Baking Again

Bread today. White. First loaf.

No, not a good sign diet-wise. Baking rarely is, for me. My hormones have gone around the bend. I'm somewhere between a week and a week-and-a-half late and bloated as hell; my cycles are ridiculously varied and even by their standards I'm behind. I'm crabby and emotional. I spent at least an hour last night in tears over the ills of the past few decades -- those committed by me and those committed against me -- like that does anyone any good at all.

Oh, and I'm fairly convinced I will NEVER lose this last fourteen to twenty pounds. Urrrgh.

Hopefully the bread at least turns out decently. I'm having an entitlement moment; I'm owed a good loaf of bread.

Dammit.

Is this thing on?

I feel like I should tap into a microphone or something, since this place is way dusty after being neglected for the past -- oh holy crap -- nearly three weeks.

Mea culpa, y'all. And thank you for hanging in there while I contemplated my navel for a bit.

I go through cycles with my food, and at the moment I'm sick and tired of what's been working for nearly six months. URRRGH. Boredom with my tried-and-true menu items leads to baking (mmmmm.... butter), which finally leads to me figuring out something new to cook and then settling down. So between February 1st and now, I've been baking.

I got to play with the stand mixer Choreboy gave me for Christmas -- yay! I made monkey bread from scratch, and let's just say that yeast and I are not yet on totally friendly terms. I made one batch and the yeast activated just fine, everything rose, life was beautiful. Then I started up another batch (I believe we had a teensy "binge", aided and abetted by my offspring), but the stupid yeast didn't work.

Yes, we ate it anyway. I wasn't wasting all that dough, brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter!

Ahem.

The next weekend was Valentine's weekend, and Choreboy had requested a vanilla bean cheesecake. After much use of power tools (i.e., the Kitchen Aid and the food processor) we got that sucker mixed up, baked, and in the fridge. And let me tell you, it was awesome. I adore vanilla beans, and although cheesecake isn't my favorite dessert, I'd eat this every night if I could.

If you click on the recipe, by the way, check out the hilarious nutrition information. It's 538 calories per slice assuming 16 slices per 10-inch cake. GACK!!!

Fortunately, this past week marked the end of the baking fest and the return to sense. I made a move to animal-based proteins away from the legumes I'd been concentrating on for dinner with a lean pork tenderloin and a lovely cut of salmon. Happily for my budget, Publix* had a sale on the Eat Smart pre-cut veggies ($1.00/ bag -- for those of you who are Publix shoppers I believe the price goes through this Thursday if you want to grab some) so I stocked up on a bit of fresh broccoli.

Also, today I made a HUGE batch of lentil soup at lunch. It might seem counter-intuitive considering I was trying to move away from legumes, but lentils are different from chickpeas, plus I had carrots to get rid of and what better way than to toss them into soup? It turned out pretty well, I believe, and that's a good thing because I have a ton of it left over. I think my parents are going to have a little soup coming their way.

So, next weigh in? I'm guessing around my birthday, which will make it the beginning of April. I'm going to concentrate on eating well over the next several weeks, because I have this dress I want to wear come summer and although it fits kind of at the moment, it will definitely be more flattering with a few less pounds attached to my ass.

For those who don't want to do the math, I'll be forty-one. I've barely resigned myself to forty. Bleah.

Next up is getting back on my treadmill. JAFG kindly sent me a kick-in-the-butt text (heheh... thanks chica!) and although my words were good, my follow-up sucked. In my defense, my husband has left a table propped against the treadmill so that is impeding my progress somewhat.

Hey, that's my story and I'm sticking to it (ignore the fact that I could have moved the table my own damn self and burned a few calories in the process). Tune in next time for more True Confessions of a Diet Tortoise!


*Note to the FTC: once again, I'm only mentioning brand names and stores because I feel like it. I receive no compensation from anyone for the products or vendors listed.

Fourteen to Go

I'd determined back in December that I wouldn't do a full, official weigh-in until February 1st. Leading up to the holidays I saw over and over throughout blogland that we needed to decide if we were going to lose weight through the holidays, or if we were "just" going to try to maintain. Quite frankly, the phrasing bugged. Maintaining weight over the holidays can be a huge struggle. There is no "just" about maintaining over the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New-Year's season. Maintaining is awesome!

It's also what I chose, and what I did*. Which, with all due self-awareness, might have a tad bit to do with my defensiveness regarding the usage of "just".

On November 18th, I weighed 144.5 pounds. Today, I weighed in at 144 pounds. And if I want to stretch it -- okay, I totally want to stretch it -- it was more like 143.9. Take THAT, holiday food fest!! 144 is an all-time low from back in 2006 when I weighed 200 pounds.

56 down, 14 to go.

Goal date: December 31, 2011. And geez, that seems a bunch closer than it did back in November!

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In other news, I'd rate my back at 90-95% of normal, and feeling 100 times better than it did a couple of months ago when I first managed to mess it up. Hooray!! The only thing truly bothering me now is trying to determine just how I managed to hurt myself. Was it scrubbing the bathroom floor at work? Carrying the Gum Zombie-who-really-weighs-too-much-for-me-to-pick-up to bed? Dancing around like an idiot to Pink's "Raise Your Glass"? Four times? In a row?

All of the above?

I wish I knew, because I'd really prefer not to torture myself. Also, I want to exercise but there's a serious fear component involved at the moment. So... I'm trying to look at this realistically. In all likelihood I didn't hurt myself exercising. It was probably one of the things I listed above (darn you, Pink!). I know I can walk on my treadmill. I can probably even do the evil-that-is Tabata sprints.

There go those excuses. Looks like my treadmill and I have a date for tomorrow.

*Yes, I did report a post-holiday weight of 146 or thereabouts, but it wasn't from the real weigh in scale; ergo, it was not an official weight. So there. That's my story and I'm sticking to it :P (Okay, plus a couple of pounds fluctuation is maintaining in the real world.)

Calling All Sports Fans!

I might have mentioned previously that I am not an active soul by nature. When I was a child, my favorite activity consisted of shutting myself in my room with a book. If this wasn't solitary and sedentary enough, I'd move to my closet with a flashlight.

Come to think of it, not much has changed. Okay, you can find me on a treadmill now but more often than not I'm reading on the thing and if I could? I'd shove that sucker in a closet so I could get a bit of peace and quiet while I'm on it.

So of course, because God has a tremendous sense of humor, I managed to produce two very bouncy boys, a descriptor which was evident even in utero. The Elder was literally spinning like a whirling dervish during his first ultrasound at six weeks gestation (I'd had some worrisome bleeding, but after watching his antics I figured he'd just tried to kick himself loose), and the Gum Zombie was the only awake and active fetal wunderkind for his scheduled ultrasound session at the midwife's office. I swear that child made the sonographer's day -- we got a solid 30 minutes watching him wiggle around in there.

So yeah. Active. Now don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for this because not only are they healthy but they also have an unholy love for video games, so it's a darned good thing they have interests that counteract their mother's genetic contribution to their makeup. It's just... wow.

The Gum Zombie, being the free spirit that he is, blithely informed me a couple of weeks ago that he wishes to take gymnastics. Now this is the child who likes to hand-walk up doorways and hallways and hang there until I catch him at it. Failing that, he will watch TV with his hands on the back of the couch and walk his legs up the wall until he's at a good forty-five degree angle to the floor until there's too much blood rushing to his head or, again, until I catch on that my walls are being abused. Really, I shouldn't be surprised.

A few days later he asked, "Don't you want to know why I want to take gymnastics?"

Well, yes; yes indeed, I was curious.

"Because I want to learn how to do backflips. I'm going to be a ninja when I grow up, and ninjas have to do backflips."

I blinked a couple of times still hoping I could somehow get out of this (do you know how dangerous backflips are????), and then he played his trump card:

"I went to the library and checked out a book on gymnastics, so I already know all about it."

All of you who are parents are nodding right now. Yeah, I'm so hosed. Clearly I have to get him into gymnastics and support his chosen profession of ninja, because he went to the library and researched it on his own. Initiative must be rewarded. Here's hoping the Y's gymnastics program is less cost-prohibitive than the two closest gymnastics studios.

Meanwhile, the Elder has more pedestrian goals. Last fall he approached me with a pamphlet for the basketball program at the church that houses his before-and-after school program.
Practices started a couple of weeks ago, and he had a game yesterday. Let me tell you, it was high comedy. No, I'm not a huge sports fan, but I swear watching sixth-grade boys running up and down the basketball court is hysterically awesome. They're up the court, they're down the court, they're up the court... oh, there's a melee breaking out over the ball! Wait, the kids brawling are all from the same team. Snerk. There's more traveling and double-dribbling than you can shake a stick at, and throughout the whole thing they're just giving it every bit of heart they've got. I was grinning like an idiot.

And then there was the Elder, in the last 35 seconds of the game. He'd already scored 4 points, and I guess he figured then was as good a time as any to clean his glasses. As I watched him take them off and start wiping the lenses on his jersey, I thought, "I sure hope that ball doesn't come toward him."

Remember that whole God has a sense of humor thing? I sometimes swear he's listening in and giggling.

The ball came straight at the child. He looked up, and without even flinching he got the ball and started dribbling with the one hand while continuing to polish his glasses lenses with the other. He finally passed it (still one-handed) to another of his teammates who ran it down the court right as the buzzer sounded. I was clutching my head in my hands and everyone around me was howling with laughter, regardless of who they were there rooting for.

Again, awesome. A bit more of this and I could almost become a sports fan.

...And Make Sure You Use GOOD Wine...

Yeah well, Ina... turns out Fish Eye merlot ($5.47 a bottle, screw top) works just fine for your Parker's Beef Stew recipe.


The picture above is after all four of us had eaten dinner. Choreboy alone had two helpings. Sorry Food Network, but no way this serves only six; in the end we calculated it at a minimum of 10 servings per recipe.

It's not as if we're even talking small servings here -- this stew is seriously good stuff. But after two hours of prep time before that sucker went into the oven (not counting the bit of chopping and marinating I did hours earlier) it had better be.

The only tweak we made to the recipe was we used green beans rather than peas, because peas = eeew.

No, my recent Campaign to Not Hate Legumes hasn't extended to those nasty little green spheroids. My loathing for peas goes beyond mere texture, it seems.

Ah well... it's been a great three-day weekend. Tomorrow, back to the grind. I hope everyone who had a day off today enjoyed it! I sure did.

[Now I'm going to pay for it, because I have to get the tax paperwork together at the office -- UGH. Honestly, I'd rather eat peas. And y'all know that's saying something.]

Whew.

I love the holidays. I love the food, the family, the food, the presents, the food, the togetherness...

... and I have I mentioned the food? Oh yeah.

I was nowhere near saintly over the holidays. In fact, I came close to declaring a free-for-all between the Gum Zombie's birthday on December 18th through January 2nd, which was the Sunday night prior to returning to work. It was glorious, and I was bloated as hell.

So, entirely reasonably, I refused to get on the scale. Until tonight that is. What spurred me on, you might ask? My hipbones. They finally re-emerged from the water retention wonderland that was my gut, so I figured it was approaching safe.

It wasn't the "official" scale, and it wasn't the "official" time, but the scale said 146-ish. I'll take it. Considering the enjoyment over the holidays, I'll absolutely take it.

As for the rest? I'm done. Pooped out. Resting. I realize that before I know it, the 2011 holiday season will be upon us; but until then, I'll let The Divine Miss M give my current holiday thoughts:


Yep, that about covers it. Here's to 2011, everyone!

Never Say I Can't Take a Hint

Him: Still no new posts on your blog!
Me: I haven't had time.
Him: Three days into the New Year and you couldn't even talk about how The Divine Miss M is down?
Me: Dude. You go months without posting.
Him: I'm a boy.

Duh.

So here you go m'dear... now go thou and do likewise :P

I'm Back!

Well, as much as one is ever "back" in the thick of the holidays. And speaking of my back it is, dare I say it? Showing signs of improvement.

I went to see my doctor a week ago and to my relief she determined this was most likely a muscular issue rather than a slipped disc or something of that ilk. Whew. My family has a "curse" wherein some of the lumbar vertebrae like to give out in the early forties.

And guess who's forty? Hint: check the sidebar, kids.

Fortunately, though, this curse comes out of the male side of the family and thus far only males have been old enough to be afflicted with it. Of course, on the minus side, my distaff progenitors have managed to produce a particularly vicious strain of spinal arthritis.

So I'm likely screwed regardless. But not yet!! Heh. I'll take it.

Treatment-wise we kept to what I had been doing: 650 mg aspirin every 4 hours, 4-6x/day (preferably 4x, due to me preferring that my gums not bleed), and heat with either an adhesive heated pad at work or a heating pad with 20 minutes on/ 20 minutes off at home. She also gave me an anti inflammatory ointment that I looked over but opted not to take after reading that it was contraindicated for folks who've ever had hives from taking any of a laundry list of NSAIDS.

Both Naprosyn and Anaprox gave me hives back a little over 20 years ago. I'd taken Naprosyn for a year for "girlie" issues and it was awesome. Then one day I took it for the usual reason and my skin felt prickly. I didn't know what was causing it and didn't really put 1 and 1 together until the next dose when I took it around my mother, and within moments I was scratching at myself a bit and welts were breaking out. Mom quickly recognized the hives for what they were.

I was pretty bummed, but my GYN said sometimes folks have a reaction to one formulation and not another, so she gave me a sample of Anaprox to try. I got home and my parents insisted I try it when they were both home, with Benadryl at the ready.

More hives. Yippie.

So at that point, my GYN told me this ridiculously long list of stuff I couldn't take that effectively knocks any NSAID into contraindicated territory.

For years I wouldn't touch even an aspirin, but since Tylenol has never been effective for me I started taking aspirin when I was absolutely desperate for migraine pain relief about five years ago, and I haven't had a problem yet. So since I've been okay with aspirin it's possible that I could use this anti inflammatory ointment, but the name of it is somethingorother-sodium, and the similarity of that name to naproxyn sodium just... doesn't sit right.

Plus I just wasn't desperate enough to risk hives. If the aspirin and heat hadn't been helping, I may well have sung a different tune.

So I figure I'm going to have a sit-down with my doc at some point and see what I can do about all these supposed contraindications for just about every other reasonable pain medication out there I've been told I have, because if I can actually take some of them as I get older, my life is going to be a whole lot more pleasant. This is one huge reason why I make sure I have a primary care physician, because at least there's someone in the world who knows my record regarding pain medication (i.e., as a rule I don't request it and I don't take it) so that if I'm ever in the position to actually need something at least there's good backup that, in spite of the ridiculous allergy list, I'm not "drug seeking".

I hate how the jerks of the world make it harder for the rest of us to get needed medication.

And don't get me started on the restrictions on cold medicines that actually, say, WORK. I swear, if one more pharmacy tech gives me the look that says she just knows my 20-pack of Drixoral is going straight to a meth lab, I won't be held responsible for my actions.

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In other news, the Gum Zombie has enjoyed a full recovery from Hurl Fest 2010, and was able to completely enjoy his 8th birthday this past Saturday. We just had a little family party this time around, with the child's grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin in attendance in addition to the Elder and me (Choreboy was working). And as a special surprise, Miss P, GZ's preschool/in-home-daycare lady came!! She knew him before he was born (the Elder and her grandson went to the same preschool so she saw me waddling around nearly 42 weeks pregnant), and had him in her daycare from the time he was 18 months old until he left for kindergarten. She's awesome, and it was so good to see her again and have her over.

Outside of that? Not much. Oh, my eating is terrible at the moment. Yes, I've lost all control. I'm below 150... barely. Well, maybe not now considering I ate birthday cake, chips, and dip with reckless abandon and followed that up with all the office treats well-meaning professionals keep dropping off at my workplace.

And I can't do my tabatas because I'm scared they'll hose my back if I jump back in before it's healed.

So color me frustrated. I'm trying to just count small victories at the moment, like the fact that I had a lower-calorie soup for lunch instead of going out and getting a sub. It's not much, but that's 600 fewer calories than I could have eaten. I'm more or less good with that.

Okay, time to get away from the computer and back onto my heating pad. Merry Christmas and/ or Happy Holidays, folks!!

My Buddy Murphy

Yes, that would be in reference to Murphy's Law.

Yesterday my back was doing much better by the time I got home from work. It wasn't great, mind you, but if I was just standing I was fine -- no stabbing pains, no burning, nothing. Awesome!! And I could recline on some angles, with proper support, rather than having to be perfectly parallel to whatever surface I was on.

It was marvelous. I caught up on some blogs and even managed to comment here and there. I didn't go straight back to my bed, and gave the poor forlorn Hound some attention. And thank you, all of you, for your well-wishes. I'm no fan of back pain, and I have every hope that this too shall pass. However...

... it won't be as quickly as I thought.

So, the Gum Zombie was complaining that his tummy hurt. Considering that the child had mixed tortilla soup with Oreo Cakesters, I had chalked it up to indigestion.

[Note: this is the part where, if you're eating, you should go away for awhile, then come back without food and with a settled stomach. Trust me here.]

Anyway, I was on my way to rest on my bed, after enjoying my first more-or-less normal evening of the week, and the Gum Zombie was still grousing about his tummy. He decided he wanted to go to bed also, and we had just turned to head that way when the floodgates burst loose.

Twice.

His stomach contents for the day were ejected with such force and at such volume that they covered fully two-thirds of my entryway (blessedly wood), splattered three feet up two walls, and splattered another three feet into the kitchen and onto my family room rug (oops).

Choreboy was at work. The Vomit Comet was on one side of Lake Puke. I was on the other.

He'd managed to keep most of himself out of the line of fire, so I sent him down the hall to his bathroom where he proceeded to turn his stomach inside out (and worse) while I scrubbed down the carpet and cleaned the floors and walls. Poor little fellow... he was absolutely miserable.

As I got onto the floor to scrub the carpet I had one brief thought of my back, then I was too wrapped up in scraping everything up and helping my shivering boy that I didn't think of it again until this morning.

On the plus side? My nose has been stuffed up for days, so I couldn't smell a thing. Also, the child is doing much better. After he'd fully purged everything from his body last night I tucked him into bed, and this morning he woke up looking much more perky. He's run a low-grade fever today, but after a steady diet of Gatorade, ginger ale, toast, and rice pudding he appears to be on the mend. Bless his heart.

As for my back... let's just say that "ouch" is an understatement.

Back Issues

Hey gang, I managed to hose my back somehow. At the moment I am functional, but once I'm home from work I can't sit at my desk too long because apparently some idiot installed a freaking knife in the back of my chair that jabs me in my mid-back any time I'm parked in it.

So anyway, the upshot is that I'm trying to get my back in a less painful situation. I'm giving it another week to see if the pain changes (it's already gone through a few mutations), and if it's the same or worse I'll be hauling myself in to see my doctor. Fortunately I'm having some luck with aspirin and positioning for the pain aspect.

Speaking of positioning, sitting here typing doesn't work for me for long. I'll keep y'all updated, but it'll be brief until someone pulls the sawzall out of my spine.

Yet Another Thanksgiving Post

So.

The plan was that I'd get some of my baking done on Tuesday. I'm in charge of the mashed potatoes and desserts for this year's Glut Fest, and it's usually pretty labor intensive so I figured why not spread the joy out over a few days.

You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men and all that. There's a reason for it.

In addition to my plans for baking on Tuesday, I was also running on about three deadlines. I'd arrived at work half an hour early, worked through lunch, successfully got one deadline knocked out and was well on my way with the next when the phone rang.

It was the Elder's vacation daycare folks. Seems that when middle-sized boys are playing "tag" football, things can get a bit bloody... especially when one child catches the football (mine) and another child fails to note this, resulting in front tooth meeting hard skull.

One trip to the ER, 3 hours, and 4 stitches later the Elder was just fine. The other kid broke his tooth-- poor little guy is only 10 and now has to have a crown.

So although I have been/ will continue to whine endlessly about all the baking I've been doing yesterday and today, I am thankful for plenty:

• my family
• my health
• Choreboy's morning groans, which indicate he is off work at home rather than at work getting caffeinated
• the Elder's thick skull
• the Gum Zombie's new passion for gum

This list could get really long. I think I'll stop it here. Besides, I have potatoes to mash.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Blink

144.5 lbs.

That's what the scale said this morning.

I haven't seen a weight below 145 since I was in my twenties. In fact, this is the longest I've spent in any portion of the 140's since my twenties, let alone being below 145.

Let's check that sidebar, kids... yep. I'm forty.

Holy crap. I mean, this is a totally good thing, but... wow.

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In other news, last night I made personal history by staying on my much-abused-and-maligned elliptical for thirty entire minutes. Yes! And I wouldn't have done it, but Draz over at It's Just Me, Drazil & Sheniqua blogged about power and I committed to 30 minutes in the comments.

It's amazing what the threat of public embarrassment will do for one's motivation.

On tap tonight, more Tabata sprints (dangit Charlotte!), followed by my resistance workout. I've reduced my cardio to 30 minutes a day, 5 days per week. I did months at an hour a day for six days per week, and followed that up with an hour a day for five days per week. I didn't hate it, but I also came to realize that neither of those options are livable or sustainable for me. I began to resent the time spent away from my family, the enforced sandwiches-as-dinner so I could manage to get in my workout, help with homework, get kids bathed, etc. all before nine at night. There are only so many hours in a day, and I don't want to spend the lion's share of my waking time at home essentially running or walking nowhere.

Thirty minutes per day, however, is both livable and sustainable. It also enables me to take the time to get in my resistance work as well, which is super-important considering my family's history of osteoporosis (not to mention my own stress fracture history).

I've set my date for reaching goal (130 pounds) as December 31 of 2011. Yes, that's over a year from now. I'm at a healthy weight; there's no need for urgency with the scale. I want to see it moving downward, and while doing that I have to be sure I'm not concentrating on weight loss at the expense of my family time, cooking time, or just plain "me, not on a treadmill" time.

I'm not trying to be all dramatic with this. I mean, my kids are amused by my exercise attempts, Choreboy is incredibly supportive, and I know ultimately that I do my best to balance work, home, and self. It's the resentment I was feeling over that hour that's more to the point, I think. Like I said, it just wasn't sustainable for me. I work forty hours per week, commuting adds another ten hours minimum... it feels like life's just flying by.

The boys are maturing. The Elder is getting a little dark shadow over his upper lip that's more impressive than mine; the Gum Zombie already looks alarmingly like a middle-sized kid rather than a little boy. And I don't want to blink and be fifty and wonder where I was for the last decade.

You Win Some...

... and you lose some. Okay, since I'm human it's something I do at least.

NaNo this year appears to be a bust. I was thrown off track by my trip to NYC to see my little sister and to meet my niece, The Divine Miss M! Let me tell you, this child is adorable.

Wait -- show, don't tell.



And yes, I got her mother's permission to post her face on the blog. Although the Gum Zombie and the Elder appear only from the back in here, my sister and I agreed that The Divine Miss M is likely to change sufficiently in the intervening years that the facial characteristics of a two-month-old just won't be that pertinent.

So in light of that, I also present her wearing The Hat of Shame:



As you can see (via the clenched fist), she was clearly less than pleased with our choice of headgear. In fairness, her other hat was in the wash.

Oh! While in New York I also got to ride the subway. It was my first time and I was so psyched (yes, I'm a huge dork). I was also amazed to see the work of the Mustache Artist! For those of you who follow Bitchcakes' commuting blog, this picture may be old hat:


We found the poster at the 7th Avenue stop after disembarking the F-train, just shy of Prospect Park. And yes, I was way more excited to find the poster than I likely should have been, but what the heck -- it's not every day I get to go to New York! I was a total gawking tourist, and tickled pink to be one.

Even if I hadn't seen the work of the Mustache Artist, this alone would have made the entire trip worthwhile:


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In other news, I'm well on track with food and likely weigh 145. I'll weigh in next Thursday, and I will get back on my accursed cardio (which I let slide in all the travel madness) before that time.

[Update: Tabata sprints kicked my butt. I blame Charlotte, who incautiously blogged about them the other week.]

I've also been baking again, since it's the season for it. A total win in my family has been Carrot Pumpkin Bars, recipe here. They're really quite good, and have cream cheese swirled through them. I've substituted half the sugars in the recipe with Splenda (brown sugar is Splenda blend, and white sugar is half granulated and half Splenda) which brings the total calories per bar down to 104.7. I only get 24 bars out of the recipe because my pan is smaller than what the recipe designates... so if I were able to spread these out enough for 48 bars I'd be more at 52.4 calories per. Not bad, all in all!

This next is a win taste-wise, but visually, the Pumpkin Cranberry Breakfast Cookies... well, I'll let you see for yourselves.


Choreboy says they look a bit like colorful horse dro.... erm, yeah. Click to zoom in. They're grainy, and that's putting it mildly.

The original recipe is from Food.com. My recipe is adapted from that using suggestions from the comments on the recipe. In addition to deleting the applesauce and raising the pumpkin amount to one full cup, I've subtracted 2 TBSP of the whole wheat flour and replaced it with 2 TBSP of ground flaxseed meal (hence part of the graininess) and I've additionally used 1/2 cup of Splenda Brown Sugar Blend in place of the 1 cup of brown sugar.

Oh, and I added 1/3 cup of white chocolate chips... which kind of negates the brown sugar substitution, but a girl has to have priorities, dammit.

I also added the zest of one full orange. I love orange zest with cranberries, and it wasn't a mistake to add it here.

I've made the cookies larger than in the original recipe, and dividing the dough into two batches of one dozen cookies each with the substitutions I've made nets cookies with 108.6 calories each,
2.4 grams of fiber (yay, flaxseed), 2.8 grams of protein, and a full 25% of the daily recommendation of Vitamin A. They're hearty, and two of them keep me satisfied for quite awhile. Just make sure you refrigerate them in a sealed container after the first day. Trust me on this.

So for me, these are a definite win. The Elder agrees. Choreboy and the Gum Zombie are instead rather appalled by them.

I have, however, caught the Gum Zombie picking random craisins out of the surface of the cookies. Like his mother, the boy has his priorities.

Pre-Teen Mom Angst Redux

Well, in the case of the former best friend of the Elder?

It appears they're friends again. Or at least friendly. They've apologized to each other for whatever wrongs they committed (using the infamous "I'm sorry for whatever I did or might have done" pretext).

So that's good.

But on the downside, the FBF's parents have decided the boys can't be friends. I don't know their exact reasoning, but I figure it has to do with the fact that their child was called down to talk to the dean twice about how he was talking to my child, and that they were contacted by both the school and the before and after school center both boys use.

Embarrassment is a huge motivator. Sigh.

You know, in a perfect world I would have called the other mother before any of this snowballed. But in a perfect world, I also would not have lost her phone number. Or she would have called me. Or I would have thought to leave a note with the childcare folks for them to give her with my number on it and a request to call. Or she would have done the same.

But unfortunately, none of these things happened. I lost her phone number. She didn't call me (her son has our number in his phone, but in fairness he could have deleted it). Neither of us had the presence of mind to figure out an alternate contact even when witnessing our sons' friendship disintegrating. And then the boys (the FBF and another child) started taunting the Elder at school as well as at the childcare center, and all hell broke loose on a small, typical, sixth-grade boy scale.

I waited a week, and I still don't know if it was too long or not long enough. And I didn't call in the "big guns"... I emailed the guidance counselor for suggestions. But due to what was going on, he had to pass it up to the dean. And even so, when the dean asked if I wanted to "throw the book at them" I emphatically said no. These are kids. Kids do dumb things. Just get it to end.

Thankfully the dean is a bright guy and knows how middle schoolers are. I'm grateful for that, and for how he handled the situation.

No one was punished -- the parties involved got a stern talking-to, and warnings of consequences that would follow if certain behaviors continued. I hear the director of the child care center also talked to the parents of both the other boys involved, although I have no idea what was said (perhaps what was said at that meeting is why they are not supposed to be friends -- who knows?). And it was a good lesson for all of us. I've told the Elder that he and FBF need to remember to be careful with each other. I've also told him to be respectful of FBF's parents because I can't blame them for being cautious -- they likely don't know how careful I tried to be with their son, even considering all that went down.

If the shoe were on the other foot, I can't say I wouldn't react similarly, especially knowing how well kids tend to skew events to show themselves in the best light. Shoot, I hear rumors even parents tend to do that a bit...

The entire thing gives me a headache.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Yep, my right to whine about our government is assured for the next two years at least.

How about you?

NaNoWriMo 2010

Yes folks, it's that time of year again!

So, what does the fact that I'm trying to spew forth 50,000 ill-chosen and poorly-constructed words in one month mean to you, my readers?

I've got no clue.

Some years I'm so focused on (losing) NaNo, that I don't post at all. Other years I'm so busy procrastinating on my (perpetually unfinished) novel that I am inspired by post topics more than I am during any other month of the year.

And I have been known to post excerpts of execrable prose, for your reading pleasure/ pain.

I guess the best take on NaNo comes from my mother who, when reminded NaNoWriMo started today, responded with, "Oh God."

No plot, no problem? Riiiiight....

Semi-Anonymous

In spite of the pictures posted of Choreboy and me on this blog, I'm still what I refer to as a "semi-anonymous" blogger. And by that, I mean that the entire surrounding community out here in the real world isn't aware that I blog. Or if they are aware, they have no idea what the URL is and likely couldn't possibly care less.

I'm semi-anonymous by choice, and now it's becoming a necessity. Both boys are getting older and, unlike the rest of the folks I know, they are painfully aware that their mother is a [cue gasp of horror] writer.

It's gotten to where they'll do or say something, then whip their heads around, glare at me, and say, "Don't you dare put this in your blog, Mom."

"Awwww, come on, can't I?"

"No. No, no no no NO!"

"Uhm... can I put that we argue about what I can blog about in my blog?"

Resigned sigh. "Okay. I guess. But nothing else!"

So, them getting older equals fewer stories about the Elder and the Gum Zombie, and more navelgazing for their mother. Fortunately I am endlessly fascinated by belly button lint.

--------------------

In the world of food, exercise, and weight, I stayed within my calorie range again last week, and got in all my exercise as well. This current week is looking iffy on the exercise due to circumstances totally outside my control, but my hope is that I can at least make up some of the time over the weekend.

My next weigh-in is tentatively scheduled for next Thursday, November 4th. I'm hoping for 145, but we'll see if the scale chooses to cooperate. After that weigh-in I'll wait another minimum two weeks, so if I don't weigh in on the 4th I'm not going to bother until the 18th, one week before Thanksgiving.

Why the big gap in time? Well, you see, the evening of the 4th I'll be heading up to NYC to finally visit my niece, the two-month-old Divine Miss M for the weekend. And air travel plus my scale just don't mix. I've seen folks weigh just after a flight, and to those willing to do so, more power to you! I know the games my brain plays on me, though, and if I weigh in after all the exercise and decent eating I've been doing and see a higher number than I believe I should? It has the potential to send me into a tailspin. Frankly, the last thing I need a week before Thanksgiving is to get in that "what's the point?" mindset.

The fallout would be severe... as would the pie consumption.

Oh, and just a note to would-be thieves trolling blogs for burglary targets: it's only me going. The rest of the house including the Guard Hound will be home... er... guarding.

Twenty Down

I've been checking out my reports at SparkPeople, and I saw that I'm not only 20 pounds down from my high of 166 in early March, but Friday also marked exactly once month of staying precisely within my calorie range with no deviations.

Of course, for those of you following the math it also means that I lost a whopping 0.75 pounds in the past two weeks. But folks, that's three sticks of butter. I'm good with it, especially because I know I've been on point for both food and exercise, consistently. Okay, I'm also good with it because it's been Hormone Fest around here this week, so really I wasn't holding my breath too much anyway. This isn't The Biggest Loser. My high was 200 pounds, I'm now at 146 pounds, and I only have 16 pounds left until goal.

This is likely going to take awhile, especially since I'm already at what is considered to be a healthy weight for my height (although my knees would beg to differ). So, to keep myself from freaking out when the scale is moving at the speed of a constipated snail, I've embraced The Slowest Loser concept initiated by one of the Spark execs. I'm working on losing weight at the lightning-fast speed of half a pound per week, which will put me at goal on, oh, say... May 19th?

So, yeah, plenty of time to manage that.

Anyway, lightning fast speed aside, when I put my new goal date into the system I kept my exercise at 2000 calories burned per week. And they raised my calorie limit to 1820 calories per day. YIPES! Honestly, I'm not sure I can lose weight if I eat at 1820 per day consistently, but it's nice to have that flexibility.

That said, I'm forty (see, I can almost say it without stuttering now). The metabolism, she isn't happy. So I'll likely eat at the lower end of my range (1370) most days, and just enjoy knowing that I can spike up a bit higher if the urge hits and still not compromise my goal date or my "streak" of eating within range.

Exercise-wise I'm on track. I've been hitting the elliptical again since I figure it's something I need to conquer. Being straight with myself, I've gotta say that I hate that sucker because it makes me work much harder than my treadmill does. So to ease my pain somewhat I've started working out with my music cranked up.


This carries me through 20 minutes of elliptical and 30 minutes of treadmill (at 3+ MPH and 5% incline), nicely wrapping up with Flogging Molly's "Kiss My Irish Ass".

Which is pretty much what I want to say to my exercise equipment at that point anyway.

Weirdly, I've not exercised with music much before. I mean, I own an MP3 player, but I usually watch TV or read while I'm on the cardio equipment. And man, what a mistake that's been! I don't know about the rest of you, but when the music hits a certain tempo it's nearly mandatory for me to ramp up my speed to match it. It's adding some good interval training and variety to my cardio that was lacking prior to the musical inclusion.

Plus it's just plain fun. Fun is good. And "Devil's Dance Floor" is beyond good for getting that speed going. Just saying.

Okay, time to get that grocery shopping knocked out. And tonight is DATE NIGHT. Yes, for once Choreboy and I get to go out on the town without the offspring. We can talk without being interrupted by "Mo-om!!!" fifty-thousand times.

I'm not entirely sure what we'll do with ourselves, but I have every confidence we'll be able to think of something.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Pre-teen Mom Angst

The Elder was quiet on his way home today. He finally burst out that he and his best friend are not friends anymore.

He's devastated, and I'm broken-hearted for him. I kind of saw this coming when the other two guys in their formerly tight foursome got kind of down on this one kid because, as they said, he was "being a jerk" to them.

The two he was being a jerk to were still in fifth grade, while the Elder and this kid moved up to middle school.

Now it seems he doesn't need my son anymore just like he didn't need the younger two guys anymore. He feels free to not only cut off the friendship, but also to a) gang up on my son with another child, and b) rub my son's nose in the fact that he's been talking poorly about him in one of his classes.

I'm sickened and disgusted. If this continues, it smells alot like bullying.

I just wish I could fix all this for him...

So...

Last week I picked up a pair of khacki pants I'd dropped off to have hemmed and taken in at the waist. I've mentioned before that I have the very dickens of a time finding a pair of pants that will fit me. And clearly these didn't fit well either, but they looked like maybe they could be brought into line.

So anyway, I tried them on at the alterations place and they fit fine -- no gap at the waist, etc. They weren't great. My saddlebags preclude almost any pair of pants from fitting truly well. But all in all, not bad.

That was Thursday, the day before I weighed in at 146.75. And I swear, I don't know what happened between Thursday and Tuesday, when I chose to wear those slacks to work, but something gave because I put on those pants and suddenly they didn't fit worth a flip. The legs dragged, and the waist gapped hugely.

It was freakish. I've got no clue. All I can figure is I dropped a boatload of inches between those two days, but for the life of me I can't figure out how.

In other weirdness, I have developed a lovely brownish patch on the left side of my chin. Thank you sunscreen that apparently does me no good even though I dunk myself in you religiously to even go grocery shopping! Good grief.

And where I'm getting extra pigment on my face, it's leaving my hair in droves. You would think I might have gotten my paternal grandmother's greying pattern since I apparently inherited her facial hair problem, but no dice. I've got my mom's early grey, but my grandmother's mustache.

Thankfully I've got an appointment shortly to cover up those stubborn roots (and a nice little jar of wax to take care of the other... erm... issue). Hey, better living through chemistry! I'm all for it.

Okay, time to get on the treadmill before I lose all momentum. Have an awesome weekend, y'all :)

Oh yeah, and if anyone's checking, I'm still within my calories for nearly four weeks straight, and yes I'm exercising (obviously). No, I haven't weighed in again which would be another reason why I have no idea if I've lost weight since I tried on those stupid pants.