A fun time in New Hampshire

Spent fun time with Grammy and Grandpa Mike. Grandpa taught Tommy how to be a mind reader and Grammy spoiled Tommy rotten with all of his favorite foods. When he told her he likes fried broccoli (tempura) she made it for him. Then last night at eleven o'clock he was trolling around for a snack and said he wanted "tempura" lol

He got to spend Adam with Aunt Steph and Uncle Cam and said he can't wait to see them again in May when they visit Colorado. Their dog Baxter found someone to dominate and Cam and Steph spent the day pulling him off Tommy's leg. Tommy calls that "hugging". Ha ha!

Chrissy came on Monday and Tommy got to spend some fun time with her too they went bowling and to the arcade and lots of tickling.

This was a great trip and we are so lucky that his aunts took time from their busy lives to come visit us in NH it is so fun watching Tommy grow his relationships with them, I'm just sorry Adrian wasn't here to see it.

So we leave today for Vermont where Barbie meets the wilderness. I'm a city girl so traipsing through the mud gathering sap for syrup is going to be a challenge for me, but Tommy will love it

Here are a few pictures from Grammy's house:

Made it to New Hampshire

Nine hours door-to-door but we are here. We've got a zippy little car I'm calling the Green Machine. The engine sounds like a sewing machine. I didn't even know Ford still made the Fiesta, which is a good name for this bright green ride!

We've been to Dunkin' Donuts twice and I finally located the coveted Butternuts! They even had chocolate Butternut. I'm in heaven.

We are having birthday dinner for Grammy and Uncle Cam today. Tommy has big plans for a rousing game of UNO with Aunt Steph once she gets here

Then we see Chrissy tomorrow and Tuesday. Tommy is having fun with Grammy and Grandpa and is convinced he can read Grandpa's mind.

It's fun seeing Tommy with his East Coast family!

Women, join me and let's fight back for our rights!

There has been a lot of bull crap in the news lately.  First there was this photo:

A group of MEN testifying on Capitol Hill regarding Birth Control benefits.  Wrong on so many levels, the number one being that they can't focking get pregnant.  Since when do MEN qualify as experts and make decisions for US regarding our health?

This leads me to Sandra Fluke, who should be the hero of women across the country.  Contrary to what many believe, she did not go to Capitol Hill to state that she was having so much sex she should be paid for it.  If you have ANY doubt about what she said, please click here http://current.com/1mhv4kc for the transcript.

I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner, but I have a solution.  Since somehow a bunch of old, white men have been put in charge of making decisions for us it is time for us to strike back.  How you ask? 

STOP HAVING SEX WITH THE MAN IN YOUR LIFE!!! 

Honestly, if we can't get birth control covered by insurance or at least at a reasonable cost, this is the only solution.  Doesn't the right teach abstinence?  Let's everybody abstain!

The conservatives don't want to fund Planned Parenthood, another organization that provides health care services and screenings for women.  OK conservatives, no more sex for you, we are going to abstain!

All of my friends on the left are thinking, well MY man feels the same way as me, why should I hold back?  I'll tell you why.  Because if we ALL stop giving it up, men are going to get pissed.  They are going to get angry. 

Can you imagine what life would be like?   Men are going to go crazy, they can't live without sex, at least that's what they tell us.  Crime will increase, alcoholism will increase, drug use will increase, these men aren't going to know what to do with their blue balls.  They are going to go crazy, and then they are going to get smart.

They are going to help us be heard on Capitol Hill because they will be so incensed that they will write their congressMAN and their senators.  They will demand that women be given access to birth control, they will demand that Planned Parenthood be funded, they will demand that Roe V Wade be left alone, they will demand that women be once again treated like equals.  They will demand that women and women only be allowed to testify on Capitol Hill when it comes to our women's health care.

Until that happens the only people getting any will be the gay and lesbian community.  Can you imagine how incensed the right will be when the only happy, getting it on a regular basis, people are the *GASP* gays and lesbians?  That alone might light a fire under their feet.

Once our needs are met and women are once again treated respectfully, and given the right to speak on our own behalf, then HAVE AT IT!  Give your man whatever he wants.  Shower him with affection, thank him for speaking up for you and woman kind. 

So come on sister-friends, band together and get celibate!

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...