My little meatatarin.....

So I was in my room, doing a few random crunches on the floor. The Princess was doing some, too, while Side Salad was trying to sit on me. The Squirrel all of a sudden says,

"I wish everything I touched turned to meat! And gold."

.....okay.....

Then, she began running around turning things into meat. "Daddy's TV is meat! The counter is meat! The towel is meat!"

The Princess tried to reason with her little sister. "What if you touch us? Then, we will be meat, too. You can't turn everything into me-"


"You're meat! Look, Mommy! I turned her into meat!" Obviously, the Princess wasn't very convincing in her argument.


She followed me downstairs and patted me on my back. "Mommy, you're meat. I'm just kidding. But everything else is meat, meat, meat!" She bopped off to work some more magic.


"Pencil meat! Yummy yum-yum!"

"Call me on the line, you can call me, call me anytime-Mommy your phone is meat!" That's right. I am rockin' Blondie for my ringtone.

Anywho, the Princess and the Squirrel, as far as I know, have never heard the tale of King Midas. That makes it all the more intriguing that she is touching things and turning them into meat.

Guess I know what tonight's bedtime story is :)

Positive Motivation

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

This is the mantra by which I try to live my life. It's hard to try to keep my focus. We live in such fast paced times, and it seems like everyday just blows by. There is much we could all do to better ourselves but we get caught up in setting up a perfect situation prior to beginning something new. Why do this? Why not start making a better choice today? Why not change your life today? If you want to make a positive change, why no do it immediately. I am going to make a positive change beginning today. This is how my very busy day has gone and will go:


7:30 am Wake up, get dressed fix kids breakfast. We slept late
8:30 Astronaut and Squirrel to the ped for well child appointments
10:00 Big kids to school, stop by book fair and buy each kid a book
10:40 Drop Squirrel off at school and read her class "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Lily Brown Paints"
12:00 Home to toss in a load of laundry and fix Side Salad some lunch
1:00 Homework
2:30 Bus stop, to meet kids
3:15 Back home
3:20 Blog-I mean, help kids with homework, cook dinner
5:00 Take Lettuce to work
5:30 Pick up the mommy-mobile from the shop
6:30 Leave for class
7:00-9:30 Class
9:45-10:45 Gym...

It's a lot. But the very last item for the today is one of the most significat. I haven't been in the gym for ever and at my annual check up, my NP told me that I could stand to lose a few pounds. I haven't gone to the gym in months. So, today, I will begin anew. I will go Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and either Saturday or Sunday. I need to do this for me and for my kiddos. I may even take a class. The point is, I don't have to wait until the first of the year, the first of the month, the first of the week, any special time to begin. I can begin today.

Because today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Day 1: Morning

Well, I started my diet today. I am in phase 1, or the attack phase. I am debating whether I want to go 3 days as I originally planned or 5 days. Five days seems like a long time. I've only had breakfast, 2 eggs (one fried and one scrambled) and a cup of tea-Constant Comment. I love this tea. It's yummy. I have Splenda, but I am too lazy to go get it. Therefore, I am drinking unsweet tea.

I am only going to say this once so listen up. I currently weigh 192 pounds. This is the most I've ever weighed. Pre-ducklings, I weighed 127. By no means am I trying to weight that little. I would look emaciated. I honestly have very heavy bones (thanks, Dad!) so 127 on me looks like 110. After two babies, I weighed 145-155. That was my best weight. I was comfy and looked good. So basically, I need to lose approximately 40 lbs. I need to stay in attack phase for 5 days to lose that much. I am thinking that I will plan on 3, then see how I feel about going longer when I get there. I really think 4 or 5 days would be better.

Oh, about the food. I went grocery shopping last night and I got salmon, tilapia, shrimp, cage free vegetarian eggs, and tea. I already had basa and lotst of steak in the freezer. I will be having meat for lunch and a salmon filet for dinner.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Ni hao!

It is the year of the Ox. We celebrated in style with a dinner of roast duck, orange ginger tiliapia, steamed broccoli, fried rice, and Chinese noodles, with tangerines and fortune cookies on the side. We toasted with sparkling apple cider.

Squirrel and I originally went to the local Asian market in search of duck. They had duck, of course, but it was looking at me through the plastic. Literally. The ducks they had were "Buddhist style," which as far as I can tell means that the head and feet are still attached. My goal was to introduce my kids to new foods and I didn't want to terrify them so I went to Bi-Lo and got a less personable water fowl. I roasted my duckie and glazed it with some Iron Chef Orange Ginger sauce.

Here is the duck, who we affectionately called "Mr. Duck-Duck." Forgive my ugly roasting pan. It gets the job done.

Anyways, the food was much lovlier when plated.


Here is a shot of the table decorated with a pyramid of tangerines and plums.

It was a lovely meal and the kids enjoyed it. They also discovered that they like duck. Misson completed with flying colors.

Boiling Water

I was just thinking about something that happened few years ago, when I was momma to not as many kids. The Astronaut and his buddy were just hanging out. They were a couple of kindergardeners and were hanging out after school. His buddy was going to stay for dinner so I was making soup-shrimp and corn chowder to be exact.

They were watching cartoons and I was standing in the door way between the dining room and living room, talking to the boys. I'd placed a pot of water on the stove to boil to begin my soup. We were just chatting when the following dialog took place.
Astronaut: Mommy, the stove is on fire.
Me: No, that's just steam from the water starting to boil.
Astronaut: But it has fire on top.
Me: That's not funny, A. Mommy can't burn boiling water.
Astronaut: Mommy, you need to call the fire man.
Me: (agitated) A, for that last time-OH, MY GOD THE STOVES ON FIRE!!!!

I put the fire out with baking soda. And threw away my pan. And endured the laughter of 5 year olds, who retold the story to everyone for weeks.

Let's just keep this one a secret between you and me.

But here is something that is not a secret, the New Year's Survival Pack. It will help you get organized and lose weight in the new year. I think the meal planning guide is absolutely fab.

Christmas Dinner

I think that there will be around 18 people at my house this year, more than I have ever cooked for before. I am working on my menu because I need to do my shopping sometime between now and Monday. Here's what I have:

Appetizers:
Shrimp and cheese dip with chips
Veggie tray with ranch

Soup:
Butternut squash soup

Main Course:
Turkey
Ham

Collards
Green bean casserole by Smoo

Macaroni and cheese
Rice
Dressing
Candied yams

Bread:
Yeast rolls
Crescent rolls-thanks to Pink Lemonade and Pillsbury
Cornbread
Buttermilk biscuits


Beverages:
Apple cider
Grape juice
Sodas
Egg nog
Hot cocoa

Dessert:
Apple pie
Blackberry cobbler
Red velvet cake-can you make that too, Smoo?
Cookies that the kids decorated on Christmas eve

Have I left anything out?

Oh, and a gingerbread house, of course!

My Birthday

My birthday was Sunday. I am now 27 years old. I took my litttle ones to church. It was lovely. Then we just all spent the day together. My oldest brother gave me some money to buy my own gift. My godmother sent me some money. The kids gave me a card. Lettuce gave me a card and a little table that I can use in bed. I really like it! That night, we went to Wild Wings after the kids went to bed. My mom stayed with them. We got the 25 wings deal where you get five wings of each of five different flavors. I also got a side salad. I decided not to drink since it was already late so I had a tea and he had some beer. The wing flavors we chose were Pollo Loco, honey BBQ, honey mustard, garlic teriyaki, and the hottest of the hot wings. I can't recall what they called them. I loved the garlic teriyaki. They were really good! So I decided to try the hot ones. Here is what happened:

Me: Mmm this is pretty good but it's not really that haaa-, Haaaa-, HAAAAA-! ACK! ACK! GAH! MAH TAMB! MAH TAMB!

I sat there shaking my hands back and forth like Plies the rapper. I probably looked like an ass hat. Lettuce just stared at me, like he does when ever strange things happen to me. It felt like I'd just taken a big swig of some good ol' HCl-hydrochloric acid. My lips and tongue felt like they were about to just fall the eff off! I ate a piece of garlic bread-didn't help, and drank some tea-didn't help. I was so shaken that I couldn't eat another one of those. I took them home and gave them to my mommy.

I should have warned her about the wings. Tsk, tsk.