#cbdiet update

I wish I could say that I started running like I promised. Like I promised myself. Unfortunately, I’ve had this sleep problem this week. Usually the problem is not enough sleep, but this week it was too much sleep. As in, more than ten hours a night and spending most of the day in a fog wishing I was in bed. After some analyzing this morning when I only got 7.5 hours of sleep last night and was pretty sure I woke up dead, it was pointed out to me that I a) likely have low iron and b) I need to get on a multi-vitamin. So steak for dinner tonight, and I pledge to pick up women’s gummy vitamins tonight AND start taking them.

Weigh-in: I’m back to exactly where I started.

Exercise: nada (oh wait, I did some serious gardening last weekend which left me hurting for a couple days and I mowed the overgrown lawn)

Successes: I think I’ve got my eating under control (except last night when I was too beat to make a real dinner and we had crescent roll pizza rolls and TGIF any-tizer fried green beans which I baked in the toaster oven). I don’t think I overeat, and I rarely have any late night snacks.

Splurges: there was a chocolate fountain at my cousin’s graduation last weekend. I didn’t have any of that (my kids gorged on the marshmallows though) but there was this awesome pineapple cake … I had two pieces.

Recipes: Yes! Okay, so when I was in Delaware/Philly a couple weekends ago we went to Max Brenner’s for brunch which is our thing. And they had the brunch menu out, which included a sandwich with “olive pesto” on it. We ordered breakfast and then we asked for a sample of the olive pesto. Which I have recreated for you. It is awesome.
- A handful of black olives
- A handful of pitted kalamata olives
- A couple tablespoons prepared or homemade pesto (I used prepared because it was handy)
- About a tablespoon of sundried tomatoes (reconstituted if dried, mine are packed in olive oil)

Put all into one of those little food processors that everyone has (right? Well, mine is an attachment for my immersion blender). Add kalamata olive juice and/or black olive water as needed until it is pesto consistency. Since pesto already has oil in it, I didn’t want to add more and the juice helps thin it out perfectly. Spread on a sandwich appropriately – awesome!!

Seriously. Awesome. Have I told you how awesome?

Photos:


(from top left, grilled chicken sandwich with olive pesto, olive pesto in a terrible bowl for photographing, grilled chicken salad, and my funny oldest boy)

Plan: I need a plan. My first order of business is to get my body into working order. Vitamin, proper sleep. Then I need to start working out. I need to stop with the excuses, I just haven’t figured out how. Please, tell me how.


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Oh look! Friday! A list!

1.
So I’m failing miserably at #cbdiet. I genuinely planned to start running again on Monday, but then there was a monsoon that started at 3pm and continued through the evening. And the rest of the week fell through. This Monday, I swear. I’m going to stick the rest of #cbdiet here because it’s depressing to spell it all out: this morning I was at 149.2, which means I’m a total of .6 down since we started this. I haven’t been exercising. I could give you excuses, but the bottom line is that I haven’t. I haven’t been eating much, but randomly. I skipped dinner two nights this week and lunch on Thursday. I have no photos and I have no recipes. Better next week! Fingers crossed!

2. My dad was in the hospital overnight on Wednesday. He has some weird infection on his ankle and his leg is swollen so they did a bunch of tests, couldn’t figure out what was wrong and sent him home on antibiotics while they run his blood culture. All I keep thinking about is that flesh-eating bacteria that’s been in the news lately. My family needs to stay out of the hospital. That is all.

3. I am battling a fierce case of eczema. This is what my feet look like right now:




I have one spot on my left hand, but it is contained. My feet, on the other hand, are losing the battle. Pain! Itching! Scratching until they burn instead of itch! I wrapped them to keep me away from them, but last night it was so fierce that I ripped the wrappings off and scratched them raw. It’s lovely, really. I tried to get my steroid cream from the pharmacy tonight and they told me that my dermatologist would have to call authorization to my insurance, or I would have to pay the cash price of $788. After I drove home while having a panic attack, my husband cut open my old tube to salvage enough until I can call the dr on Monday.

4. Stress. It’s all stress. And I don’t even feel that stressed, mostly! I have been a little snappish at the kids, and a little overwhelmed at work, but since I got back from that work trip everything has seemed worse, somehow.

5. Last weekend I did take a breather for myself, and went to Delaware for the weekend to spend some time with my best friend and her husband for his birthday. It’s been killing me not to say anything on here about it but it was a) a surprise that I was going to be there at all and b) there was a separate surprise birthday party scheduled for Saturday night. Secrets! Agghhh! It was so much fun, and it was so nice to see the Delaware contingency (this also includes all people who technically lived in New Jersey and Maryland but are in that same friend group). We had brunch at Max Brenner’s before I left for home on Sunday and the whole weekend was a breath of fresh air. A little cat-laden air, but relaxing air nonetheless.





(5/11 of her cats – her home is the Cat Ranch, as she has 11. And yes, I’m allergic. But they’re so cute!)





(Mexican hot chocolate from Max Brenner’s. Not a Becky trip without it)

6. We are entering birthday season. We went to one party two weekends ago and Hubs took the kids to one while I was gone. We have a birthday party this weekend and a graduation party, another party the following weekend and at least three that haven’t been set up yet to my knowledge. Since we are going out of town for a weekend in September, I know we’ll miss someone’s but we always go to as many as possible.

7. In related news, we have decided not to do a party for Henry this year. He’s going to be two on 8/18, and I feel so much relief having made this decision. We have instead decided to do fun stuff all day and end with cake. As long as there’s cake, Spencer will be happy. Did you know 8/18 is National Cupcake Day? Perhaps there will be cupcakes instead.

8. I started using twitter again, and I mostly feel like I’m talking to a wall. Does everyone who tweets feel this way at first? Did I get into it too late? When I try to get into conversations I feel like I’m trying to edge in on conversations with the cool crowd in a coming-of-age movie. They have their friends, and don’t need anymore. Polite but I feel ignored. Bah. One more way to be socially awkward.

9. The funny things about my melodramatic “parenting fail” post from earlier this week is that my children hardly ever even eat dinner. I’ve never pushed it and they’ve always eaten enough through the day that I just put food in front of them – if they eat it, great and if not, whatever. Last night we had Thai food, but they had Greek yogurt when they first got home so neither touched their bowls although they had tried it before I put some out to confirm they liked it. The night before was jambalaya, and S had all the shrimp out of his and H made a mess with the rice but neither consumed much. I wonder what my shame at Ramen was aimed at – feeding my husband Ramen? Is that anti-feminist? That I didn’t have the energy after working a 10.5 hour day? Eh, whatever. I’m always harder on myself than necessary.

10. Happy Friday!

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Parenting fail

Sometimes I do too much, or try to do too much. Sometimes I am wrought with ambition and come home from a busy day at work to clean the garage or mow the lawn, do several loads of laundry or a semi-gourmet meal.

And then there are days like the other day where I fed my small children ramen. As in, blocks of dried pasta with sodium packets.

I used only half the seasoning, and I sautéed some veggies and scallops to mix in too, and honestly it was pretty satisfying. It I still felt like a parenting failure. Would it have been healthier to make grilled cheese and/or pb&j? Should I have picked something up from someone who was more willing to cook than I? Am I totally being too hard on myself?




the offending meal

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July books

I spent most of July on my iPad and not much time reading. But here goes!

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali: mixed feelings. It was good - really good. But I didn't like how biased she was, even though she had every right to be, considering her upbringing. Does that make sense?

The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead: loved.

The Lens and the Looker by Lory S Kaufman: terrible

Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson: I didn't read all of this but I enjoyed what I did read. I'll probably work on it on the plane this weekend

Discovery of Witches by Rebecca Harkness: I didn't think I'd like this at first, but I really loved it and can't wait until I get the next one from the library.


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Of friendship and herbs

I was tending my "herb garden" the other day and it occurred to me that they were a lot like my friendships.




Basil is the wonder herb. You ignore it, it gets a little droopy but when you take care of it, it flourishes. These are the best friends - if you fall out of contact your relationship may suffer short term, but with a little attention it flourishes again quickly.




I thought my rosemary was dead - it wouldn't grow. Then I left it alone and it sprouted beautifully. You can't rush some. Friendships.




My parsley is a little scraggly, but it's hanging in there. Old friend.




And no matter how much I love cilantro, it's never coming back. This is a friend that you should just let go.
And now I'm off to cultivate some of my friendships! I hope my herbs get watered while I'm gone ...
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Cardboard box diet ...what week is this?

I had to skip last week because I was stuck out of town for work. I could have done it, but a) I refuse to weigh myself on random scales and b) there was a lot of eating, a lot of sitting around and not a lot of exercise. Okay, no exercise. I brought my running shoes and my bathing suit but I just didn't feel like working out around the golden co-eds lounging around my hotel so I passed. Terrible reason. I'm not truly back in the saddle even though I am home, I'm so busy playing catch up that I've gotten nothing done healthwise. In keeping myself accountable, I'm posting this even though i've just been terrible.

Weigh in: somehow I have managed to lose another .2, so I'm down a grand total of 1.2 pounds. In ... Four weeks? Obviously I'm not trying my hardest yet.

exercise completed: this is obviously where my hearts not in it. I want to, I do. But I just can't seem to talk myself into it yet. I mow the lawn and pull weeds every weekend, but that's really my only regular workout.

splurges: again, I'm just not doing well here either. Dr. Pepper on Wednesday, wine several times over the past couple weeks, beer once, heavy dinners, ice cream wednesday afternoon ...

success story: I have continued to stay away from my assistant's candy dish. I think this is my only success story.

recipes I've got nothing. I can say that when I've been home I have been cooking from my pantry and we're doing well there.

photos:I went to Anthony's Runway 84 while I was in Ft. Lauderdale and I had the Zuppe di Pesce which looked similar to this (not my photo, and not from Runway 84, I thought my work associates would think I was strange if I whipped out my camera) and it was amazing. I really should have taken a picture of my own.



This week! I will be better! Need help, come stop me from eating! I guess it could be worse, I could be gaining weight with all this eating-and-not-exercising I've been doing.



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Out of Town Whine

You do not want to know how hard I worked for this bottle of wine today. Needless to say I will never again purchase a bottle of wine to take back to my empty hotel room without first deciding if I will be able to get into it once I get back there. Yes, it had a cork. No, I didn't even contemplate this until I was already back at my hotel and had handed the keys of my little toy rental car back to the valet dude, trudged up to my room with my groceries for breakfasts, takeout goat cheese hamburger and my bottle of wine. As my key card went into the lock I had that epiphany. You know, the one you have when you realize your best laid plans ...

Anyhow, because I have some experience with pressurized wine issues, I decided the best course of action was to undress, take my hamburger and my wine into the bathtub (I was hungry!) and dig at the cork with my car key until it fit into the wine. Then I hosed off the bathroom, got in my pjs, and sat on the balcony writing reports and drinking my wine.

Then of course my eight-year old company laptop battery went dead forcing me back inside to finish working. And now I am reporting to you. And I closed the blinds after realizing I picked at a booger while there were all kinds of co-eds enjoying the pool below me that I could see and therefore COULD SEE ME.

I actually like traveling for my job. Without going into any specifics, the occasional overnight trip is a nice change from the norm for me. No parental responsibilities, a little time to myself. All good things. But I haven't had to travel for an extended trip since before Henry was born and to say it's a hardship on my little family ... Well, I guess it's really not but I sure do miss them. I'm out of town all week and a day or two next week. Tomorrow I'm meeting up with a friend who actually lives local to me but will be in town for work herself tomorrow. So yay for not drinking alone!

And can I say a few things here? Like, I'm driving a Fiat and it's totally a toy car. I feel so silly in it, but it's fun! And those commercials where they do the 180 and end up parallel parking ... I can totally see not needing a stunt man for that. I couldn't even fit my one medium suitcase in it - they had to fold the back seats down!

And I'm in an absolutely gorgeous hotel. Really, I'll possibly post photos tomorrow if I wake up before needing to get to work. But no free Internet! $25 dollars a day parking! Good lord, man! Seriously, No! Free! Internet! What is the world coming to? Should I start sleeping at Starbucks?

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