I think meat is gross

I always have, ever since I was a kid.  I eat it sometimes, but not a lot.  Here are some of my issues:

Meat on a bone:  Possibly the grossest thing EVER.  All I can think about are tendons and cartilage.  Chicken wings?  No way in HELL.  Ribs?  Not in this lifetime.  T-bone steak?  Mmmmm, no.  I don't even eat turkey on Thanksgiving because carcass was involved.  Chicken is OK if it's white meat and I never have to see the bone it came off of.  To this day if my Dad fries a chicken, he'll make sure I have a piece that I like, and has even been known to cut meat off of the bone for me and I'm FORTY-TWO YEARS OLD.
Tommy loves to come home from school and tell me he had "chicken on da bone" for lunch.  It makes me gag, so he says it over and over.  The kid knows how to push my buttons.

Raw meat:  Probably a tie with meat on a bone in regard to the grossness factor.  I was a check out girl in a grocery store in college.  Whenever I would see someone with meat in their cart I would do a silent prayer that they wouldn't come through my line.  Especially if containers of liver were involved.  If I wasn't so lucky I would literally spray Windex on my hands afterward just in case some got on me. 

Once in awhile I'll cook something in the crock pot.  The meat has to be in a package that I can cut open and dump into the crock pot without getting any on me.  Just thinking about it makes me want to gag.  Possibly the worst raw meat is Bacon.  I love to eat it, but I don't want to touch it.  When I was growing up I mastered the art of cooking it in the microwave without having to touch it (it was my job to make it if we were having BLT's or breakfast for dinner).  Tongs were involved.  I still have tongs and that's how I cook it at home.  Adrian just shakes his head at me. 

It's not that I am morally opposed to eating meat, I just think it's slimy and gross.  However this Pink Slime stuff in the news has seriously taken my meat issues to the extreme.  You all know I love me some pink...in my clothing, shoes, purses, etc.  NOT in my food.  Practically the only beef I will eat is ground beef...but I'm seriously thinking about cutting that out of my diet.  Just the thought of these unknown "beef trimmings" is enough to send me to a padded room.  I saw that much of the meat at the local grocery store contains pink slime.  I think I'll be buying Organic ground beef from now on.  I know if my friend Russ is reading this he is shaking his head at me right now but I can't help it.

So please, if you invite me over for dinner and I skip the meat portion of the meal, don't be offended.  I'd rather focus on you and the delightful conversation instead of wondering what part of the cow I am consuming.

20 TWENTY 20

Finally hit the 20 pound mark.  I'm pretty proud of myself and it got me to thinking.  I look in the mirror and I see the loss in my face, and I feel it in my clothes, I am just having a hard time wrapping my brain around 20 pounds.

What is 20 pounds?  Well, I came up with a few ideas:

-4 bags of flour
-2 bags of potatos
-20 pounds of butter
-1 bag of dog food

When Tommy was born he weighed 5lb 3oz.  Basically I lost 4 newborn Tommys.  I can't believe I was carrying all of that around with me.  I'm pissed at myself for getting into that mess in the first place.  I've lost a big chunk of weight before, after I had Tommy, but somehow it all came back.  Being a mom to a baby and a toddler...I lost track of myself.  I'll tell you right now, that is NOT happening again!

So I'm moving on to lose another 20 (I hope).  Someone recently told me nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, and that is the truth!

Losing weight sucks

The benefits are great, like I have a new wardrobe of things that haven't fit in a long time, but the actual process isn't fun.

I've been going to a place to help me with this, and after a month I was doing pretty good, down 10 pounds and almost 17 pounds from the week after Christmas.  This week came to a screeching halt.  The scale didn't move one iota.  Normally that would send me into a tailspin, a major binge in all things lethal to weight loss.  You know, french fries...oh who am I kidding, ANYTHING fried, and if it's a donut, even better.  Sweets are my biggest downfall, a handful of m&m's here, a milkshake here, a brownie there.  Yeah, that's how I got myself into this situation.

So anyway, at my first appointment the weight loss place lady told me 1400 calories per day, which was more than I was eating, so it sounded good to me.  As I said, I was doing fine until this week.

Now I see this guy I call Nurse Ratchet.  He told me I should be at 1100 calories per day.  Let me put this into perspective for you.

The Oriental Grilled Chicken Salad at Applesbees is 1,270 calories.  For a damn SALAD with GRILLED chicken.  Not even the crispy chicken which adds 70 calories.  Hell, for 70 calories (equates to 7 peanut m&m's by the way) give me the crispy!

A piece of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory...wait for it...1,090.  Even if you share it with someone it's 500 calories!

A Sonic Cheeseburger, hold the mayo thankyouverymuch...720!  That doesn't include fries either.

Now let's look at it from the other side.  1,100 calories equals:

16.9 Vodka Soda Cocktails.  Yes, I can drink this many, maybe, but only in Vegas
110 Peanut m&m's (yes, I am fixated on this)
7.3 Crunchy Fresco Tacos from Taco Bell
12.9 apples

I'm pretty sure none of the above will keep me very full for a day, except maybe the apples.  If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, what will 12.9 apples do for you?  I'm scared to know.

So I'll keep trucking along denying myself the things I love most, but I will tell you this:  Fitting into a size smaller, or something I haven't worn since Milli Vanilli was popular, feels much better than any donut or cheeseburger, or even my beloved m&m's EVER did.

Planning ahead pays off, so back off haters!

I am a planner.  I plan ahead for things.  Sometimes way ahead.  It drives my husband nutty sometimes.  I tell him to blame my dad, who is also a big planner.  Dad is worse than me though, he'll barely have breakfast swallowed and he's wondering what's for lunch.  If he goes to a new place for dinner he looks at the menu online before so he can decide what he's having.  I'm not THAT bad, I don't think.

My latest case in point is our Spring Break vacation.  Tommy wanted to go back east to visit his grandparents and aunts and uncles and learn how to make maple syrup.  In early January I looked up flights and saw we could go direct to Boston and back for $99 each way.  I booked it, I knew it wouldn't get any less expensive and two people flying round trip for $430 total was awesome.

Adrian was scheduled to be out of town that weekend, I kept asking him to look into switching things around and he kept putting me off.  So yesterday he arranges to not be on that road trip and says now he can go with us.  Uh huh.  Less than a month out I check Southwest and our flight out is now over $400 for ONE WAY.  The flight back is sold out.  So now if he goes, I don't know how he'll get there, how long he will stay, etc.  A big, fat I TOLD YOU SO was on the tip of my tongue, but I didn't say it.  I just revelled in the fact that as usual, I WAS RIGHT. 

Then there is the rental car.  Renting a car in Boston is like paying off the national debt, it is super expensive.  I have a friend whose husband named me as his sister-in-law to get a big discount at Hertz in the past (Thank you Laura and Paul!) but he's no longer there.  Adrian thinks he is the king of getting cheap rental cars because he travels so much.  I have been asking him for weeks to get me a car for that week.  In his defense, he has been working super hard and it's not really a priority, so I will give him that.  Last night I got tired of waiting and got one myself for $200 for the week.  That's pretty killer, usually it's over $500 for the week, so again, pretty dang happy with my skills.

Not sure how the trip will go, Tommy and I are moving forward with our cheap flights and car.  As for Mr. Dater, he may be flying in on a cargo plane and hitchhiking to NH and Vermont because I'm sure not going back to Boston to get his procrastinating self.

So, for all of you haters out there, planning ahead pays off.  Waiting for a cheaper ticket or getting a better deal at the last minute?  That's NOT how I roll.  And for those who are interested, I am having a yakisoba noodle bowl and a yogurt for lunch!  Maybe the apple doesn't fall THAT far from the tree...

8 years ago today...

I went to my 36 week OB appointment. I was tired of being pregnant and hadn't felt real great that week.

They did the routine stuff, peed in a cup, got my blood pressure taken, etc. Things got pretty serious and they took my BP a few more times. As it turned out I had Pre-eclampsia and they were worried so they sent me to the hospital for observation. Adrian was in the process of heading to the airport for St. Louis and my doctor said to call and have him come back.

So I leave the OB office and drove myself in a wicked bad snowstorm to the hospital. My mom (she worked at the doctor's office) offered to go with me but I declined because it didn't seem like a big deal.

Turns out it was a big deal since I ended up having a baby the next day! Thomas Alan Michael Dater was literally pulled into the world on February 12, 2004 and changed my life forever.

You love your spouse and you love your family but loving your child is completely different. Tommy has made our lives so much better. He's smart and funny and sassy and he keeps us on our toes. He's the perfect blend of Adrian and me.   Happy Birthday Tommy!  Love you!

It's a dark, sad time in the Dater household

Adrian opted not to stay at the jinxed Marriott last night and came home.  I was asleep but vaguely remember hearing some pretty serious swearing coming from him.

I just hope that the below is still intact when I get home from work later:

You may send your condolences to Adrian through this blog!

PS:  A note to Gisele, getting caught on video blasting the receivers isn't a way for your Tommy to have too many friends in the locker room, just sayin'
 

It's the biggest game of the year, and Adrian's team, the Patriots, are playing...

We have the big screen TV all ready...and where will he be watching?  In a hotel room.  Yup, you read that right.  At first he told me that I needed to take Tommy and go watch somewhere else.  Riiight...on a Sunday night, Tommy has school the next day, you are NOT kicking me out of my own house.

I suggested he go to his friend Bob's house.  Nope, because the last time the Pats were in a big game he watched it there and they lost, so now Bob's house is a jinx.  I'm not sure if that means the house, or if maybe Bob is the jinx, or their dog Brady (yes, named after Tom Brady) is a big, hairy jinx.

So a hotel it is.  Let me tell you about past championship games.

Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002, we were newly married.  I always want to watch for the commercials (I work in advertising, I'm interested).  He said the game couldn't be on in the house.  Riiiight, that's not happening, so I holed up in the bedroom to watch while he yelled at me from downstairs that I was ruining everything.  Finally I gave in because it wasn't worth the trouble and turned it off.  My parents called to ask if Adrian was happy about the win and I had to tell them he didn't know they had won.  He spent the rest of the night watching the highlights.

Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004...this is the year Janet Jackson had her wardrobe malfunction and I was VERY pregnant.  Tommy was actually born 9 days later and was NOT named after Tom Brady FYI.  Anyway we were at my sister's house amongst her friends who were rooting against the Patriots if I remember correctly.  Adrian got so worked up (frankly I am amazed he was even there watching) he finished watching the game in the basement alone.

2004 World Series, the Red Sox against the Cardinals, it's the final game, which he had been watching downstairs (I was upstairs, do you see a pattern here) and suddenly I am aware the TV is no longer on downstairs so I go looking for him.  He's pacing in the backyard, in the dark.  Once the Sox finished off the Cardinals I yelled out the window "you can come in and stop acting like a jerk now".  Again, he spent the rest of the night watching the highlights and what he missed whilst pacing in the dark.

We were actually AT game 4 during the 2007 series when the Sox beat the Rockies, so he was fine, all wrapped up in the game and the excitement.  I believe that's the only championship game we have actually watched together.

So tonight, I'll be upstairs watching the game while Adrian is across town at the Marriott.  Likely pacing the halls with the game turned off.  I really hope the Patriots win, otherwise the Marriott will be deemed a jinx and we'll never get to stay in one again.

Go Pats!!!