Happy Halloween!!
Food adventures over the last couple days:
Whole wheat spinach pumpkins this morning for myself and the kids. Used enough red food coloring to turn them mostly pink, though they were kind of brownish pink when cooked. I had greek nonfat yogurt and berries on my pancakes.
Yesterday had an egg & shredded zuchinni burrito for lunch w/ some sharp cheddar cheese. Delicious.
Last night went to Olive Garden with a couple friends. Ordered a shrimp and cheese tortillini dish that came SWIMMING in butter and grease from the cheese. I ate most of the tortellinis and all of the shrimp, but I definitely wished it hadn’t come with so much grease on it. I had a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert that was super-rich but super-yummy. But I didn’t finish it because I was stuffed. Don’t get me wrong, I almost finished it. But I was proud of myself for leaving those last 6 bites or so – and of my favorite part no less: the crust. While waiting to meet up with my friends, I walked around Borders and then the mall a bit and ended up buying a snickerdoodle and a brownie at this new place that is in the location where Mrs. Field’s used to be. Yeah, I had a couple bites of each and they just didn’t compare to Mrs. Field’s. I left them in the car while at the restaurant, and then when I went to get the kids at my parents’ house, I left them with my mom for them to eat or throw away. I was happy with myself about this, too, because with the mood I was in when I got home I definitely would have eaten both.
Dinner was pleasant, the conversation flowed. But it just wasn’t as fun as it used to be for us to go out. I don’t know if its because they’ve changed or because I have – I’m inclined to think its me. Strangely enough, I don’t feel like I have anything in common with either of these two girls anymore. I say strange because we all have small children, we’re around the same age, we’re all LDS. But other than that, I don’t think there’s any common factors anymore as far as interests go. More and more, I’m enjoying my strange food adventures. I like talking about them. I like to talk about working out. I would love to have a conversation with someone that had some ideas for me! Some new takes, stuff to try. Or that just didn’t mind talking about my strange food intake without making faces and getting kind of grossed out. This might be too much to ask. And other than that, I don’t really have any hobbies. Which probably makes me the person that isn’t very interesting. Point is, I didn’t have a blast. It was a pleasant evening but the highlight of it was the time I spent with my mom after handing over the kids and the time I spent at their house picking up the kids and laminating my two ‘ideas’.
The kids had fun at grandma and grandpa’s last night. They dressed up and got some candy, which they thankfully haven’t asked for yet today. This evening they’ll get to dress up again and we’ll go to our ward’s Halloween party. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to go to the building in a few hours and help decorate. I’m looking forward to going to an activity with my husband; its been so long since K has been able to go due to work. He’s going to need to get started on his chili soon, so I’m glad to hear that he’s up upstairs.
Ate too much candy and sugar last night – too late into the night. Didn’t weigh myself this morning. Going to work out tonight. I didn’t last night when we got home after 9 PM and found Daisy had poo’d all over the laundry room (small room) and then spread it….. everywhere. I cleaned up some of it, but left the rest for K. I didn’t sign up for full-room wipedowns with getting dogs. This is his domain. If our kids spread poop on the walls, I’ll clean that up. But I’m not cleaning up dog poop.
Just found out I’m going to get picked up to help decorate at 2:30. Trying to decide if I shower before or after. I’m thinking after, before the party.
Hope I ruined someone’s day
That sounds mean, but I really mean it. And if I could only know who’s day I ruined, or be there to see their chagrin and scrambling that would have made it even better.
So, let me explain. Its not really that big a deal, and there’s no way to know if I ruined someone’s day or not. Without going into a blow-by-blow of how this came about…… Our internet has acted squirrelly for a while now. Usually, we just keep closing the browser and starting over until we get one that “works” for some unknown reason. We’d get a ‘working’ browser window open, only to click on a link that opened a new window and have that window be a non-working one (white screen, thinking, thinking, thinking forever). Today for the first time in a long time I did some work from home. I had 3 TMs to edit and some website work to do, and the white screen, thinking forever with nothing coming up was driving me CRAZY today. And it seemed much worse than usual. So I called my dad after doing everything I knew how to do (clearing out cookies, running my virus and spyware scanner, etc.). And after some chattering on my part about symptoms we discovered that the Wireless light on my modem was blinking. As it usually was. Wait a minute!!! We don’t use the wireless!!! ……..
So, we shut the wireless off. And I hope the turd-butt that’s been using my bandwidth for who-knows-how-long had a HORRIBLE day after that! But who knows, really. That’s just me hoping. 🙂 And I haven’t had a white-non-working browser window since. Blissful. I guess I just took for granted that people are honest and upstanding. And so many of them aren’t. I knew what that blinking wireless light meant – I should have thought of that much sooner. So I guess its my fault, too. Anyway, someone out there is all of the sudden left without their free internet. Whoohooo!! And mine works right!!!
In other, less vindictive news, I put pumpkin in my green blended oats this morning!! And it was super-yummy. I put in spinach as usual but there wasn’t a lot left of my pre-steamed spinach, so I put in a spoonful of pumpkin puree, and ate it all in the almost-empty peanut butter jar. Nom nom, as the bloggers say.
I also dehydrated some canned pineapple rings yesterday and they are also tasty. Nice little snack for exercising your jaw.
K started pulling floorboards off the walls today in preparation for trying to get as much of the laminate flooring down tomorrow as possible. I don’t know how that will go because I have a pretty packed today planned tomorrow and K doesn’t seem to do very well when I have a lot going on – even if my stuff shouldn’t interfere with his stuff. Is that mean to say? Well, its true.
On the books for tomorrow:
- Conference call at 1:00 for work, its looking like I will be picking up some more hours as the person that does a lot of our website support is switching jobs to HR department as of Monday. Probably at least one more afternoon a week and some working at home. We need the money, so I’m trying to be cheerful about it. I’m hoping this will help me have some money for Christmas shopping.
- Parent-teacher conference at 2:40 for P’s kindergarten 1st quarter. Excited to talk about my daughter and be told she’s wonderful. Oh, that might not happen you say? Well, I can hope.
- Leaving the house by 3:20 to meet my mom at the south gate of the AFA to send the kids off with her, packing their Halloween costumes so they can attend her ward’s trunk-or-treat with her.
- Go over to the mall or some other place I can hang out reading books, browsing through stuff I can’t buy, etc. Kill time up on the north end of town until I meet the girls (2 women from my ward) at 5:30 at Olive Garden for girls’ night out dinner.
- After dinner and some fun chatting and catching up (probably around 7:30 or so), drive north to Monument to pick up kids
So I’ll need to be ready and dressed for dinner basically by my 1:00 conference call, since there isn’t a break anywhere in there with sufficient time to get ready. We shall see how the floor installation goes considering he hasn’t got his butt in gear as early as he’d have to to have my help in a while. But it’ll be a good day! I’m excited, even if the flooring doesn’t go in. There’s always next week. 🙂
Saturday the only things going on that I know of is K making his chili for the cook-off and our Halloween party for our ward. I might go to the church earlier in the day and help decorate one of the rooms. Other than that it shouldn’t be too stress-inducing. Then, Sunday, I teach.
Hoping for a good workout tonight. Later!!
A First for our Family
This afternoon after picking P up from kindergarten, we went in search of Halloween supplies. Costumes, candy, goodie bags (instead of plastic pumpkins). P is going to be Cinderella, K2 is going to be Buzz Lightyear in some Buzz pajamas (we couldn’t find actual costumes for his age group!). We got them some Halloween bags with handles instead of plastic containers, though I think using a pillow case like I did so many times would have been fine. We got plenty of candy to contribute to the party Saturday night.
Then we came home and had lunch in preparation for the pumpkin carving, or Garving as P kept calling it.
I spread plastic bags over the table, in lieu of newspaper, we drew some faces for patterns on our two squashes, and commenced cutting. Then we told the kids to put their hands in there and get the guts out. They did, and were both so grossed out that they basically didn’t help much for the rest of the experiment. K and I pretty much did the rest of the work ourselves. 🙂 To give her credit, once I’d given her a plastic glove (ill-fitting), P did try and help a little by pulling out a few seeds and innards. I think our pumpkins turned out fine, if amateurish looking. K is going to get some tea candles while he’s out this afternoon so we can light them up for the kids, even though we won’t light them on the night of Halloween since we won’t be here.
It was enjoyable, I guess. Really not sure. But it was the first time we’ve ever carved pumpkins as a family here at the house, just us, so I’m glad we did it. I took some pictures. We kept the seeds and are going to dry them out and bake them for snacks. And now we’ve got this one under our family belt. I hope that in years to come the kids will contribute a bit more!
Another first this afternoon was K and I cracking open a fresh pomegranate. It took us a while, and a bit of a mess, but we ended up with a nice collection of arils. K kept saying it was like eating corn and that he wasn’t sure he liked them, but he kept popping them in his mouth one after the other. The kids ate a few, P more enthusiastically than K2. I finally asked K why he was still eating them if he wasn’t sure he liked them, and he said it was just to get the juice, which he does really like. He finally stopped trying to get pomegranate juice small bites at at time and I’ll probably have the rest of the arils to myself. 🙂 I had about a 1/4 cup of them on some pomegranate Chobani for my afternoon snack. Delicious.
Should be interesting to see how much like corn they really are. I mean, are they digestable, or are they coming out much as they went in the way corn does? Sorry if that’s gross, but I’m just wondering…. 🙂
Pumpkin Shake – feeling brave
I finally followed through on my desire to try a pumpkin shake this morning for breakfast. It contained the following:
bunch of steamed spinach (I swear you don’t taste this!)
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 T vanilla pudding powder
1/2 scoop french vanilla egg white protein powder
1/2 frozen banana
1 square graham cracker
sprinkle of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice
I was nervous – what if I didn’t like it and I’d wasted all those supplies? IT WAS SO GOOD!!!! Yummo! It was a little excessive with the sweetness, so when I make it again (and I WILL), I will cut it down to 1/2 T of vanilla pudding powder. If that is still too sweet, I’ll cut the vanilla pudding powder out all together. But I’m going to do it a little at a time because I hate it when my shakes aren’t sweet enough.
I told my mom and K about it, and they both thought I was nuts. But they’re missing out, and they just don’t realize it. A lot of the things I eat these days sound gross to most people, but I don’t really care. Because they taste great and I’m getting tons of great vitamins, fiber, minerals and TASTE!
I had some of the leftovers from last night’s dinner for lunch. Black bean, chicken, minced brocolli w/ taco seasoning all wrapped up in a low-carb tortilla w/ some cheese and lots of lettuce.
K2 and P – Great kids
I want to write down some of the stuff that K2 is currently doing, so that I’ll remember better later.
Talking – He started to string a couple words together quite recently. Usually “peas (please) cootoons” or “peas, ewus (else)” meaning “something else”. He also likes to say “now” after a word to signify when he wants it. He figured out how to say “no” about 3 weeks ago, and that is almost all we hear, for everything. Whether he means no or yes. And he says it in this contemplative tone, like, ummm…nooo. Yesterday he started saying Yes. What a relief!! At least now I know if the answer is No, he means No. So today he’s been saying Yes and Yeah, and it helps a lot with the communications around here. P helps so much with interpretation since she often knows what he’s saying when we don’t . He knows all of his cartoons by name, and he loves them all. Dora (he calls that Boots), Boos Coos (Blues Clues), ackans (Backyardigans), Wow Wow (Wow Wow Wubbzy). These are the current favorites. Yes, I know my kids watch too much TV. I’m working on it. I also know I’ve been saying that for about four years.
He’s very independent with walking, climbing, running, coloring, eating. He still needs help with all of the above sometimes, but you have to ask his permission to help him and have it granted before you a move, or mayhem ensues. He got a haircut from his dad a couple weeks ago, and it makes him look so grown up instead of like a baby. He still likes to carry a “banket” with him everywhere, but it is usually a handtowel so that his real blanket doesn’t get too filthy. His real blanket with Mickey Mouse on it is still the preferred comfort, though. He also likes to use the dogs’ heads to scrub his fingernails in while his other thumb is in his mouth. Cloud likes it, until he decides to sit or lay on her, then she gets up and walks away and he follows her to scratch her head some more.
K2’s kind of a wimp when it comes to walking anywhere. He almost instantly wants to be carried. We’re going to have to work on his endurance. He loves to be outside, though, and doesn’t seem to care if he has shoes on. Even if its cold out. He loves nursery at church, getting up in my face as soon as the last song starts to grab my cheeks and say “urtsry, now?” As soon as we set him loose, he walks out of the chapel, down the hall, and into nursery all by himself. He also knows to head straight to the Bishop’s office when we pick him up for candy, usually getting there before a line of kids can form. Good thing since he’s not so great with lines.
Something that he’s been doing for a while, but that never seems to get old is calling attention to stuff. With “WOOK!!” for “Look”. The other day in the car, he was doing it for everything. “WOOK, big mountain” “WOOK, BIIG twuck!”, and repeat. Its awesome and we crack up pretty much every time he says it in his big-man toddler voice. He has only recently starting using it for showing people things that he didn’t used to remember, such has his “pattoo” or tattoo on his arm (temporary, Transformers), the stamp on his hand from the craft fair he went to, or some piece of artwork or a trick he wants to show us.
He’s a ham, and loves for everyone to be looking and laughing at or with him. He doesn’t sit still for anything but cartoons or books.
I’ll write about P tomorrow.
What a Force
It is surprising to me what a force PMS can be. Not until it subsides do I often realize it is even happening. But the weight of it lifting is obvious. Now, I don’t think it is an excuse to be crazy, moody, and gluttonous. But the little black cloud can be real. And when it is gone, the sun is radiant.
Today hasn’t been much out of the ordinary. I allowed myself the luxury of buying a whole bunch of yogurt, Chobani even. I went to lunch with some friends from work. I spent some time on the computer this morning making a new collage of photos of our family for my Desktop, changing the background color that surrounds it. And making a blank table with Sunday-Monday at the top of the columns, and Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Dinner, Snack, Notes as the Row headings on the left. I made it with fun fonts and a pretty border, and my plan is to print and laminate it. I will make a week’s worth of dinner menus on Sunday or Saturday night, and I’ll fill in the rest of the meals for myself and the kids the night before each day. And its laminated!! So I won’t continue to waste a post-it every day with my menus. I’m also going to make one for TO-DO, though smaller than a whole page.
I made quesadillas for dinner, and they were tasty and the kids actually ate them. I LOVE it when that happens, especially since I’d finely chopped some brocolli and put it in the black bean/chicken mixture that was the “meat” of the quesadillas. Hidden veggies!! They had mandarin oranges for dessert. I had an open-faced quesadilla with sliced summer squash lining the top of mine.
Anyway, feeling better. My signs all over the place today have helped me stay in a better frame of mind, and I’m planning to have a nice run after the kids go to bed. And enjoy it.
Okay, Not Better.
To sum up. Lots of night-time eating. No workouts since Friday. Friday I ran outside. Went for a mile run with Cloud, which didn’t go very well due to her not liking her new nose-lead and me not having run outside for over a month. Then, I brought her home and went back out for more run/walking. Walking because I couldn’t seem to keep running. 🙂 But I probably went about 2.5 miles total. When I got home, the kids were raring to go on a walk and I convinced K to come with us. We were out for about 30 minutes, most of which K2 was on K’s shoulders or being carried by me. Or crying because we were making him walk a block. What a little wuss, obviously needs some toughening up. 🙂
Anyway, I still ate a lot Friday night. Saturday, K2 and I met up with Mom to go to a craft fair. They wouldn’t let us take the stroller in, so K2 got to walk. Again, he wasn’t all about the walking most of the time, but I got him to walk more than I expected. He wanted to touch everything, of course, but he did well with being gentle and not touching when I asked him not to. After the craft fair, we went to Walmart to get some pumpkins and then back to Mom’s for lunch after we visited my Aunt D to see the renovations on her house. I hadn’t seen her in a while, so it was nice to chat for a while. I always enjoy my conversations with D.
After lunch, K2 and I hung out for a while with Mom and Dad and then headed back home, getting here around 4:30. K and P had gone fishing, literally. And they had a blast – coming home looking like mountain folk about an hour after K2 and I got there. They brought Taco Bell for dinner. Yeah, really healthy.
The evening went quickly and then K was off to work and the kids were in bed and I was alone. Watching TV and eating. Actually, I think Iwatched a movie, and it sucked. But I ate.
Sunday was normal church and dinner in Monument with M&D. Then we made brownies for dessert. After dessert we high-tailed it out of there right after Dad used the snowblower on the driveway because the snow was coming down pretty fast. But the drive home wasn’t too bad, and K is always confident behind the wheel in all weather.
And then yesterday at work in the afternoon. Lots of chocolate. Continued eating after dinner at home. Feeling in a funk because of my lack of motivation, my lack of drive, no desire to work out, no desire to stop eating. Even though there wasn’t anything the house that I REALLY wanted to eat. I still ate.
So, after making a list of Pros and Cons for continuing to stay in this funk, I realized what I already knew. That staying in this funk has no Pros. Not really. Its all Cons. Cons that turn to Pros if I’m making a list about why I should flip back to the other side of controlled eating and exercise. Productivity.
Which led to Signs. Signs all over my kitchen, taped to the outside and inside of the cupboards that hold the food I have been munching on. A sign over my treadmill. Signs that say “Go upstairs!” and “You never regret working out.” and “Is that scheduled?” or “Are you eating mindlessly?” Etc. Signs.
I’m writing on the calendar when I put them up so that I can take them down and replace them in a month – we all know that when you look at something every day it eventually ceases to have as much meaning. Or maybe that’s just me.
I’m going to make a laminated food calendar that I can put up for planned dinners for a week and each night I can add the rest of the meals for the next day in dry-erase marker.
I’ve gotta snap out of it. I’m pretty sure my TOM is starting, so I’m not pregnant. Which means that my time is not up for improving this body before I have to let it gain some weight. And I’m obviously not in the right frame of mind to have a healthy attitude and food intake when I DO get pregnant, if the possibility sends me back into binge-land.
Snapping out of it…. please, let me be snapping out of it. But I know that tonight it is going to be super-easy to once again convince myself not to work out. To eat too much. So tonight is like night #1 all over again. I will have to talk myself down, probably multiple times. Hopefully, the signs will help.
Better but still tentative
Yesterday was a good day. Nothing extraordinary, but good. I got showered and ready for work before picking P up from school. I took some leftover goldfish chicken and quinoa to work. Also some shredded carrots and zuchinni that I needed to use. And a Larabar.
Work was a little slow, but I got some stuff done and felt a little productive. Luckily, the chocolate jars weren’t overloaded with stuff I had a hard time resisting, and though I had some chocolate I wasn’t out of control like I am sometimes. I warmed up the quinoa with the veggies and had the chicken for lunch. I had my Larabar only an hour later; just too excited to eat it because it was Cashew Cookie, my favorite flavor. Of course, because of the Sweettarts that I consumed starting on Saturday at the movies and continuing until Monday, the roof of my mouth has been one big, raw sore for days now. And eating anything hurts. Today’s the first day it hasn’t made me want to whimper to chew food. Not that the pain has stopped me.
Anyway, I left the office at 4 and went home, where K had made chicken spaghetti for dinner. I should have made a salad to go with it, but I just didn’t feel like it. *Smack on forehead* It was ok, but Ididn’t eat a lot. After doing the dishes, changing into my workout clothes, and settling the kids in front of the TV (yes, I’m that mom), I set out to do T-Tapp in front of the computer while the kids watched cartoons behind me. It worked surprisingly well! I did a 40-min T-Tapp workout and it felt good. And different. And it felt AWESOME to have my workout done before the kids went to bed. As soon as I was done working out, I got the kids their bed-time snack and then made mine. Nonfat plain yogurt w/ stevia, berries, hot chocolate powder and some granola. SO GOOD. It hurt to eat the bites with granola in them, but I made do. 🙂
Then, we set off upstairs where we got into pajamas and read 3 books. Kids in bed by 8:20. I came back downstairs and finished the dishes, started the dishwasher, filled my water jugs for the fridge, and then did something pretty silly. But symbolic. I’d already decided I was going upstairs to shower, read my scriptures, make a list for today’s to-do, and watch one show in bed, away from the kitchen. But just in case, I went to every cupboard and air-locked them and threw away the ‘key’. No, my cupboards don’t have locks on them. I was just pretending. It helped me solidify it though, that I wasn’t going into those cupboards again that night for anything. And I didn’t. It helped that I was upstairs, and it helped that I’d exercised and was feeling so good. So I’m not delusional that air-locking my cupboards kept me out of them, but all components together helped me have a binge-free night.
I did my tasks, watched 2 shows, and turned the light out and TV off around 10:50. And then I couldn’t get to sleep for over a half hour. But I slept well, and felt marginally more rested this morning than the last few days. Tonight, I hope to be able to fall asleep more quickly after turning off the TV since I didn’t go back to sleep after taking P to school this morning like the last two mornings.
This blow-by-blow is probably pretty boring, but I wanted to record how mixing it up a little (working out while the kids are still awake) is helping me snap out of a funk. I’m going to “air” “lock” the cupboards again tonight after my after-dinner snack. Which is already planned out as are the rest of the eats for today.
Might go for a run outside today with my dog. Haven’t taken her on one of my runs in a long time. Or maybe I’ll just go by myself. Or take her for my mile run and then go back out by myself. I don’t know yet.
Tomorrow, I’m taking K2 and going to a craft fair with my mom, first one of the season. I’m looking forward to it.
Gotta go get P from school in a few minutes.
So sad. Bad decisions. What’s my problem? No answers here.
Last night I was dressed for a workout an hour before the kids went to bed, sports bra, running shoes and all. I put the treadmill down while the kids were still up, opened it up and vacuumed it out. I showed K2 how to use it – which was pretty hilarious.
Then, I put the kids to bed. …….. And didn’t work out. Put the treadmill away without using it. Didn’t touch my resistant tubes, dumbbells, mini-bands. Sat on my hiney all evening and well into the night watching TV. And eating.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
I was up until after midnight. I didn’t read scriptures. I could have eaten more, but I definitely ate plenty.
Today a week ago was my last workout. I know that the first workout back is usually the hardest. I’m trying to get there. I feel so burnt out! Why? Its not like I’ve been making monumental effort for weeks on end? I’ve been plateaued for months because I HAVEN’T been making a monumental effort.
I’m settling. I’m floundering. I’m so tired, but I don’t make myself go to bed at a reasonable hour. I’ve eaten way too much EVERY night that I’ve not worked out. Recipe for disaster. I didn’t even bother weighing myself today because I would assume I’m back up over 190 by now. I even, get this, watched Biggest Loser while eating and sitting last night. Ugh.
I’m writing this down because these are the thoughts in my head. Even with all this said, I can’t guarantee that today will be better. I just don’t feel motivated at all right now. I’m not going to make any bold statements about what I’m going to do today and tomorrow, etc. Because I’m not feeling it.
When I went on this diet back in March, it was because I’d finally decided that I was NEVER going to “feel” it. I wasn’t going to have a “click” when all the motivation, knowledge, etc., fell into place and made me want to start being healthier. So I just did it anyway. So what’s my problem now?
Update on Teeth. Anniversary. Eating off the Charts
The last few days have been weird. Diet-wise I have not been handling it well. I haven’t worked out since Thursday night. I’ve been eating and eating and eating. Remarkably, I don’t feel guilty about it. I feel like I was kind of burnt out, and I find it interesting that I still handle that by eating. And not even always stuff that I wanted very much. So I’m analyzing ways to stop, but I’m determined not to feel guilty.
TEETH and FRIDAY
K2’s teeth are ok for now. The morning that I wrote my last post, I remembered our home teacher is a dentist in the military. It was a Friday. Maybe he would be home even though no one answered their phone. So I drove the few blocks to their house, and lo and behold his wife was home and he was on his way home and would be there shortly. I returned home to pick up K2 and take him back. This nice man took a few days out from his busy day (getting ready to go catch a plane – that was the reason he was coming home in the middle of the day) to look at my son’s teeth and reassure me that things were looking ok and help me decide to cancel the appointment I’d made for K2. I will need to start taking him for check-ups soon, but for now there’s not much they can do. He said he’d look at him again in a week or so. I was so relieved I almost cried. Again. Over the next few days, his gums looked much less mangled, he continued to suck his thumb, and I continue to make sure his food is already in bite-size pieces so he doesn’t have to bite it off with his front teeth. And he continues to heal. Resilient, to say the least.
SATURDAY: ANNIVERSARY (actually Sunday, but date on Saturday)
Saturday, K and I had our date for our 6th wedding anniversary. Somehow, we got away with both sleeping until almost 11 AM. I got up around 9:00 when I heard K2 holler, got him down out of his crib, and sent him down to P who was already watching cartoons. She bugged me a while later about them being hungry and I groggily told her to get them each a piece of bread. I know, I’m a horrible mother. But they survived and no one got hurt or broke anything.
We took the kids to my SIL’s around 2 and went to see The Proposal at the dollar theater. We enjoyed it, but it was slightly marred by the company. The theater was filled with older couples, and they were all VERY jovial. Like, barrel-laughter guffawing for much of the movie. At first it was just amusing, even more than the movie. But toward the end I started to get a little irritated with one gentleman in particular. He had a loud, squawking, bark of a laugh, and he always started laughing BEFORE the funny part was over. Such that we couldn’t even HEAR the rest of the funny part! He was that loud! I’m all for loud belly-laughter. I laugh loud myself. But this was to the point of being rude. I mean I literally couldn’t hear the movie! Anyway, I’ll see it again I’m sure, and we did enjoy it. What’s not to enjoy at $1.50?
We then went to Bistro de Pinto, a tiny restaurant downtown that serves fancy food. 🙂 We’re chain-restaurant people for the most part, but we had a certificate to the place from my work for Admin Asst Day that we still hadn’t used. Our food was excellent, if scarce. Why are gourmet restaurants determined to leave you hungry? Anyway, what there was was very tasty. We ordered a lobster ravioli appetizer….. and we got 2 raviolis. I kid you not. By the time it was gone (we each had one of course), we weren’t even sure it had tasted good! It was gone too fast! K had a steak as his main course, which he enjoyed though it wasn’t quite hot enough for him. I had some mahi mahi with a pumpkin seed crust and white bean and butternut squash fancy sauce. The sides were veggies – one of each of a carrot, a brocolli, 1/2 a brussel sprout, an asparagus (K’s veggies were the same), and then a creamy coconut risotto. I think that was just rice with coconut milk and it was very good. I want to try to make it at home. 🙂
After dinner I wanted to walk the 1/2 block to get a Mrs. Field’s cookie, but they were closed (it was a little after 5 PM), so we swung by Panera instead on our way to pick the kids up. The kids were waiting in a darkened house in their coats, while the SIL was sitting on the couch waiting to leave as soon as we got there. So glad our gracious babysitter put up with our kids for us to go on an anniversary date. I’m being sarcastic. I almost wished I’d asked my mom, at least then I wouldn’t have felt guilty for taking a little longer or felt like there was a time stamp on our date. I mean, it was our first date since April. Kind of put a bad taste in my mouth at the end of our nice time together, but I’m trying to let it go.
SUNDAY – DEEP FRIED TURKEY AND FAMILY DINNER
Sunday, we had plans to deep fry a turkey for dinner for my two SILs and all our families. Somehow, it was decided that though it was our invitation and we were providing most of the work and most of the food, and the turkey fryer, that it should be done over at my SILs house, because there’s more room. Not in the kitchen, mind you, but the house is bigger. We had a very nice evening/afternoon, but it was a little frustrating to have to drive home to get stuff that my SIL didn’t have… twice, and to sit there all afternoon while K got the oil up to temp with little to nothing to do, and not in my own house. But the kids had a blast and we had a nice dinner. It was late, but it was fun. The company is always good – I love hanging out with K’s family, they are all such great people. My older SIL gave me some mini exercise bands that she’d been telling me about (the weaker ones that aren’t tough enough for her) and showed me some exercises to do with them. So we had fun doing some of those together and laughing and looking silly. The boys got to watch some baseball. And like I said, the kids had fun. K2 was so exhausted that night that he woke up multiple times crying and had to sleep with me for a while before I finally got him to stay asleep in his bed.
MONDAY – JURY DUTY
Late Sunday night I remembered I had jury duty on the calendar for the 19th, but that I’d never received a reminder with my juror number or where to go by what time. Luckily, I was able to find the information online (after much panic when I discovered there were two court systems – county and municipal) and settled on county because their phone system was familiar and the other one wasn’t. I showed up Monday morning, waited in line, and just as I suspected I wasn’t scheduled. Hence, no reminder notice in the mail. The lady offered to reschedule me, or I could just stay and do it since I was already there. I stayed. I hope she put that in the computer so that this mix-up won’t continue. I was there until almost 11 before they released everyone that hadn’t been called to be on a panel. I saw an old neighbor there, read some of Time magazine, watched a tiny bit of Apollo 13 before someone complained about the cuss words and they switched it to a documentary about Asteroids. 🙂 Fun, fun.
TUESDAY – PAINTING THE FLOOR
We moved all the furniture to one end of the room and started painting the floor with Kilz in preparation for our laminate flooring being put in soon. Then we waited for it to dry and moved it all to the other side of the room (more stuff this time) and painted the rest. It was a strange day of togetherness and waiting. I was grateful that though it was cloudy and breezy, it was warm enough for us to leave doors and windows open so we could air it out while the paint dried and for the kids to be able to play outside. K2 did manage to track muddy footprints over the still slightly damp paint. There are four of them that might be there forever. 🙂 His cute little footprints.
Today I’m trying to get it together – doing some chores, etc. Since we had to vacuum and sweep everywhere when we moved furniture so we could paint, the main level of the house is cleaner than its been in a while. And it looks it with the white floors. So I’m doing laundry, did the dishes last night, and I’ve already dusted upstairs. I have more work upstairs to clean it up. Its not a sty or anything, but it could be cleaner. And tidier.
K spent 3.5 hours on the phone with the IRS on Monday, bless his heart, to get our tax payment plan figured out. We’ll be paying off our taxes for 2008 for the next 5 years, and will end up paying almost double what we owe. Ridiculous, but it is a load off my mind that they’re not going to put a lien on our house. I’m dreading filing for 2009 and adding to the total by a whole butt-load. Something’s got to change, but I don’t know what and I don’t know how, so I try not to think about it since there’s nothing I can do about it for now.
I haven’t been to the office yet this week. I have to do some work today from home on a document. I’ll go in tomorrow. Like I mentioned, I haven’t worked out yet this week, but I’m planning a good workout tonight while I watch Biggest Loser. This morning I put zuchinni (shredded, raw) in my oatmeal with the spinach, and it was tasty. Made it slightly sweeter, interestingly. I’ve been putting raw zuchinni in my shakes, too. The more ways to get veggies the better!
Hard to believe we’ve been married 6 years. Feels like a minute, feels like forever.
Comfy in My Skin 