummer.

Though try finding a parking spot in the damn thing.

Get Your Girl On.... Huh?

Does anyone understand this ad...

It's an ad totally targeting me. I'm flattered, truly. There is a line on the playground for the slide. Two kids, if that's a line. A modestly dressed, cute long-haired brunette is telling her son, 'okay now we can go' being all encouraging, when a woman dressed a notch up with shorter hair walks up, and her son runs in front of the kid and clamors up the slide steps. Mom does nothing. Long-haired brunette, in horror at the injustice of it all, says "It was Jake's turn next" and she said "Well, now it's his turn" or something to the effect of not anymore, it's my son's turn. So she then sees an ad for a Hummer. Runs to the front of the slide, grabs her son, goes to the dealership, signs the papers real fast, buckles kiddo in, herself in, and then drives off smiling, the line says "Get your Girl On." so um. What?

She meets one rude woman in the playground and buys a hummer? To do what? Go back to the park and run her over? Get in touch with her 'mean' side? Methinks someone's got a complex. Is Hummer now targeting stay-at-home moms with inferiority complexes (hmm, maybe they aren't targeting me)? Or are they telling the nice, just, and good stay-at-home moms to cater to their inner girl by buying a hummer, and running over mean bitch woman's hybrid? I just don't get it.

Oh for these mortal problems to cease

When is my streak of 'unluck' going to end, and preferably, not merge into 'bad luck?'

Last weekend, my lawn mower blew up. Maybe just the motor. Big smoke. I stopped mowing. McRed is going to look at it 'this week.' I told him the HOA people will be around soon, but he didn't look at it in time, and we'll get to that later.

So I quit and then unquit the mom's club. That's decisive action for you. I can't do a lot of the events, I just don't have it in me. But I'm going to try to do the playgroups for the boys. I don't think these moms really like me, but I don't know, maybe I'll grow on them.... ha ha ha.

I missed a conference with my group in one of my classes while writing a last-minute paper for another one. Doing so resulted in them coming to the conclusion I had the most powerpoint experience and nominating me for being the presenter. (I do, but I was going to try to sneak out of it, I was hoping for 'editor' since it's actually easier, and it's totally a rip-off to the person they nominated as editor, because, being an editor by trade, it's rare I make grammatical errors). *except in my blog, which I rarely edit because I don't think grammatcially, I think ramblingly.

I have to do bills tonight at each of the individual sites because I blew them off last week to do another paper for another class and they (the bills) are all due tomorrow, so I have to log on to all these sites, remember old passwords and pay them all.

So I'm running behind in every aspect of my life. The backyard isn't done at all and hasn't been touched because I'm boycotting it until I get some 'real' time to do it, or until fall when everything dies to the ground again.

And this is today:

Bright idea, lets go to Storytime at the library, get the kiddos out...
Actuality, Storytime at the library isn't sitting in the kids section looking for and browsing through Thomas books, sooo lets have a huge fit of "NO NO NO this door mommy this way mommy home Mommy truck home" and finally when I try to calm him down by leaving the storytime room
"Honey, storytime"
"No no no. thomas"
I think, right, lets pop over, grab a Thomas book, and go back to storytime.
Oh there are NO Thomas books (because we have them all checked out already) so get a truck book and a boat book for the son that is ACTUALLY enjoying storytime with his sister.
Back in storytime for a minute before...previously behaving toddler wants the truck book vs. the boat book and finally... we have to leave. A ROOMFUL of preschoolers and toddlers, and I have to leave because King Turbo wasn't pleased at all with my choice of activity for him. It's this thing with him and structure. Any 'circle time' or structured 'group' activity is met with great resistance. Boy, school is gonna be a blast....
We finally get outside the library where we have tantrum II because I refuse to pick up my fussing, incredibly not well-mannered Turbo. I sit on a bench while Drama and Bear stand, for five minutes, before Turbo finally 'gets' that no matter how red his face is, how loud his voice is, how many times he runs in circles, how many crying tearful pleas he shoots at me, I am not picking him up.
"Mommy, hold hands..." and off we go.
To the grocery store. That went incredibly well considering that my main tactic there was to ignore the sounds coming from the cart. It was hard since this is what I didn't hear... "Mammmmaaa where aaarree uuuuuu?" ummm. RIGHT HERE YOU CAN SEE ME... argh... a stranger passing by in the aisle thought it was cute (men always do, especially the older ones, they don't get the kids are being rotten tomatoes) and told me I wasn't, that I was actually hiding and no, he couldn't see me.
I did refuse to let them go to playland and color, which they asked for, because Turbo was still being too tempermental. This would be the very first time that I was so frustrated and upset with their behavior, that I didn't let them go to playland, buy them any treats or junkfood, or suggest in a merry voice that we get 'french fries and burgers' from the Big M. I did healthy shopping because they were so miserably misbehaving. My daughter for once didn't ask for a thing, didn't peep a complaint, and only toward the end hinted something about pineapples, to which I said no (only because they were whole, and I don't have a special pineapple cutting knife or skills) and we left. I mean, my daughter. didn't. ask. for. one. thing. Miraculous. I did give her points for that.
So we go home, and I start them lunch. They never get to lunch. They behaved just like they did all morning long and I promptly dropped them into their beds for a long nap figuring they'd wake up in a better mood. HA HA HA And to make it worse, my pleas to Nanny McPhee went unanswered.
So I'm beat. The house destroyed, and an HOA inspector comes up the stairs and knocks. I ignore him. STUPID STUPID STUPID. He was probably going to do something like tell me to mow my lawn before he makes my rounds or something. I thought he was a salesman. Anyhow, he made notes in his little 'write up the idiots who blew up their mower' book. I mean, it's not like I COULD mow my lawn if he told me to, but I could plea my cause with a "my mower blew up, promise it'll get fixed..."

My yard doesn't represent me or my philosophy on yards. It does represent my life, however. No matter how many good intentions goes into the yard, half of it still dies. Weeds still sprout. Wild mushrooms still grow. And bloody nothing ever blooms.

Moving on to the afternoon.
Drama had a free trial gym class today. I have to reschedule. I COULDN'T find the bloody building. I drove by all these buildings looking for numbers, but the problem is, it's a section of nothing but business complexes who hide their building numbers, and gym starz is in the back. I spent 35 minutes searching... never found it. Drama is pouting. Had to give her a strawberry fruit pop to get her to stop sulking. Left a message on their phone, and will reschedule for Thursday hopefully. Sigh.

On the way home, SISTER calls, yes she is now SISTER in capitals. Only because it sounds menacing that way. She informed me that we have an incredibly rare form of lipitodey thingamajigs that hang out on white blood cells like only 10 percent of the world's population, all ethnicities being included, have it. She broke it down by race. The only real reason I need to know this is because if I need bone marrow or an organ, she's pretty much it. How cheerful!

Go to starbucks because I SOOO deserve a grande vanilla latte.

Come home to HOA inspector writing in his little book that my lawn is too high, my tree ungroomed, my flowers in containers dead and my weeds are flowering. At least half the lawn is alright.

I shoulda bought some wine.

How Aliens Will Conquer Us All

If aliens were going to invade our planet, they wouldn't land on the planet in their space suits and little guns. They'd enter orbit, circle the earth, and drop bombs, creating mass confusion, panic and chaos, allowing them to infiltrate and conquer us.

This is what I learned on Sci-Fi's Countdown to Doomsday.

That and we're killing our environment and collapsing our eco-systems, which we know already.
We just like to pretend it doesn't matter.

Oh, and solar flares can doom us, doom us all...

It's this or What Not To Wear...

Ode to a Dog

I remember the stuffed monster I bought you,
and how you wouldn't let anyone take it away.
I was flattered I found you the most favored gift.

I remember when you herded my brother's friends.
Unruly lot they were. Wouldn't stay in flock-like formation.
It's hard being a herd dog with nothing to herd.

You and my brother competed for dominance.
That was always funny. Til you pooped in his bed.
He didn't think that was funny.

You chased my daughter when she was a toddler.
Nipping at that diaper, faster faster. She thought you were mean.
I had to agree.

But you loved everyone, and you loved to play.
You thought you were something, some dog king. I mean, your own chair?
Really, you were just spoiled.

So 15 years you had.
My mother loved you most of all. You were her dog.
And now you're gone.

I wonder, are you where Jessie is?
If you are, is she finally catching birds?
Did she get over her fear of water?

Are you with Holmes, my puppy.
Never got to be a dog.
Is he finally able to play with children?

I know you just got there, but did you see Milo?
He barely lived. It was so cruel.
Maybe he could show you around.

Or our Scruffmeister, are you just in some Scotland-like field?
Running and herding sheep.
Chasing and nipping with tail-wagging glee?

I suppose it'll take you time to know your way around.
It's a great big place, I imagine, where all that once lived now roam.
Free of all the pain, but I bet you'll miss the pets.

We hate to see you go.
We know you just couldn't stay, though you tried your best to hang on.
You always were that stubborn.

Bye Scruffy.
You'll be missed.
Don't let it get to your head.

What My Children are Reading

The mind of a nine and a half year old is a very scary place. Suddenly, like literally suddenly, she wants to read. June started her huge reading frenzy with Beck and the Great Berry Battle by Laura Driscoll.

Here is what my daughter is reading this month:

Sailor Moon, the Power of Friendship by who cares there's a whole series of them. (Finished)

Lily's Pesky Plant by Laura Driscoll. This is a series of fairy books by this author.

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Inglalls Wilder. (this one she reads out loud to me daily during the weekday)

Toddlers are fanatic about their books. Here's what the boys are reading this month:

The Grouchy Ladybug, this is the best, their personal favorite right now.

Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See, by Eric Carlse.

Stop, Train, Stop, by Rev. W. Awdry

Thomas and the Castle, by Rev. W. Awdry

Thomas the Really Useful Engine, by Rev. W. Awdry

Whatever Next Bear, a book I picked up in Britain for Drama ages ago.

The New Me

Okay, not really. The more motivated me, perhaps. The more, 'me with sort of an idea of what I want' me, okay okay more like a "So I get up one Monday morning, do my 6 a.m. workout and then actually go for a run so I must be in a transformational phase, not unlike the legendary phoenix which out of the ashes of suburbuan mundanity rises to new, exciting, poetic and literatary heights" me.

I mean, that's not an unrealistic assumption is it?

So I am glad I got my sorry butt out of bed at waay too early in the morning and went to the gym, and then, after my tall cafe vanilla late (yes yes Starbucks, I know, we are only human after all, but it WAS a tall, with 2 percent milk thank you) came home and realized I could run. The children were all asleep, husband included. On Wednesday, however, I will make sure I bring my Ipod, and have 30 minutes of music, because what I thought was a nice 30 minute run was, heh, a 15 minute run. Ooops. But I had enough cardio for today between the 4 minute warm up at the gym and the crazy leg workout that about killed me was more cardio than anything, so I'm good.

P.S. When I say run, please understand that at this point of my 'running' there is actually a considerable amount of fast-walking involved.

P.P.S. If you want to know why I chose running, you tell me one cardio exercise that you know of that can get you better toned and use up more calories than running, and help keep your bone mass?

HA.

The Others

I've been browsing the blogosphere. There are many bloggers, many really good ones. At first I thought, how inspiring, but now, I'm not sure. It seems that I am lost in all worlds. I don't belong in the blogosphere, that never-ending, 24-hour, 365-day a year world of writings and comments and bloggers and their friends that I enjoy but just don't fully understand. My friends read this blog. I read theirs. I suppose we are a blogosphere of our own.

I told my friend I was going to go back to work. But I think I'd be just as lost there as I am in the blogosphere, as I am staying home, as I am not doing what I know I should be doing (and therefore have started doing yes, I think I get it now) because I thought maybe, I shouldn't do it. I was a bit doubtful. I don't want to be doubtful anymore.

My husband is reading the Art of War. He suggested I take that wonderfuly absurd work ethic I have (had) and refocus it. He told me I looked really pretty today. Three times. He said it three times, and I felt like I was 23 again and he was there smiling at me across breakfast in the chow hall I never ate in because it was gross, telling me he was going to Korea but it was alright and asking me out to some races anyhow, and I went even though I had a headache. So then he told me again how pretty I was, and I finally said, 'really, do you mean it?' and he smiled and said yes, and I looked in the mirror and saw someone I hadn't seen in a while and I was glad, because she had dreams and plans to make them come true and she was going to, you could see that in her eyes, she was going to do what she said she'd always do, and she was right there, looking back at me, and I knew, for a moment, I knew who I was and what I was, and I had already succeeded.

So now, I suppose, it's only a matter of time.

Happy Friday

I do understand that lots of things are different now, but last night I was feeling totally retro. Why, I even bought a retro-1950s circa glamour bathing suit, only with 2006-slimming fabric technology :).

Today is the start of a four day weekend for my husband, but for me, it is one 8-pg midterm and a 5-page research paper weekend, neither of which I have started. Why, oh why do I do this to me?

Best Quote and an Essay, by Me!

Yes, I heard it on Oprah.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Which just makes me wonder, what exactly happens when your human experience is over. Do you get to go on another one? Maybe a better one? Like, you know, you wake up late and the line for the really cool ride is sooo long you just say, ah we'll take this piddling one til the other line gets shorter?

Yeah yeah I'm procrastinating. What's it to you?

And now, a brief essay.

What year is it?
By Me.

It’s just another hot day in another hot summer. There’s a crisis in the mideast, oil prices are high, the American automobile industry is in the can and the nation is uneasy. I turned my oven fan on to drown out the whining of one of my toddlers while I tossed peppers and onions around in a skillet and hoped the chicken wouldn’t overcook. Then I stopped, mid-stir, and wondered what the fuck year it was.

I mean, I’m in the kitchen cooking dinner for my family, after a day of shooing kids away from the television, avoiding laundry, doing some cleaning, and making mental shopping lists. My husband will get home and dinner will be on the table for him. He’ll talk about his day. I’ll tell him about the kids day and my day, which involves considerably less adult interaction than his day. We’ll put the kids to bed and have some chill time and discuss exactly how the country is going to hell, in a handbasket no less! And, I lie not, today, my hair looked like Mrs. Brady’s.

What year is it? I mean, seriously. This is exactly what my mother did. And her mother before her. And her mother. And so on. Oh sure, there were those years when the mothers worked. My grandmother on the other side worked in factories, along with my aunts. She worked in the local school when I was growing up.Today, most mothers work, have worked, or will work again when the kids are older, and will never stop working, but in better jobs than our mothers and their mothers. In fact, for a brief decade, women were expected to work, have kids, make dinner, and solve world hunger. I think, I mean that whole super-mom thing happened right? And when I grew up, I was going to be a super-mom, well sorta, I was gonna have a meaningful and fulfilling career making a difference. But I only did that for ten years, and probably didn’t make a difference, had some fun, though, traveled a bit. But than baby 2 and 3 came along, baby 1 really needed someone home, we moved to the West, the happening place to be, and um, well, here I am. One of those women that worked, got a husband, got kids, and stayed home.

What year is it again? So maybe I’ll work someday. Or maybe I’ll join the PTA. Or maybe I won’t join the PTA, but I’ll do lots of carpools. I didn’t mean it to happen this way. I wonder how many women do. But I can’t stop staying home. I mean, the kids, I think this is better than the alternative. Not that the alternative is bad, because women spent forever trying to get equality in the workplace and good and interesting jobs, I am all for that. I mean for us, the alternative is both of us working 60-65 hour weeks, paying more than three-quarters of a salary into childcare and just being exceptionally stressed out. So we don’t do it. We have an option. So every year or so we address the ‘going to work’ thing and so far, for the past two and a half years, it’s a no-go, and we’re not going to address it again until at least Kindergarten. I remember hearing my parents have this conversation, but the difference is I have a college degree. My mom didn’t, so that is progress I guess.

But doesn’t anyone think it’s strange? I mean, it feels like, almost like, nothing has really changed, culturally I mean. Women who make careers a priority struggle like the super-moms of the 80s to balance it all. Men struggle to help their supermom wives balance it all. Some men stay home now. I suppose that is different. Some women forgo kids or have them much later for careers. That is not a new thing. The men with wives who stay home seem to be fine with it. The dads who stay home seem to take a light-hearted approach to it. Some of the moms who work want to stay home. Some of the moms who stay home, want to go back to work. But many moms stay home. Many make provisions for it. They intend to work in their careers and then take a few years off when they have kids. That is not the supermom motto of the 80s. I hear of these work-friendly, take-your-baby-to-work places, but I don’t buy it. In-house daycare is kinda cool though. But that’s not where I am. I’m in a split-level home in a small neighborhood by an elementary school with an SUV and three kids. I am inundated daily with informational advertisements letting me know how to clean my house and kill bad germs, as well as cook nutritional meals in the microwave and quickly, because we all know us moms are busy with those busy kids. If you took away my cell phone, the internet and cable television, what year would it be?

Oh sure, it’s a whole new global world, right? But somehow, here, in split-level America, I’m not feeling particularly global. Somehow, I am feeling – Retro.

Meatloaf anyone?

What I'm doing right now

Drinking coffee, sorting out a character in my head, and getting ready for two hours of non-stop writing. That's the ambition.

Also, calming the impulse to toss Drama's room out the window. I mean, if there's nothing in it, it'll be clean, right? I'm thinking bed, two sheets and a wool blanket, a foot locker at the bed and locker in the closet. :) Think of the organization!

I was supposed to start at two, but toddler Bear was jumping off the bed, and apparently got hurt. Or Turbo did something, because Turbo did apologize to Bear when I went in, though I'm not sure what for, and Bear didn't want Turbo to give him a big hug.

My rule is that when you walk into a room and your son has tears in his eyes and snot rolling out of his nose, obviously, unless you are the cause of those tears and snot, you need to hug him.

Well, Turbo, he's a quick study that one. Not one minute of consoling Bear passed when all of a sudden Turbo gets out of bed, puts on a half smile and starts fake-crying, and sitting in my lap. The thing that totally ruined it? The sparkle in his eye and the twitch in his upper lip... honestly, it was twitching from trying not to smile! I busted up laughing, which totally got him smiling gleefully and I unfortunately rewarded the behavior by hugging him for being so freakin' cute while poor Bear was still sobbing softly into my now-snot-ridden shoulder.

Dear Drama is in her room not cleaning it.

Whatever. We haven't painted her room because she can't keep it clean enough to actually walk through and tape. She's really saving me aggravation I suppose.

9:32 p.m.

I know, I know, three posts in one night...

This is where I am. Desk. Window open. Nice breeze.
Husband. Black chair. Reading, actually READING a text book.
Me. Writing. I'm supposed to be writing on chapter 13, til 11 p.m. New writing time, 9-11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday. (I do school on the weekends.) I want to write my other story. I'm sick of stupid fairy tales.
Must. Be. Strong.

Someone posted on how to give up soda.

I spent a month brainwashing myself into believing that soda was the ultimate evil preventing against weight loss. I think like, one soda a day is linked to obesity (read or heard that) so there is science to it. Plus, the calories in non-diet soda...

But before you can give it up, you need to believe that Mountain Dew, Dakota's choice drink, isn't just goat piss, it's hell-spawned goat piss.... I belive I decided that Aspartame (whatever it's spelled like) is intentionally engineered to be addictive :). We just need to lie to ourselves to do the right thing....

Okay NOW i'm going to stop blogging and start writing...

And about blogging, did you know there is a whole blogging community of women, moms even, and all are welcome? HA HA HA HA HA.... Another club I'll never get to join! That's okay, I've got my eensy weency blog roll, I'm good... I mean hey it's a start...

The Universe Spoke

My son dumped the 'writers market' tome on my desk while I was blogging. My daughter handed me 'if you want to write' while she was cleaning. I left my writing notebook for one of my stories on the coffee table and picked it up. All within the last half hour. Maybe the universe is speaking. It's validating my decision to ditch the Polyanna Retro Mom gig. We shall see when I start writing tonight after the boys are in bed.

If not, there will be yet another angst whine post at around 1 a.m. west coast time.

And now, brilliant comments from my children...

Drama: "Um, Mom, I hate to say this, but that tank top is waaaay too small for you.". )*%#) kid.
Bear: "Thomas. More Thomas. FINE." Somebody says FINE way too much in this household.
Turbo: "Hey. Kitty. Get outta there." A FULL SENTENCE.

And for those who want interesting blogs:

Is there something with Nashville? Anyhow check out these two sites... they rock...
Busy Mom is just amusing as hell. And Lucinda is like, hmm, funny. A little too cute, but hey at least someone is. They are both in Tennessee. Who woulda thunk?

Phasing Out

I, hereby and herforth from this dayeth ontoth the end of thy dayeths, renounce all efforts to join the freakin pollyanna 1950s retro mom's club.

It's been oh, I don't know. Probably six months since I started really going and trying to make an effort. Six months, not one of those 40 women know me. I mean, they know my name and that I have three kids, but they don't know me. At all. Nor do they really care to. I would like to know a few of them, but they all are closed to me. Which means one thing. We are sooo not going to click. See, I like to know the people I hang out with. Not everything, everyone has secrets or things they don't share, that's fine. But well, likes, dislikes, ideas, dreams, past, anything. I know nothing about these women except their kids names (because they are always using them) and sometimes their names. No matter how many times I try, I can not synchronize my brain patterns to theirs. We dont' communicate on the same level, meaning, not at all. Oh I'm sure some of them know each other, in fact, they probably have bonded and are not so closed with each other, but I've been going for about six months and I'm still the outsider. Ummm so this whole thing is so not happening.

But I don't want to just drop it. It's not that I think they would miss me. That's part of the reason I'm dropping the club. They wouldn't miss me. Wouldn't even wonder about me, except in passing and then a 'oh huh hmph oh well' no, I'm going to just drift away and not renew my membership this fall. I'll drag the kiddos there to morning playgroups with my poor daughter who'll be bored, giving me a reason to leave early, and that's that. I'm going to ix nay bunco night for the library's book club and not try to force my hexagonal shape into their perfect square pegs.

I say square pegs because while I am sure that in their own homes some of them may use some off-color language, in a group mentality it is all gosh darnit goodness politeness, hi how are you how have you been oh nice nice nice nice nice. Not a bad word. Not an off-color word. Lots of watching though. I just remembered that. They are always watching sorta, which means they are probably judging which means I've probably broken a bunch of secret behavior rules I didn't know about but whatever. So. Uber polite. Perfectly proper outfits. Perfectly proper rules for the kids "oh we give them healthy snacks, we want them to eat healthy..." as they shove tater casserole onto the kids plates cuz yeah THAT is healthy... anyhow I digress. They are super polite and proper and while they don't have tupperware parties, they are big into stamping.

Now here's the thing. I'm sick of being all nice about them. I always say, it's me not giving them a chance, or it's just I don't know them, or it's just I'm from a different coast and there's a cultural divide or 'I'm just a different sorta person anyhow so it'll take time...' and I'm sick of it. I'm fine. I'm interesting. Dammit, I am occasionally even funny. (Thought I admit my blogs are rambling and long...)

So I'm going to rant, okay? No no they aren't bad people, nooo it's all me, just my imagination. They are fine, it's juuuust me... Whatever. This is a club that's supposed to welcome new members, and I feel about as welcome as a cat in a dog pound. Oh sure they started a welcoming committee for new members like AFTER I joined. It seems the best time to join a mom's club is right when you have a kid, at birth, so you can go and grow together. For me it's too late. My boys were toddlers when we joined. No bonding time. I go to event after event, and still, have no clue what half these women do when they aren't attending mom's club stuff. They had movie night once, which I was like, great I can do that, but they cancelled it, and haven't rescheduled since. Bunco night is more of the same women. I'm convinced one of the woman doesn't like me at all, which is fine, but she like, WAS the new member coordinator. So I'm being all nice and polite about these woman that aren't really accepting me no matter how I try (except for one who is very nice and I like her, but um, ONE out of 40+? Yikes.) I'm all nice and end up sitting alone because nobody really talks to me since they don't know me. When I try to talk to people, they don't take the conversation anywhere. Now, I know I'm a pretty decent conversationalist. I may not be the most charismatic person in the world, but I do have my moments. No, they just aren't interested. And no matter how hard I try, I can not enter the twilight dimension that is their world. For all I know, their whole world is mom's club. So. Enough being nice about them. I'm sick of being nice about people that care so little for me if I really DID just drop out completely they'd probably never ask if I was okay.

So, to be quite frank, blunt, and not polyanna polite,

Fuck Em.

An update

Remember this neighbor fight?

Well, lo and behold, as I knew it would, it was resolved and the two little girls are gleefully playing over each other's homes again and the moms are cool again and the dads have rebonded, and the little son is running free between the two homes, and I am back to mere waving terms with them all.

Did I call it, or did I call it?

A Hot Day

Yes,

Hot.

It was in the 80s today. The boys for some inexplicable reason would rather hover around me in the heat instead of hanging in the cool basement. I didn't dress them today. Just Diapers. Now, if we have another day in the 90s, I'm dressing the horde and dragging them to the lake. I don't think they would complain. I was already at the lake on Monday, sent a thank you email, and got ignored. bah. OH MAN I am watching a commerical where a chubby stoner is on tv telling us we need to watch what we put into our cars just like we watch what we put in our bodies... um, what's in YOUR body dude... sheesh...

Okay so it was hot. But not unbearably hot. We've got fans and I've got tank tops. I'll be spending more time in the basement this week, I've just had stuff to do upstairs so couldn't go hide. We went out to the store and it was nice and breezy. I'm still trying to find a way to get a good breeze going through the house. I did order some nice 'for women with actual boobs' tank tops from Victorias Secret, so I won't have that sweaty bra line that's so attractive to men... ha ha ha...
And a new swimsuit that will actually fit. I also bought McRed new swim trunks. He's so excited HA. But he's going to be in the water because he's got two little fish that have discovered water is fun. Well one, but I'm convinced the other was just tired. I mean, Turbo went nuts kicking and splashing. When I went in the water and held my arms out he practically leapt into them. No fear. Bear just sat on the dock and wanted to dangle his toe in. But, like I said, he was grumpy and tired all day. Drama loves the water, we won't talk about how fast she went riding that raft thingie. Yikes! Note to self: Swim Lessons sooner than later.

Speaking of Drama, she spent $5 on a kid's nail kit. She is now sporting fake purple nails. OMIGOSH. She's NINE. Yesterday, we did her nails black, you decide which is preferable. All my husband said was 'oh Goth, cool. now if you'd stop PICKING them maybe they'd grow and look pretty.' Black nail polish. I'm so proud.

I haven't written in four days. I'm going to write tomorrow, and probably take a nap heh. That's how the boys handled the afternoon heat. They took an extra long siesta. It was incredible. I was too awake to take a nap, but it was tempting.

So not much to say today. Supposed to get progressively cooler throughout the week.

Um Ed, Mr. Crotchety,

Don't leave for the army without giving us an address duude.

The Post on What I Leanred about Hazardous Household Products

Okay,

Here is what I learned about safety in the home:

Food:

Every state uses pesticides, each state has crops that need lots of pesticides used on them to be a viable crop. I can tell you what Washington State's are, because we got a list, but not what other states are.

Your true best bet is to buy organic produce for everything, but if it's too pricey, than only buy organic for the crops that require the use of a lot of pesticides, and regular produce for everything else. Also, with non-organic crops, use soap and water, not just water, to get rid of the pesticides, and then PEEL them, if possible. Also, they sell a wash in the store, but she said soap and water is just as good.

For organic delivery: justtomatoes and pioneerorganics both deliver. Just Tomatoes delivers everywhere. A bunch of moms and the presenter were all keen on the just tomatoes website, especially for their dried fruit. I believe the latter is more a northwest thing.

Here's why I'm sorta sold on organic produce currently... kids are peeing pesticides. It gets in their system. YIKES. Not only are our kids bigger due to cow hormones, but now they are weed and bug resistant... who woulda thunk?

Lawns

ChemGreen and all those other lawn services are not good for your children. They absorb the chemicals through their skin. The best news? They use these services or similar ones at parks everywhere. Yippeee!

Slug bait kills dogs. Unless you hate your neighbor's dog, use beer in a container instead. Slugs love beer, and it only makes dogs silly.

Weedkiller is bad for your kids' skin. Pull or dig up weeds. Honestly, it doesn't take THAT long (unless you have my yard but we're not going there)

Household:

Here is the most common time children drink cleaner, eat comet and spray 409 in their eyes: you are cleaning, you are a cleaning maniac, you have three rooms done and you are just on a roll and the phone rings, you stop, pick it up and walk away... but you don't put the cleaner away or up high... little bored toddler finds something to do. Also, if your child can open child-proof cabinets, move your stuff up high, behind a child-proofed cabinet.

Um, no nice way to say this. Don't, ahem, flush tampons down the toilet. It clogs up pipes and drains. Your call.

Common household products that may contain (meaning probably) hazardous ingredients: drain cleaner, oven cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, bathtub/sink/tile cleaner and all-purpose cleaner.

Refresher -- there are four words required by law to be put on all products that meet the criteria. The words denote the hazard level.
The terms again:
Safest -- doesn't contain 'warning' 'caution' 'danger' or 'poison' on the label.
Moderate -- 'caution' or 'warning'
Highest -- 'danger' or 'poison'

It's recommended you get rid of all 'danger' or 'poison' products as those are the ones that will kill kids, and idiot adults.
Also, check for products with no scent or a light scent, these are safer.

Safer alternatives

Pull weeds.
Hand pick and kill slugs. Or trap them with beer.
Buy 'good bugs' at nurseries to get rid of your aphids and other 'bad' bugs.
Use vinegar and water to mop floors and clean windows and mirrors.
Use baking soda, vinegar and hot water as a drain cleaner. It's like the volcano experiment in your sink.
Instead of Comet, use Bon Ami. It's sold in the store on the same shelf as Comet.
Seventh Generation products are also pretty good.
Vinegar and water apparently cleans everything, so just stick with those -- it's 1 cup vinegar mixed with 3 cups water. All the other crap sold in the stores are really not essential. So everyone who secretly felt they were wasting their money on cleaning products, totally right.
For those products you HAVE to have, keep them up high and locked.
There's something to do with lemon but I can't remember what.


You can go here to this link for more info, but it's local to my county. It still has good info.

That's about it.

Good Mom Things to Know

Do not buy toilet drop-in cleaners that turn your toilet water into bright shades of a primary color.

Trust me on this one.

The Struggle for Purpose

I'm not going to whine.

But I think I should read 'The purpose driven life' and maybe glean some tips.

I know I shouldn't feel this way, but I truly feel like I'm going down a meaningless road with no clear goal, no real purpose, no meaning, no real idea of what will be attained. I hate my masters' classes. They bore me, and I view it more as professional development that can be useful rather than educational, true brain food. I'm not sure where it will take me, if anywhere.

I love writing. I want to be writing more. I want to write four to five hours a day. Short of getting up at 4 a.m. or going to bed at 4 a.m. that isn't happening. So I don't even feel I'm accomplishing anything in that area, which is the most painful of all.

I'd like to just 'have faith' that this road is the right one, but when you're just heading down the road cuz it's the only one for miles, wondering if you're lost or should have turned right way back when or at the last left when you felt maybe you were kinda lost, it's hard to have that faith.

I mean, where is this road going? What if it's one of those long midwestern roads that don't actually lead anywhere except to dirt roads, dead ends, or a cross roads with equally long empty roads?

What is my purpose?

I think Asimov's robots had a greater sense of place and being than I do right now.

I do not feel like 'me' in this life. I feel like I'm 'pretending' in a role that clearly I suck at.

I mean, I love the boys. I love reading them their silly train books, and the bear book and the wild things. I love that they cuddle up with me to the couch and lean their heads on me to get a look at the pictures. I love that i know my daughter is home safe after school and that she can just go flop on the couch and chill with me in the kitchen after school. Yet, I feel I should be accomplishing more.

ARGH.

Someone Hep Meh.


That's all.

Sooo a typical mom

You know, this day pretty much didn't help me in my conviction that there is more to being a stay at home mom than being, well, mom.

Seriously. You think, no no you're not just a mom, you're you too...unique, clever, smart, funny, not-marked-by-your-offspring you, so let me tell you my day. Those of you who know me, would probably not expect this day to have actually ocurred to me. All will admit though, that no matter what you might think, or say, the truth is, yes, even quirky, doesn't-think-right me, is just... a mom.

Morning: wake up, go to gym, work out and inform Sir Buffalot that no, I'm not getting my ass out of bed before 7 a.m. this summer, and if I manage to get down to a size 8 this summer on his workout will sign up again in the fall (though I did not mention the latter part, as he would then mention that it would be nice if I actually did cardio). Okay that is where 'me' ends. You'll see.

Get home with my vanilla latte grande and a mocha for the man who slept in because I came home late. (Okay, that is sooo me)

Me over.

Make kids 100 waffles each.
Make daughter make her own 20 waffles.
Settle kids in front of Blues Clues and take hasty shower.
Forgot to destubbilize legs.
Turn water on.
Destubbilize legs.
Run frantically around looking for semi-clean clothes for said kids.
End up settling for not-really-too-bad looking.
Run frantically around looking for four sandals.
End up finding three.
It's summer. Who needs shoes?
Get self dressed, gobbilize new hair cut into some semblance of a style.
Get children dressed.
Flee out door to Safeway to pick up last minute 'pot luck lunch contribution' (trail mix and a veggie platter.)
Go to house infested with other moms, toddlers and babies.
Listen to speel from King County's Waste Management Program representative.
Can't help noticing said representive was young, skinny, cute, and sporting really cool, flattering, black bootcut slim-fit trousers that I couldn't justify buying due to having nowhere to wear them.
Learned all about how all the cleaners in my house can kill us all...
Learned how to avoid the cleaners that can kill us all... and stick to ones that will only moderately impair health, as well as cleaners that are completely safe, and can be used as a side-dish at supper if really desperate.
Got a free 'green' cleaning kit with recipes for home-made cleaners, and an honest-to-goodness 'bucket' to add to my 'cleaning kit.' This would be the first 'kit' for cleaning I've ever owned.
(I really can't wait to try the volcanic drain cleaning recipe -- fun for the whole family)
Chatted with mom's that really feel I'm from a different dimension. Small talk is hard for me. I haven't jived yet.
Finally left. Not jiving gets annoying after a bit.
(I mean, come on, I'm the ONLY person that thought clear liquid in an unlabeled bottle that isn't water would be vodka?)
Drove to store. Picked up meat for dinner, (note to self, marinate meat after blogging)
nice shoes for boys, crappy disposable flip-flops for boys so next time they lose shoes won't look like bad red-neckin' mother, soy vanilla milk for Bear's new addiction (honestly, how was I supposed to know he'd like it THAT much?) and smoothies for all of us since no one really ate a full lunch.
Ran home, had Drama put all perishables in fridge while left kids in truck while calling insurance company while patrolling driveway (same one as parked truck with kids) to finally clear up some insurance thing.
Got Drama and self back in truck, drove to boys' speech (don't really need it) therapy.
Came home. Made Coffee. Dealt with Drama's meltdown after having loud reaction to initial meltdown (it's a freakin' GAMEBOY, I can't win em either).
Called friend in panic mode. Thanks friend. All of us involved are doing better.
No it was nothing to really panic about, but some of us were freaked for a brief moment.
Okay, me.
Finally drank coffee.
Realized entire day was totally suburban, totally mom, and totally dull.
Blogged about it to feel better.
/sigh

So.

See? I'm just a typical mom. One of a gazillion. This was just a typical mom day, one that went well, as opposed to the ones that normally involve laundry, weed attacks, toddler fights, wall art and weight gain. Though, at least my household will smell all non-toxic, lemon and vinegary clean from now on.

Now, I'm off to marinate the meat, make dinner for all, have a beer, light, 64 calories, thank you, greet hubby with a kiss when he comes home, maybe even put on some twirly skirt and pearls, and bs my way through homework.

p.s. Slug bait will kill your dog.

p.p.s. Products labeled 'danger' and 'poison' will kill kill kill you all. Don't use them. Look for products labeled 'caution' and 'warning' as they will only impair your health. Better yet, go totally like, green dude. The labels are required by law and have specific meaning. So everything labeled danger and poison really are dangerous, poisonous and will kill kill kill...

p.p.p.s. Wet swiffer jets spray stuff for floors will make dogs really sick. Toddlers and kids who eat off floors sick, too.

p.p.p.p.s. anyone interested in my recipes, let me know and i'll be happy to post em.

Dieta, week 2, day 1

Keep in mind that for half of the first week, I was in Oregon with the relatives, so I didn't make as much progress as I normally would have. I have nothing else to blog about so you get the dieta progress.

Lets just say today was not ideal, but I'm not discouraged.

Here's the breakdown, and where I screwed up:

Food week 2
Day 1 (Monday)

1 Kashi granola bar 140 calories
1 lowfat french vanilla bean yogurt mmm 190 cal
1 bowl kashi cereal w/ 1/2 cup milk 180 cal
white chocolate mocha 450 cal (HOLY MOLEY NO MORE OF THOSE) (Ironically I ordered this because I thought my sister would never inhale a drink that high in calories...)

Morning total: 1270

bodes ill for lunch and dinner... yikes!
Cocunut chicken for dinner maybe.

snack
goat cheese and melba toast 130 calories

lunch
healthy choice dinner 290 calories 1690
ice cream for 70 calories (jsut a small amount)

I'm over my goal of 1500 calories, however, still plenty shy of my maintenance
calories, so today is still a success despite the mocha

hamburger 260

ACK 2020 but do you see how easy it is to go over?
I should have not had the mocha and not had the hamburger. the worst offender? the mocha.
The thing is even after dinner, I am still 250 calories away from my current
maintenance tally. Though cutting it a bit /way/ too close for comfort.

coconut curry chicken with cous cous 371 calories.

Okay so that is 2391. That is my maintenance weight, minus four heh. But this is just one day of
out of the week and a half I've been doing this, so I'm still okay.
I ate too many calories, but, this is the only day I've eaten too many calories
though I went away for the weekend. Maybe two days. The point is, this is long term.
I could make the mistake of saying screw it and tomorrow porking out on
some cheeseburgers, but that would negate the progress I've made. I have new
low calorie snacks, low calorie breakfasts and lunches and dinners. I don't do mcdonalds fries EVER anymore and am no longer really in the mood for cheeseburgers or hamburgers (I only
ate that hamburger because they gave me one too many, I didn't order me one, and then
I realized I didn't even want it. 260 calories later, and I'm like bleah.)

I also ordered a soda, just to 'see' if I still wanted it. I did this with smoking once.
It's my way of seeing if I really kicked a habit. Six months after I quit smoking, I spent a weekend smoking and about died. Hated it. As for the soda, dumped half of it out. Even though it was diet, it was too heavy and syrupy. Yep. I'm soda free.

And totally so a size 10 now.
I have my size 8 jeans I'm working toward. I want to be there by fall.

Happy Father's Day

Hope everyone had a nice father's day, if applicable.

McRed slept in, and played games later on. He also had a free day when I was in Oregon. The kids drove me nuts.

The kids and I are back from Oregon. Here is our trip in brief:

Day one: Visited Mt. St. Helens, which consisted of one of the adults trying to pry the toddlers away from the running train display. It was a model train that went in and out of a model mountain and well, anyhow, it's not like any of us expected the train model to be there. There were fits. We went to the crater, which is now all slowly growing back. We saw the volcano explosion video. The boys wanted to watch it again. Big booms impress them. I dragged Drama to the discovery room where we looked at bark, skinned animals (real skinned animals... poor bambi) and bugs. The only thing that got the boys away from the train? A stuffed bear.... for a brief interlude. Nice bear, nice. One thing I don't understand, I mean, I say I want to live on a mountain, but not literally. Can you imagine the bad connections they must get? And what DO they do? I don't understand why there were houses on the mountain... all alone... waiting for what? Another eruption?

Day two: We visited an abbey. Now, I was expecting something more akin to the English abbeys' I loved so much in England. Okay, this one was only 100 years old and looked way too modern for my sense of what an abbey should be, but being in England spoiled me in the abbey-expectation crap. So what was in it? A museum. In the museum? A collection of STUFFED ANIMALS as in LIVE stuffed not cute cuddly stuffed in various forms of attack. There was a bear about to rip out an elk's neck, a polar bear and a seal, a mountain cat taking down a bird of prey, and then, the kicker, two deformed animals... one was a deer or something with one head, two bodies and two extra legs on top... the other a calf with two legs coming out from under its belly. Drama was creeped out, so wasn't I. I think we all were. I don't think any of us expected to see nature frozen in action. Drama wanted to leave. I mean, a museum of taxidermy animals what on earth did that have to do with religion, monks, an abbey and Catholocism? Seriously creepy.

Day three: the best day. We did nothing til that evening. My sister and I got my hair cut, it is VERY Cute and Short but CUTE. We snuck off for a Starbucks. My sister got an emergency message that Lucky Jeans were on sale for $60 and she for a moment, entertained the notion of making a mad dash to downtown Portland for jeans, and then resigned herself to the fact she was going to buy a pair later at higher prices. No jeans are THAT good. Though the girl at the counter at my gym would disagree. She owns a closetful, which, she told me, has directly contributed to her debt, but she insists they are worth it, if only they fit her...

The best part of Day 3: Later that night, my brother-in-law's brother lives on a boat, and we went and had dinner on the boat. We took all the kids with their life jackets. This guy is a real gem. He tried to dig up life jackets for us. He let us all in his boat. He took us all for a ride up the Portland river and it was great because the boys were sitting outside and boy would they not let anyone take them inside. No, they were on a boat ride, as they kept repeating over and over and over. They also saw a helicopter which was great. They thought it was Harold. Anyone familiar with Portland knows there are a bunch of bridges crossing the river. We went under the bridges to the glee of the twins. Turbo and Bear kept saying 'under bridge' over and over, until... something MAGICAL happened... we came to a bridge that looked a little to low... Bear kept pointing and yelling 'Fit. Fit.' because that's his way of saying it won't fit, make it fit. Uncle Boat as we'll call him, radioed the bridge and they RAISED THE BRIDGE... OOOOH. What did we hear? BRIDGE UP BRIDGE UP and then when it went down BRIDGE DOWN BRIDGE DOWN. This was the language on the boat:
Under bridge. water. Ducks. boat ride. BABY BABY DUCKS. Bridge up oooh. Bridge down. Under bridge. Bye bye bridge. Water. Boat ride. Sit Grandaddy Sit outside."
On the way back, just when their magical trip up the river couldn't get any better, something even MORE magical happened. Uncle Boat radioed to get the bridge up. They said, (gasp) No. There was, get this, a TRAIN COMING. NO WAY DUDE. Uncle Boat, not understanding the ramification of trains on these two boys turned the boat around so they could see the train coming. Boy, they heard it.
TRAIN COMING. BRIDGE DOWN. TRAIN COMING. Then they saw it. YELLOW TRAIN BILL BILL. ANNABELLE SEE ANNABELLE (they thought the trolleys on the upper level was Annabelle) TRAIN COMING. SEE. LOOK LOOK TRAIN. TRAIN ON BRIDGE. CHOO CHOO. Oh man it was a long train. So the new language was "Choo choo. choo chooo. train. on bridge. bridge up. bridge down.choo choo. BOAT. BIG BIG BOAT. Under bridge. Water. Train. Bye bye train." So this went on for the whole river ride. When we went back, Uncle Boat let Bear blow the boat horn, which unfortunately for him, sounded like a train. They made Uncle Boat turn the lights on and off inside. Turbo and Bear made him play with the wipers and washers repeatedly. Uncle Boat has no children. He's great with them. His girlfriend was super. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have eaten. Sadly, she didn't get to eat. She loves kids though, apparently they were more fun than dinner. Uncle Boat carried one of the boys, I believe it was Turbo. He kept repeating the same phrase over and over, sadly, ever so sadly, "Bye bye boat bye bye boat bye bye boat." Their Uncle, who put them to bed every night, said he lifted his head one time, looked at him, said ever so softly, "Bye bye boat" and fell soundly asleep.

As for Uncle Boat? He and his girlfriend, scarred from the jubilent enthusiasm of two year olds who just witnessed a train crossing a bridge that went up and down from the close-up vantage of a boat on the water right in front of said bridge, went and got drunk. He informed me he wouldn't bother making a tape of what his boat would sound like tonight, he just said, listen to the silence... ha ha ha.


As for my mother, she perks up in the afternoons and evenings. She became all talkative and chatty. Once, I left the kitchen and she followed me, like she used to do, because she wanted to keep talking. I just called her tonight where she's visiting her sister, and she's just as perky and chatty and happy. I hope this is what she needed to help her sort of through the icky Indiania life she hates so much. I hope she improves. I hope there was enough joy to sort of get her through. She was truly happy. Still anxious, shaky and worried, but very happy. My dad? Nothing would make that man happier than living near some family. He was not meant to have a life without people. He would be happy here too, and said so. He has a dream, but we don't know if he can do it. But it's something. He wants to move out here when he retires. I hope so. I am torn between being optimistic and pessimistic. I want to be a realist, but in this situation, reality is cloaked for some reason. There is no accurate picture of my mother's true state, because she was on vacation and seeing her daughters and grandchildren so she was at her happiest and best, same with my father. In Indiania, she's at her worst. Once on the trip my dad says this is her last trip, it's too much. Then he said, maybe not, maybe she can come again. We don't know. It changes day to day. As for the doctors, they say she's healthy and fine, and treat things as they go. So who knows. It's hard. So I just enjoyed the week with her and my dad. Because it was a good week.

New Word of the Day

Man berries.


MUHAAAHHAHAAAA

Good Day

Today was a good day.

My mother, after a long afternoon nap, perked up and woke up and the boys finally started interacting with her. She had a nice chat with my sister and I all evening. It was nice.

We all went to Ikea. It did get her some exercise and it did solve my dilemma of what to do for dinner (Ikea's nice cafe, my mother saw the cafe sign and decided it looked good).

We will see how tomorrow is.

p.s.
My group in one of my classes, totally lame.

In Defense of Me

Yes,

I put the book list up there because Gravy's reading list consists of what I call 'campy pleasure reading' (see my list here, under campy pleasure reading).

I admit that the last book I read before the Rain of Gold epic sagas was, well, The Devil Wears Prada. (It was funny!) And I also freely admit that I am gleefully awaiting the next Karen Moning book... if she ever gets around to writing it...

As for those who spent the last two months reading nothing but Charlainne Harris, well... been there... done that... ran out of authors to be addicted to.

p.s.

Apparently, my hostas are actually milkweed... my husband has informed me the weekend after I get back, we are renting a roto tiller and ending my misery that is the garden of doom. I am exalted.

Little Ballerina

I love this Kent Parks Rec. program. I have seen nothing like it!

My daughter did her spring recital, "A Brand New World." It was brilliant. The high school auditorium was packed. She was a star. Her movements flowed, she and the other girls tried their best, andit was her moment in the spotlight.

The show they put on was amazing. There were three shows all day long and she was in the third show. Each show consisted of different dance classes. We saw pre-ballerinas, pre-tappers, jazzers, hip hoppers, cheerleaders, ballet, the second ballet class, jazz and tap, and my favorite, Irish softshoe and Irish hardshoe...

The place was filled. The thing I liked about it the most was that it's about all the kids, not just one or two. It's about giving them confidence, a chance to shine, a chance to perform, it's not 'try out' or 'see if you can get a part.' I mean, that is important, but that can come later, if it's something kids want to pursue. This is about the kids. And yes, there were adults, too, the advanced tap show was a lot of fun, but mostly kids. The amusing thing? Not one boy. Apparently, I'm the only mom who's even considering dance for her sons... I can't help it! I mean, come on! It's great for kids!

Anyhow, this Kent Parks and Rec also has sports for preschoolers on up as well as tons of other classes for oh well here this is the link to the summer program, which is smaller than the fall and spring one. I love the summer park series, it's all free! We're going to hit the parks.

Drama girl wants to continue ballet, and also add Irish Softshoe, so that should keep her busy in the fall. She did SOOOO WELLL.... this was the first time she was ever in front of a big audience, and she was nervous, but didn't show :) So proud of her!

Alls well in La La Land

I am in a great mood. I don't know if it's the lack of sodium, sugar, caffeine, aspartame, and other junk my body takes in daily, or if it's because my parents are coming (it can't be that, that has been stressing me out like crazy) or what, but today I feel great. SOOO great. Like good mood great. Not crazy manic great needs medication, though. Just generally happy and in a good mood. Slept like a baby again, too.

Dr. Who

How anyone can watch this show and not like it is beyond me. This is a GREAT show. I'm so sad to lose the first Doctor though! I was really liking him. It was so sad! EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE and he gave it all up for Rose... awwww. It's reported on the net, not that I spent a few hours frantically searching for clues on how the new doctor is or anything, that the new doctor is just as good in his own way.

How anyone can not even bother trying to watch this show is sad. Please people, I really need Sci Fi to pick this up and carry it. I'm OUT OF SHOWS do you people understand me? I am OUT OF TV SHOWS.... I need this Dr... /sob.

New Game

McRed bought Hereos of Might and Magic V. It's very perty. I want to play it, but first I have to play Gal Civ III. These are two games I can get addicted to, so I have to be careful. I remember playing Gal Civ til 3 a.m. when it came out. Then, Moo2 til all hours of the night. People at work would think I was up late because of Drama Girl being sick or what since she was still a toddler, but that was only 75 percent of the reason. The other 25 percent was serious game addiction.


Day 3, Dieta

McRed has been mocking my fizzy water. He wants me to give up diet coke, but wonders if I have the conviction. He also doubts the inch I lost on my waist. But he's a man. He tried telling me that my waist was where my belly was. OH MY BLASPHEMOUS WORD. Can you imagine having to measure around your belly and using that as your waist measurement?

Oh dear. I am not even going to post what that measurement is. He then accused me of sucking in my gut to make my waist smaller. THE NERVE! Anyhow, then he said "Lose five inches so we can see it and not have to measure it."

....I will pause here for a moment for the women to gasp in horror...

I mean, yes, I KNOW!

So, it is with great pleasure that I am announcing tonight's dinner -- corn-meal crispy catfish fillets with a side of garlic roasted red potatoes and asparagus. Someone will be begging for more food. Someone will be begging for chips and junk food. Someone else will just smile, happily on their way to a five-inch weight loss, and point out that this is what we need for us to see our five inch weight loss. Yes, /smug is on.

So, here's the down and dirty for day 3

Weight... NO KIDDING 145.8
YIPPEEE

Granted, some of it is water weight, but also, since I'm not going back to caffeine, and staying low-sodium, I shouldn't gain the water weight back. Now, I also know that weight fluctuates daily, which is why you are only supposed to weigh yourself once a week, however, so close to being under 145 again, I HAD to post. The MOMENT that scale hits 144, I'm so going to celebrate with one serving of Hagen Daaz' ice cream. Not enough to add another pound back on, enough to make me happy. Of course, you have to understand, once I get to my GOAL weight, than I can just maintain and Hagen Daaz (I know I'm not spelling it right) will be back on the menu occasionally.

Breakfast:
two very unsatisfying waffles for 180 calories. I was so hungry after eating them, it was like I didn't eat at all. I am going to try whole wheat waffles and see if there is a difference in fulfillment. If not, I'm cutting waffles off the eat list. They aren't THAT tasty for 180 calories.
2 cups of coffee

Snack:
Kashi granola bar
fizzy with lemon (carbonated water for my caffeine and carbonation withdrawal)

Lunch:
healthy choice 300 calorie chicken alfredo with brocolli. These are a little high on the sodium count but low on calories. I know they sell low-sodium versions so I'll probably buy those next time. I don't eat these on a regular basis but when I'm too tired to make lunch or just feel like not bothering putting together a healthy meal, they are great. I do need to see if they have ones with whole wheat and whole grains though.
Fizzy water.

It's noon, and so far, no headache coming on or serious caffeine need. Going to try to get through the day without motrin. May give up at 3, we will see. Coffee was crap today. I bought a flavor I hate, so I will hopefuly have an easier time giving it up since it tastes so bad!

The Low-Down on Weight Loss

I found this while googling about weight loss and it completely gives an honest low-down on what needs to be done, but it isn't scary like many diet plans and it doesn't get all fancy. It does give the formulas you need so that you can figure out how many calories you need to consume to stay the weight you are and then tells you the best way to lose weight is to cut your calories by no more than 500 calories per day.

The thing I like about it is that it's very very basic. For instance, I know now that when I reach my weight goal, I can eat 1958 calories a day. Not too shabby. If I don't want to, I can remain porky at 2368 calories.

It's totally honest, too. It states the simple truth of dieting. You are GOING to be HUNGRY. There is no way your body is going to let you skip out on about 500 calories and not make some noise. (Today, my tally is 740 less than normal, and I have no celery) They recommend doing exercise to lose 1 lb a week and to cut calories by only 250 a day to lose the other pound a week. It's a very honest approach. So what do you do when you are hungry? Like my trainer says, you can um, I'm quoting Sir Bufalot here, "NOT EAT" or you can munch on celery. Continously.

It agrees with the Rice Diet on the principle that you have to eat low-fat. I think any diet that doesn't contain the words or principle or philosophy of 'eat low-fat meals' is going to fail healthwise because fat, um, makes us fat, and is a huge cholesterol raiser.

I'm also doing low-sodium, and have totally bought into the Rice Diet's philosophy of non-processed foods, whole grains and oats, organic and no sugar, white bread, white rice, enriched stuff. But if you're not into brown rice. seven grain puff cereal, whole grain bread that's so whole and grainy it's chewy and honey almond flax granola bars, than just cut the calories.


One final note for all those dieters: If it says low-fat, check the calories and be careful. Sometimes, low-fat foods are high in calories or sugar or salt or other 'appetite increasing' stimulants. For instance, just today I fed my sons chocolate no-fat pudding because just LOOKING at them were making me want the pudding, the ice cream in my freezer, diet soda, and believe it or not, potato chips. The pudding had to go. The ice cream is staying. I am human, after all.

Oh and if you're going to cheat, cheat well. Don't get chocolate, get Dark, Rich, Full chocolate. Don't get cheap ice cream. Get the full creamy ice cream. Why do I say this? Because you deserve it? No. We are all trying to lose weight here, we deserve tofu and celery. No. I say cheat well because you'll eat LESS of it. It's not an actual original idea of mine, but I find it to be true. Well, IF you stay strong and limit your portions.

Duh.

G'night :)

p.s. my dinner consisted of an 'easy out' meal, a prepackaged healthy choice 320 calorie chicken parmean delight with 600 (eek) mg of sodium.

What I'm Reading Now

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

I've always been fascinated by the Puritans that first came to New England (being a born New Englander, it's sort of drilled into you...) and actually did a paper on Puritan literature (Doooommmm), so this book is a natural pick for me.

Brother Odd by Dean Koontz

This is the third in his Odd Thomas series and I've enjoyed every one of them.

On Writing by Stephen King ... by far one of the most enlightening books on the writing process I've read.

Check out my all-time favs though.

Book List

Here's my reading list of books worth reading. I've read a gazillion more, and like a bunch of the gazillion others I've read, but these are my all-time favorite reads.

Modern Fantasy
American Gods -- Neil Gaiman
Magic Street -- Orson Scott Card

Family-epics
Rain of Gold -- Victor Villasenor
Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China -- Jung Chang
The Godfather books -- Mario Puzo

Science Fiction
Canticle for Leibowitz -- Walter Miller
Ender's Game -- Orson Scott Card
Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke

Fantasy
Once Upon a Future King -- T.H. White
Mists of Avalon -- Marion Zimmer Bradley
Enchanted -- Orson Scott Card
Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Last Light of the Sun -- Guy Gavriel Kay

Romance
Through a Glass Darkly -- Karleen Koen
Memoirs of a Geisha

Enjoyable Zen (I really don't know what to call this category)
Ishmael -- Dainel Quinn
All We Know of Heaven
Two Old Women -- Velma Willis
Tuesdays with Morris
On the Beach -- Shute

I also enjoy pure campy pleasure reads as much as the next person, but those don't fit here.

Book Club, and Day 2, Dieta

Book Club

Two of the mom's came, the two I like the most. The third didn't come, which made me sad because I like her, too, but I think she had to work. Or I may have not heard the door... there was a phone call I missed, and my door bell works sporadically, oh well... I hope it was that she couldn't make it, I'd feel bad. I'm changing the day back to Monday. More people showed up when it was on Monday. Other than that, it was nice. I like small groups.

We did Rain of Gold, we are all supposed to be reading Fatherland, and for October, we're doing In Cold Blood.

Day 2, Dieta

Weight at 12:15 p.m. - 147 lbs.

Breakfast:
1 1/2 cups of coffee
1 bowl Kashi 7 whole grain honey puffs w/ 2 splendas. If you're not a splenda person, 1 tsp of brown sugar would give it the sweet kick it needs

Snack
3/4 Kashi honey almond granola bar (the boys HAD to have a BITE PLEASE)
2 cherries (that wasn't actually portioned out, but Bear refused to eat them)

Lunch:
Bite of macaroni and cheese (boys' lunch, it was looking at me funny...)
Bowl of cocunut curry chicken from last night's dinner
4 peanut m & ms... i'm wondering how long this bag will last... I refuse to eat more than four!


Caffeine report:
This morning was fine, just the normal coffee. Normally, I'd have had a soda by now, but instead had the book club. I forgot to hydrate, so felt a headache starting. I took some motrin and am drinking water, but it's lingering, my own fault. It'll be gone soon. I intend to drown it with my fizzy carbonated water and lemon trick, and soon, more motrin.

Hunger report:
I was too busy to be hungry. I had my coffee, ate my cereal and ran around like a mad nut trying to get the house ready for my guests. They came, we chatted, they left and it was 12:20 and I realized, my gosh, I think I'm hungry... so I got the boys their lunch, and ate mine. Now I'm not hungry.

The Rice Dieta

So I’m doing it. I’m doing the rice diet ala lahdeedah style. What that means is that while I understand if I follow it truly, I will lose 20 lbs in a month, I am not able to follow it fully. The only sad thing about that is if I lost 20 lbs that would pretty much um, well, be 5 lbs short of my goal. What I am doing is the rice diet PLUS a lean meat a day and 1 extra fruit or veggie portion a day. This is something the book recommends, so in a way it’s not even my idea, though I thought of it before I read it in the book… Three of the meats will be fish (to my family’s horror) and one of which will be tofu and not meat at all MUAHAHA… okay maybe not. I think the success of this will be based on four factors:

Menu planning

Eating only whole grains and wheats, no processes foods

Not drinking diet coke or more than one cup of coffee

Not being hungry because the diet isn’t sustatinable

Since everyone who knows me knows what I look like and how pudgy, but still cute and slightly curvy dang it, I am, it doesn’t really matter that everyone knows my weight. I’m doing this because I’m going to post my weight every three days. I won’t do it every day because that would be silly. You’re not actually supposed to check weight daily but whatever. I’m also going to post what I ate, including cheats. I am not going to go into calories, just portion sizes. I’m not counting calories, so those will be posted sporadically, when I can be bothered. It is obvious from what I’m eating that there isn’t anything with huge amounts of calories in it, and even more obvious if I eat this stuff it’s about got half the calories of what I normally eat. I also not supposed to be hungry on this diet. We will see. Every diet says that, and frankly, they have all been wrong. I'm only posting this stuff because I am incapable of keeping a food journal, not to impress the world with my lack of willpower. If you are bored with it, skip it. :)

This diet believes the key is a bowl of really fiber intensive cereal or oatmeal in the morning to keep you filled up. I won’t know until tomorrow. Today was yogurt. Keep in mind I’m doing this while giving up diet coke, my mainstay, and next week coffee, so it should be interesting how the two mix, but as I explained, I believe diet coke and caffeine and coffee by extension are evil, and prevent me from actually accomplishing anything aside from increased anxiety about nothing, sleepless nights, tired days and a slightly twitchy feeling…

So here it is.

Day 1
Weight: 148 lbs at 11:14 a.m.

Breakfast

A grande mocha we are just going to pretend didn't happen
Yogurt

Snack

1 cup grapes
1 slice whole wheat toast with 1 tsp smart balance butter spread

Lunch

1 slice whole wheat toast with 1 tsp smart balance butter spread
1 1/3 cup of bean and corn salad

Snack
1 1/3 cup of bean and corn salad
A piece of cantaloupe

Pre-dinner snack (because we eat late I spread out the lunch into lunch and snack)

An orange
1 slice whole wheat toast with 1 tsp smart balance butter spread

Dinner

Coconut curry chicken – 361 calories, 778 mg of sodium. It’s a bit high on the sodium levels, and I am trying to go low-sodium to get my cholesterol down but I don’t think an occasional binge will be bad.

As for the caffeine, well, right after my coffee I wanted a soda, so had a glass of water. Then a half hour after that, wanted a soda. Grabbed a carbonated water with a slice of lime in it. Then, half an hour after that, I realized I was hungry. But wait, I was hungry, but wanted diet coke, not food. Ignored the false signals my sneaky body was sending out and didn’t eat or have diet coke. Had more water. By 11 a.m. well, lets just say that my piss is like water. So cut back on the water, had lunch. Wondering how I’m going to go until 7 with just a small snack of fruit and another slice of whole wheat toast while fending off sneak attacks from my caffeine-addicted body. We shall see. As it is, at noon, I had to pop two motrin – which contains no caffeine -- to fend off an impending headache/caffeine-withdrawal ache… so soon!

As for the cholesterol, I’m supposed to lose 25 points in three months. It’s not high, but it’s not low or ideal. Neat huh.

Shocking News

I have decided that Diet Coke is the enemy.

That's right. My chosen drink since, well, grade school, literally, I was a coca-colaholic from about like, 12 on, til the full-fledged product started making me ill (too heavy) and then I went lite sometime around the age of 17. I'm 34. Yes. That long.

It is the reason I can't lose weight, though. I've decided this is simply truth, and must be accepted. It's the sodium. It also makes me want snack food. It ruins the taste of fruit and natural foods.

It must be eradicated.

Next, caffeine. Also an enemy. It makes me jittery, and it makes me want more caffeine.
I want to lose about 25 pounds and cholesterol points. This will not happen with diet coke and coffee. They must go. I'm starting with the diet coke, because while I have given up coffee in the past, I have never successfully eliminated diet coke from my life. I have decided to replace diet coke with cans of carbonated water and slices of lemon. In a few days, after the shock and headaches have passed, I will start the new healthy eating plan en force. Right now, I'm just sorta eating healthy... dinner tonight... salmon and artichokes with a nice salad.

Irate Suburban Housewife

I had a moment. I became one of them. You know who I'm talking about. The irate, unreasonable, angry housewife who is actually right, but the matter she is right about seems like such a trivial matter, you can't understand why she is so worked up about it...

Well.

Garbage. I say. Garbage.

No, actually, let me say, debris.

Yard Debris.

That's right. Rabanco didn't pick up my yard debris. My lawn and garden waste. One blue 32 gallon container lidded, two 32-gallon properly labeled compost-acceptable brown paper refuse bags. Driver drove RIGHT BY MY HOUSE, picked up my neighbors, didn't pick up mine and didn't even leave a note (normal practice) or word as to why.

So yes, I called....

AFTER 25 MINUTES (I know most people are like, 25 minutes and you're complaining, we are soo trained to expect long hold times) I hung up and complained online.

Politely. Expressing my frustration.

I fully expect them to drive by in response to my email complaint, and leave a little yellow note saying why they can't take my trash and telling me to have a nice day.

I cannot believe I am so irate over Yard Debris, but WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH IT!!!!

ARGH.

...and do you know what McRed had the AUDACITY to say to me? Do you? Let me tell you....

"Ok. Fine."
"What?"
"Fine. All you ever do is complain. You never talk."

WHAT?

This from the man who sent several links and rants daily about the incompetence that is called our government. Yes I agree, but you can't say that is talking, and not complaining, unless you say that I was talking to him, and not complaining.

So now I'm talkin' to you, and you know what I say?

Garbage.

Well, here I am

It's been a while, I admit. But I've been busy. I set up the play area downstairs, so mostly the kids takeover of the basement and expulsion of the upstairs living area is almost done. Need to move some things to the garage and move one big thing around downstairs and that is that. However, this is not a good time because my plants also have just arrived! I had left one box lingering in the garage and finally opened it up and pulled them out because if they sit any longer, they will die. I then opened the second box. I've got to plant them sometime this week. I'll probably plant them this weekend. I'm not sure where to put them all though! I have the garden plan, but I'm not stictly following it. So on top of all that, I have guests coming next week! Yikes.

Also, McRed has been put on 'demolish all living things in the backyard' duty with me. I'm not sure when we are going to attack the yard, but it will be sooner than later. I started on it, but it's defeated me, and I can't do it alone, particularly since for me, alone means with two heat-sensitive complaining toddlers. I want it done before it gets hot enough for me to bring the pool out back. They will romp free of weeds dang it! McRed informed me that when he gets out there, every living green thing will go. I'm okay with that... except for the things I planted, the roses and the things in the garden beds, but mostly, the things i'm worried about are on the path, so he can kill it all. Hopefully before it rains again and sets everything on another growing frenzy.