Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Note to Self:

Four mini-eclairs for breakfast? Likely not your best move.

Seriously folks -- major sugar rush here. Eeeeek!

Sunday, December 28, 2008

More Pictorial Goodness

Here's a new one, taken of me getting ready for my sister's wedding:



I keep hoping they'll let me use it for my next drivers license photo.

In other news, heading out in a few minutes to the local reception for my sister and her husband. They got married up in NYC, and his family's in New York so many of them were able to make it, but with all our Florida friends and relatives my folks opted to also have a little shindig down here.

So my face is all spackled, my hair is done (and the humidity BETTER not be too bad... grrrr!!!), and in a bit here I'll be heading out the door.

My cold is much better and the fever is gone. I'm still coughing, and it's worse at night, but I think I'll make it through the evening without scaring anyone that I'm passing around some plague.

Small victories are good.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Christmas. Sick. Bleah.

On the first day of Christmas my body gave to me
A fever of 100.3.

Yippee.

Yep, I'm sick. As in so sick that I was "invited" to leave work yesterday about 2/3 through the workday lest I spread my disease to the masses.

Okay, so I guess I looked a bit silly wearing my coat in the middle of the afternoon, periodically pulling the hood up when I'd enter colder parts of the office.

Once I left the office, I drove home, completely forgetting that Teddy was at my mother's house being puppy-sat. Called her, and luckily it was okay for him to spend the night.

I went to sleep about 8:45. At 9:00 my mother called because Teddy was yapping and wouldn't shut up, so she was worried that they'd missed something in his bedtime routine. No, no, you're doing fine Mom... he's just thrown off.

The elder son wasn't wanting to go to bed before me, so for once I just said "Fine, you can stay up and watch TV until you're tired."

He watched Family Guy, he informed me this morning with great glee.

Ugh. I mean, I'll watch Family Guy because I find it amusing in one of those "this show is so terrible" kinds of ways, but NEVER when the children are up. It's not appropriate.

Sooo... still have presents to wrap. My elder son has likely gleaned more terribleness from the TV, the Gum Zombie is fretting about wrapping the presents they bought, and somehow I'm supposed to play Santa tonight and get everyone up and to my parents' house by 8:45 tomorrow morning.

But this too shall pass. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Monday, December 22, 2008

An Open Letter to My Co-Workers

I had to send out this e-mail a few minutes ago:

Folks,

I’m now missing not only my blue pen but my red one as well.

Either my pens become ambulatory over the weekends and flee my desk, or someone is aiding and abetting them in their escape.

If you need a pen, go to the shelves where they are stored and fetch one. If you need directions, ask me. In fact, you can just follow me as I walk there because I will be doing that momentarily to replace the ones that were hijacked.

If it’s on my desk, leave it there.

Thanks.
Amanda


Thing is, I know who works over the weekends most often. I even have a pretty good clue who's thieving my pens.

Inconveniently, he happens to be the company president.

Whoops.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Redemption Arc

Okay, since I bashed the snot out of The Biggest Loser's Vicky I figure I'd better also be fair here now since the finale has aired. In the final episode Vicky showed signs of being a different person from the one she was on the Biggest Loser ranch.

In her time on the show, Vicky (along with her alliance of her husband Brady and another couple Ed and Heba) had some pretty nasty confrontations with a gentleman named Phil, which would be part of the reason for my very silly tv-related seething. However, it appears during the finalists' time at home they still had conference calls with all 18 original contestants. During one of those calls, Vicky was overwhelmed with the time constraints upon her with trying to work out to win the contest, work and spend time with her children, and pretty much broke down. As she put it, she'd feel guilty spending time with her children because she felt she should be working out, and was feeling guilty spending time working out because she felt she should be with her children.

Vicky shared that at that time, this same Phil told her to just live in the moment, to value her time with her children when she was with them, and to value her workout time when she was working out. It's a simple enough prescription, but when you're trying to do everything and be all things to all people it's easy enough to forget.

So yay to Vicky for giving credit where credit is due and for not letting her broken foot get in the way of her weight loss.

And on a related note, Michelle won! Yay!!!

Monday, December 15, 2008

Survivor Gabon Finale - More Bitching and Moaning

It's reality TV central around my place. Hee. I guess in my ex's defense I should state that I really really like reality TV, so some of his hatred of it could have been due to my inordinate love of the genere.

That said, I was expected to watch up to 8 hours of football every Sunday and another 4 hours on Mondays throughout football season, so I thought my reality TV viewing was an even trade-off, but someone didn't agree with me there. Harumph.

Anyway...

We all know the outcome of Survivor Gabon, at least those of us who cared do: Bob won. Yay. And I won't put her name in here because I think she enjoys all the negative press, but the contestant whose name started with "C" and almost rhymes with "urine"... Oh. My. God.

I have never, in my life, seen such a despicable person on TV. And the amazing thing about it all is that she's not any type of negative-edit victim. In fact, she was upset because during the first half of the season she felt she was portrayed as a bit of a wall flower rather than the raging bitch that she truly is.

One of her statements from last night's finale was that she doesn't "find niceness to be an interesting personality trait," or words to that effect. I can't help think that any person who doesn't find niceness to be a valuable or interesting personality trait has been exceptionally sheltered. I would pity her when she finally meets the person who can out-vicious her, because she's going to be sobbing and bleeding for weeks, except I think she's pretty much going to deserve it. Karma can out-bitch anyone.

During the final tribal council she blasted Sugar, a rather decent player who had, apparently, been a bit more tearful during production that the TV edit would show due to her father's recent death from lung cancer, and told her that (among other things) the only thing she would give her would be a handful of antidepressants so it was at least believable when she was crying over her dead father.

I'm sorry, I'm sure it's aggravating to be stuck around a watering pot 24/7, but you do NOT knock someone due to their deceased father. That was outrageously disgusting and offensive. Furthermore, when Jeff Probst called her on it during the reunion show, she didn't even have the decency to apologize for her behaviour.

What kills me about this little twit is that, somehow, she thinks all this trash-talking is "cute", and shows her supposedly "dry" sense of humor.

Uhm, sorry child. All it shows is that you are an immature inexperienced little girl without an ounce of self-awareness or conscience.

Gag.

Okay, I feel better now. Whew.

Friday, December 12, 2008

The Biggest Loser - Warning, Griping Ahead

I've not been a huge watcher of The Biggest Loser since my sons' father didn't care for reality TV, but I did see Season 3 (the Kim season – Erik won that one) and I've been watching this current season from the get-go as my television viewing is no longer restricted. Yay, garbagey TV!! Yes I know it's crap, but some of it's just dang good times, yanno?

Back when I watched Season 3 of TBL it was a real inspiration as I could relate to so many people on the show. It began airing right after my huge weight loss push, so I felt in a way as if I were working on getting healthier right along with the contestants. The hard thing for me during that season was seeing just how tiny everyone got while my weight loss took a bit more normal amount of time. But keeping in mind that these folks were on the ranch and had zero responsibilities other than exercising and eating properly whereas I was working a full-time job, herding two kids, and still managing to get the weight off helped on that a bit.

That said, this past year after my "divorce diet" weight loss that put me down to a low of 145 lbs., I'm currently at 157. Ick. I dropped down to 152 back in early September but as soon as I hit that weight my brain apparently severed its connection with my stomach and I've been sitting around 155, give or take a couple pounds either way, for the past three months. So… what better method of trying to kick myself back into shape than to once again throw myself into the Biggest Loser series cycle, right?

Well, it would have been a good idea except for one reason: Vicky.

Vicky is one of the finalists for this season's Biggest Loser, and I have to say that the way she's been portrayed on the show gives the impression of an incredibly vile, nasty, untrustworthy, vengeance-laden, hateful individual. So instead of concentrating on weight loss (which actually has finally reconnected over the past two weeks – yay!), I spend my time during every two-hour episode yelling "HATE!!" and "EVIL!" each time Vicky does one of her patented smirks, grimaces, poo-faces, or says something particularly self-congratulatory or entitled-sounding.

Holy crap, what a revolting wreck of a human.

To add insult to injury, Vicky and her husband Brady say that part of the reason they went on The Biggest Loser (the current season is families, with husbands and wives and parents and adult children competing) is because their four-year-old daughter now weighs more than their seven-year-old son. This child is eating six yogurts at a time, six donuts at one sitting… it is flat-out scary. The son, it appears, is protected by his metabolism at this point. But it's come out during the course of the show that both Brady and Vicky hate all vegetables. Like, I think it's possible they believe they hate vegetables more than I hate Vicky. Scary.

I’m sorry folks, but when you're thirty-eight years old (as Vicky is), you do NOT get to go on national TV and wrinkle up your face like a petulant preschooler at cauliflower soup when you're on a weight-loss show. When you're thirty-eight and have children (I'm in the same boat so I can speak to this) you do not get to just stop by a fast food restaurant for dinner every night because you work a full-time job. When you're thirty-eight and the mother of two you do not get to ban vegetables from your house just because you and your spouse don't like them.

With adulthood there come a few responsibilities, and chief among those would be that if you're a parent, you have to set an example for your kids. You cannot expect your children to eat vegetables if you yourself subsist solely on the double-quarter-pounder-with-cheese and a large fry value meal. You cannot expect your children to develop good nutritional habits if you don't even bother bringing the basics of good nutrition into the home.

Those of you who've been reading this for awhile or who have read back are aware that I hate, loathe, and despise peas and all their repellent little legume friends. I just can't freaking stand them. It's a texture issue. That said, do I eat them if they're served? Youbetcha, when the kids are watching. If they aren't watching, quite frankly I'll pick them all out, because another part of being an adult is the privilege of avoiding certain foods when feasible. Although I hate peas and pea-type vegetables, I know I eat enough other vegetables to more than make up for the fact that in my book peas are the culinary pond scum of the vegetable world. But still… I eat them when I'm in front of my children because that is what a responsible parent does.

In fact, I even cook peas and their relatives (my elder son's favorite is baked beans). Why? Because my children learned over the course of time that these foods tasted good! And they learned that because I, in spite of my personal tastes, had the good sense to feed my children a well-balanced diet. I didn't wrinkle up my nose and make the gagging gesture any time we had peas. I didn't say "Oh those are gross!" each time my elder son dived into his serving of baked beans. I will admit that peas don't figure hugely in our diets at home as there are plenty of other vegetables from which to choose, but they still do make an appearance.

Seriously, bailing out on feeding your kids vegetables because they don't like them and it's inconvenient to try to make them eat them? Ain't gonna fly here. It's cases like this where all I can think is, who is in charge in this house? Because it sure isn't the parents.

If I can manage to cook at home at times, I'm pretty sure it's within nearly everyone's grasp. I'll freely admit I'm not perfect. Sometimes we eat weird things. Sometimes I'll look ketchup dead in the eye and declare it a vegetable. Last weekend I spent most of Sunday baking cookies (yes, with WHITE flour and WHITE sugar!) and glazing walnuts (with sour cream! and more WHITE sugar!), so it's not like I'm the poster girl for Prevention Magazine or any other health related publication. In fact, the double-quarter-pounder-with-cheese value meal cited above? Is my own personal favorite. I'm not anything near a health nut. But I do see the value in good nutrition, and although my children and I do enjoy our treats, that's what they are: treats. They aren't staples.

So this weekend while Vicky is exercising her little heart out and dehydrating herself for the final weigh in on Tuesday night at the live finale to determine who is this season's Biggest Loser – that is, assuming her stress fracture in her foot isn't her excuse for packing back on 20 lbs. since she left the ranch – I'll be sautéing up some chicken and tomatoes and steaming broccoli for my kids' and my dinner.

And after that? More cookie baking. Hee.

Note: The Biggest Loser finale is at 8:00 PM ET on NBC, if anyone's interested in watching this trainwreck. Go Michelle!!

Monday, December 08, 2008

Kids -- ACK!!!

So this morning I'm trying to get my little darlings up and running for school. Well, it's not exactly "school" for them since their schedule is weird and they're actually off from now through sometime after New Year's Eve, but still they go to the school building and hang out there at the on-site daycare.

Anyway, the kids. Now yesterday wasn't much of a weekend day for me (general crap to deal with, etc.), so getting motivated on my end was difficult enough. But then the offspring... oy gevalt. The elder was already out of his bed camped out on the couch, but wasn't conscious. He eventually pried his eyes open around 6:45 or so, then spent several minutes "discussing" (translation: arguing about) appropriate clothing for 47-degree weather. He did not win. The younger one had to be awakened twice and once he finally managed to get vertical he then opted to fling himself on the hall carpet in front of his bedroom.

Out of all three of my children (including the dog), only the canine managed to follow directions. All I had to say was, "Teddy, it's time to go to Grammy's!" and he raced into the kitchen and hopped into his crate.

I hate Mondays.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Sign of the Times

It's a pretty good bet that your business is slowing pretty severely when you find yourself braiding your hair into pigtails at your desk, and you don't care that it's a ridiculous look for a woman on the downhill slope to forty.

Just saying.