Hump Day Blahg!

Things I’ve learned in the past week:


-Never turn your back on a Dragon.

-Good running shoes make a HUGE difference.

-When the sun doesn’t come out to play for several days in a row, I start feeling unproductive, apathetic, and just plain lazy.

-I am terribly out of shape, considering the fact I want to run a half marathon.

-“Let’s go bother our friends in ‘Time Out’” is NOT Miss Ruth’s favorite kid game.

-Eating cheap protein bars from the Dollar Tree is like chewing on soy candles.

-My second novel is going to need a LOT of editing, but after taking a good look at it, I really think it's going to be worth ithe work.

-Roasted seaweed is awesome, but should not be eaten a few hours before a run—unless you like burping up that fishy taste again, and again, and again.

-Sometimes, you just really need a turkey sandwich.

-I should not go shopping for pasta sauce when I’m tired and hungry, lest I mistake the word “Poblano” for the word “Portobello.” Portobello is a variety of tasty tasty mushroom that belongs in tasty tasty pasta sauces (among other places—like in my belly). Poblano is a variety of pepper that should never be used in pasta sauce, unless you’re a weirdo who likes their Alfredo sauce to taste like spicy queso dip.

-I’m starting to look my age, my age isn’t all that young anymore, and I need to find a way to cope with both of those facts.  Also, I'm vain.

-Sometimes (usually) when people ask you how you’re doing, they really don’t want you to tell them every little detail of what’s going on in your life.

-I’m still really bad about asking for help with the big stuff.

-I hate surveys.

-I’m not one of those people who can go without using shampoo at least every three days. My hair doesn’t get too greasy, but it just doesn’t flow right if it’s not good and clean. Once again, I'm a bad hippy...not a hippy who does bad things, but a hippy who's not good at being a hippy.

-I actually have a reason to shop at Harris Teeter, now. Their store brand Naturals yogurt is low calorie and has no artificial sweeteners. Plus it's fairly inexpensive, tastes good, and has seven grams of protein.

-Nobody besides me cares about the amount of calories, protein, and artificial sweeteners in their yogurt.

-I think about food too much.

-I’m unable to part from my travel coffee mug of three years. The lid cracked on my old one, so here is what I did.  I bought a new cup of the same style, stole the new lid from the new cup, and put it on my old cup. Now I am happy.

-I'll have lived in Wake Forest for six full years as of tomorrow.  I've also been working at the same drop in childcare center for almost six years.  It kind of makes me wonder what I've been doing with the last six years of my life....



-I have a lot to do and should probably stop blogging.

Happy Wednesday!

Feliz Navidad! Friday: Christmas FOOD!

I just sampled Cinnamon M&Ms.  I didn't even know they existed, but I found them because I was looking for Mint M&Ms, which usually only come out of hiding around Christmas.  Apparently, Mint M&Ms were not enough, and they decided to add another variety to the list of holiday flavors. But Cinnamon M&Ms are brown and red, not Christmasy colored, so that makes me a little sad.  Also, they taste like plain M&Ms (I refuse to call them "Milk Chocolate M&Ms) that might have once brushed up against something that was mildly cinnamonish.  They're redeemable, though, because they're made out of chocolate.

I also have in my fridge Pumpkin Pie Spice and White Chocolate Raspberry flavored coffee creamers in colorful holiday themed bottles.  I'm not sure if they'll complement the Mocha-Mint coffee my roommate purchased, but it's worth a shot. 

Food companies are smart.  They know how to market different flavors of their usual products around the holidays.  And I'm a sucker for them.  That's largely because I'm a huge sucker for Christmas...and Christmas food.

Candy canes.  Gingerbread.  White Chocolate Covered Pretzels.  These foods don't just taste good; they actually make me feel more Christmasy.  I'm not sure why that is, because a candy cane in the middle of summer doesn't remind me of Christmas.  A candy cane in June is just like eating a breath mint in a weird shape--especially since that candy cane has been sitting around since the past December.  But if December passes and I haven't had a candy cane, I feel as though I've missed something.  December candy canes have a minty simplicity that remind me of opening my stocking as a child on Christmas morning.

I also love hot chocolate and holiday teas.  Celestial Seasonings makes a couple of Christmas teas that are amazing.  Their Candy Cane Lane decaf green tea isn't just a basic peppermint tea.  It has this subtle hint of vanilla that brings out the mint flavor even more.  And their Sugar Plum Spice herbal tea tastes like magic.  Seriously.  If you want to taste magic, go drink that tea. 

I don't just like eating Christmas food.  I love making it.  I love making biscotti and Christmas-shaped sugar cookies.  I like making gigantic cookie cakes in the shape of a Christmas tree.  I love covering my entire kitchen counter with trays and trays of chocolate covered pretzels.  I just don't know if Christmas would be the same without making ridiculous amounts of fattening food to give away to all my friends and family (and personally sample a little bit here and there, of course).

When I was a kid, I remember going to my grandmother's house every Christmas afternoon/evening.  The parents would talk.  The kids would play.  We'd open presents.  And we'd eat.  We'd eat Christmas turkey and ham, marshmallow fruit salad, the best green beans in the world, and peanut brittle.  I'm pretty sure grandma got the peanut brittle for me, because I loved it, and she was allergic to peanuts.  My grandma loved Christmas, and she loved her family, and she loved making food for her family.  And she was very, very good at making that food.

My cooking skills leave a lot to be desired, but I still enjoy making a few small goodies for the people I care about.  I love smelling the Christmas smells and tasting the Christmas tastes.  These simple things make the most wonderful time of the year even more wonderful.

What are your favorite things to eat and/or make at Christmas time?

Tasty Excuses

I once said that I would never be able to fit in any clothes smaller than a size ten because of my extra-large birthing hips.  I now must face the reality that half my readers have probably stopped reading because I used the phrase "birthing hips" in the first sentence of this post.  If you're still reading, then I am happy to report that I am now a size six in pants and a size four in dresses. 

I once said that I would never be a runner.  I'm still not anything amazing, but I've come a long way from the girl who used to get completely wiped out after running just half a mile.  I am hoping to do a 10K in the fall, and then I might look into doing a half marathon in the spring.  We'll see what happens...

Anyway, I've been eating a lot of my words lately, and well, they actually taste pretty good.  The trouble is, the excuses I made that kept me from attempting the things I've accomplished lately also tasted pretty good when I was saying them.  "I'll never be truly skinny, so I guess it's okay to just keep eating whatever I want whenever I want."  "I'll never really be thin, so I'll just exercise occasionally.  And if my body feels like running, I'll just stick with walking anyway, because I can't keep up the running very long."  "I've got too much going on in my life to make time for exercise."  "It's too expensive to eat healthy foods when a box of mac and cheese is so cheap and will last me two or three meals." 

These things tasted really good while I was saying them.  They gave me all the reasons I needed to keep being fat, to keep being lazy, to keep being unhealthy.  And maybe some of them were true for a while.  I remember the first time I tried to start the diet and exercise routine in February of 2009, my grandmother died, and I wasn't able to deal with grief and all the other stuff in my life.  Diet and exercise was too much to add to all that was going on at that particular moment in my life.  That set me back a year...but it didn't set me back forever.

So I guess sometimes there are valid excuses, but I don't think they can be allowed to sustain you for very long.  Excuses are like food that's bad for you.  They taste good, but they aren't good for you.  They make you fat and comfortable while not really nourishing you.  And over the past year and a half, I've had to exchange all the tasty dessert words for other words.  Instead of saying, "Oh, there's no reason for me to do this because I'll never succeed," I've had to say, "I'm going to give this a try and see what happens."  Those words aren't as comfortable.  They aren't ice cream words.  They are carrot stick words.  Carrot sticks still taste good (to me anyway), but they aren't as comfortable and easy as a bowl of ice cream. 

But carrot sticks are good for you.  And doing something uncomfortable is good for you.  And it's easy to get proud of myself for accomplishing this amazing feat of losing 50+ pounds (60 is right around the corner!), especially when I discovered yesterday that I can totally rock a super cute size four dress.  But the truth is, there are a lot of areas in my life where I'm still eating too much ice cream. 

The prayer and Bible reading has gotten way off track lately.  It's easy and comfortable to sit under the banquet table God's prepared and wait for Him to throw scraps of grace to me, but He's invited me to sit at the table and dine with Him--if only I wouldn't be too lazy to get up off the floor. 

The writing.  Oh, yes, the writing.  It's like I've taken some kind of extended vacation from that.  Have I been busy?  Yes.  Last week was not an excuse--it was a reality.  I had other things to do besides writing, and they were vitally important.  But right now?  I'm housesitting.  I'm in a big house with a cat and it's really quiet.  It's like a retreat where I have time and space to write (when I don't have to go to work--sigh).  Am I writing?  No.  I'm watching cable tv and living it up.  It's easy to help myself to that big bowl of ice cream excuse that says, "I don't have cable at my apartment.  I don't usually watch tv like this.  When am I going to have another opportunity to watch such exciting and important programming as 'I Kid with Brad Garret'?"  Yeah.  The ice cream is tasty and comfortable, but not at all nourishing.  And I need some carrot sticks in my writing life for sure.  Maybe even a salmon filet.

This isn't to say that ice cream is necessarily bad.  I've lost weight and I still have something frivolous to eat almost every day (life without chocolate is almost not worth living).  Sometimes we need to excuse ourselves from work, from drama, from the daily grind of life.  It's just that we need to keep those excuses in balance--and I've said it before and will say it again--I'm horrible at balancing.  We can't live off ice cream and cake.  Those things have to be integrated meagerly into a steady diet of protein and vegetables and real solid food. 

I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm hoping to eat some of my words again.  All I can do is keep giving life a good try.  There will be failures and false starts, but as long as I keep choosing to risk instead of choosing what's safe and comfortable, I don't think I can truly be called a failure.

But no matter what else happens, I can still totally rock that super cute size four dress.

Fun with Planning

Summer has officially begun.  The calendar is finally agreeing with the weather--it's felt like summer for WEEKS.  It also feels more like summer because the family I nanny for has come back from vacation, and I've begun my full days with them.  During the school year, I just watch them two-three afternoons a week.  In the summer, I have them two-three days a week--all day long. 

It's hard to keep three girls occupied all day long.  I know this because I've spent two previous summers telling them to turn off the tv and getting three blank stares.  These blank stares seem to communicate "No tv?  Seriously?  What else is there to do in life?"

Last summer wasn't as bad as the first.  The first summer was blah because we didn't do much of anything.  Last summer, I remember we went on several "outings" to parks and bowling alleys and free kids' movies--and of course to the pool.  I'm hoping we get to do some of those things this summer, too.  But I don't want this summer to be made up of outings and television. 

So I'm going to do something that's really kind of hard for me.  I'm going to attempt to be a planner. 

I've noticed recently that I'm the sort of person that's either all or nothing, black or white.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  I'm not good at balancing.  The reason I've done so well at this weight loss stuff is because I've been a Nazi about it.  I can't do the whole moderation thing...which scares me because I'm getting close to the weight I want to be and am eventually going to have to attempt to maintain my weight instead of try to lose it.  Something tells me that I'm going to have to learn moderation in that. 

It's the same way with pretty much everything in my life.  I have to be uber disciplined or not at all.  There's no middle ground.  And I've realized that if that's the way it is, I'm going to have to start being uber disciplined about the way I spend my summer days with the girls I watch.  I've already made up a (somewhat flexible) schedule for days when we don't have "outings" planned.  It involves lots of reading and educational workbook activities that are going to keep them from forgetting stuff they learned at school.  It involves VERY LITTLE tv.  I'm even going to make them write me stories every week and/or do book reports.  I'm also going to make them exercise.

They're going to hate me.

...but maybe I am learning balance, just a little...

Because I'm planning lots of fun (non-tv-related) stuff, too.  I'm hoping to do some fun crafts and snacks and maybe even some science experiments with the girls.  Today, we made root beer floats to celebrate the first full day of summer.  I'm hoping to do root beer floats AGAIN, only I want to experiment with different ways of making the floats.  For instance, today we made the floats with diet root beer and light ice cream--so the whole float was only about 90 calories.  BUT it had artificial sweeteners in the root beer, and I'm trying to cut those out of my diet as much as possible.  So I want to figure out a way to make a tasty and low cal root beer float without using artificial sweeteners.  I can get sassafras tea concentrate.  I can get seltzer.  I can get Stevia.  I don't know if the girls will like it, but part of what I want to do with this summer is expand their culinary horizons...and if you knew the 12 year old I watch, you'd know that I've got some challenges ahead of me. 

Root beer floats are just the beginning.  I want to make berry parfaits with them.  I want to make smoothies with them (they don't like fruit and veggies, so I'm always trying to sneak them in).  I want to make guacamole with them.  I want to make California Rolls with them.  I want to make fruit kabobs (maybe even with chocolate and marshmallows, if they're lucky) with them.  I want to make homemade ice cream and popsicles with them.  I want to have a pizza day where we make a healthy fruit pizza, a healthy veggie pizza, and a totally UNhealthy cookie pizza (it's okay sometimes--Cookie Monster told me that a cookie is a sometimes food).

I also want to make picture frame word collages and decorate tote bags and get them to do creative things like design their own fashion magazine covers.  I want to do indoor scavenger hunts and make peanut butter playdough.  I'm pretty sure that if I searched online, I'd find a lot of other things that all three girls would love to do. 

And all of the sudden, I'm not looking at this summer thinking, "Oh, snot.  What am I going to do with these girls ALL summer???"  I'm looking at this summer thinking, "Oh, sweet!  I've got all summer to do a lot of fun things with these fantastic girls!"

So I'm not normally a planner, but I'm thinking that a little planning is going to go a long way this summer.  I know I'm going to have to be a little flexible in my plans, and that's going to be hard (moderation isn't my forte, remember?).  I also think it's going to be okay.  Because there's going to be unpredictable stuff like random trips to the library because the six year old forgot she needed to return her books (and if we go to return books, we're going to be there at least a good half hour while the girls look for more books--which is always cool with me).  There's going to be times when outings and activities just happen outside of the schedule I'm wanting to keep.  There's probably even going to be some projectile vomiting and/or extreme moping as far as the California Rolls are concerned (I can hear the 12 year old now--"You expect me to eat SEAWEED?!?!"--don't tell her they put seaweed in ice cream sometimes). 

But you know, I think this summer is going to be good for me in a lot of ways.  I need to learn balance, and I think this is really going to help me.  Because honestly, I've tried the uber discipline thing with my writing, and it's just not happening in the midst of all the other things I'm trying to balance.  I need to find a way for it to fit in with all the other stuff in my life. 

I have a feeling that this autumn is going to bring a lot of good change to my life.  Don't ask me why I feel that way, because I can't explain it.  I just know that when I have a feeling like this, it's best not to ignore it.  But I'm not in any hurry for autumn to come.  Right now I'm going to enjoy my summer and all the wonderful things I've planned to do with three of my favorite young ladies.

I just hope at least one of them likes my guacamole....