Starving on Day Two

Day Two.

5:50 a.m. – Use brand new just-arrived-yesterday juicer in bathroom as to not wake sleeping son. Am impressed. Juicer rocks! Shove in an apple (whole), 5 carrots pulled in the dark and rain from the garden last night (I’ve GOT to remember to prepare before it gets dark!), a beet (there is now a red stain on my bedroom carpet from transferring machine back to kitchen), and some mint (also gathered in the rain and dark). Drink. Almost enjoy. Needs sugar.

 6:30 a.m. – Protein too low at last plasma draw. Go to work 45 minutes early. Contemplate napping at desk, but decide to work instead. Must eat lots of protein in next two days before redraw so I can keep giving. Need Galveston money. Plan on soy beans, protein powder and nuts. Might have to break cleanse and eat some chicken. Oh, darn. 

Update: Rouge bit of breakfast shrapnel from Day Onehas been removed. No invasive action was necessary. It was scared into submission and traveled down my throat on its own during the night.

8:00 a.m. – Getting pretty hungry.

8:12 a.m. – Told of doughnuts in the break room. Do not get up. I repeat: Do NOT get up.

8:24 a.m. – Beet burp. Eww.

8:30 a.m. – Daycare calls. Riley’s puking his guts out. Go get him.

9:30 a.m. – Starving. Drink half a mango coconut water smoothie. Pretty good except for the protein powder I dumped in it. 

9:31 a.m. -Choke on bit of cayenne pepper from smoothie that hit the back of my throat wrong.

9:52 a.m. – Drink rest of smoothie.

10:15 a.m. – Clean up Riley puke. 

11:00-11:45 am. – Eat lunch while butchering a butternut squash for supper. Lunch was julienne apple, radishes (which I don’t really care for), raw sweet potato (still think this is weird), celery (didn’t add. hate the stuff.), ginger, scallions and olive oil/lemon sauce, which I am growing fond off. But geez on the ginger already! Half the stuff I make calls for it. I didn’t really care for lunch. So excited I have another meal of it coming…

12:00 p.m. – Eat dried fruit and nuts. Pretend lunch didn’t cut it.

2:30 p.m. Eat 2/3 family sized bag of soy beans. Been addicted for a couple months now. They steam in 3 minutes and are delicious. Go back to work when hubby gets home.

5:30 p.m. – Eat 2 servings of yummy butternut squash soup. Go get medicine for Riley that I forgot the 2nd time I was in town. Bad mom.

6:30 p.m. – Gave husband supper suggestions. Even though the fridge is full, the counter is covered in produce and the pantry is stuffed, “There is nothing to eat”. Get hungry giving him suggestions.

8:15 p.m. – Ate one of Riley’s cheese crackers that he didn’t eat instead of putting it in a baggie with the others. It was SO good.

8:30 p.m. – Ate half a banana and 5 strawberries.

9:30 p.m. – Lemon and honey water.

10:30 p.m. – Ate another of the cheese crackers.

10:31 p.m. – Ate another of the cheese crackers.

10:32 p.m. – Ate another of the cheese crackers.

10:33 p.m. – Ate last of the cheese crackers. And loved it. Read zombie book in bed and went to sleep before I could eat anything else.

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The Night Before.

8:30 p.m. – Prepare breakfast, lunch and snacks. Breakfast is a Green Machine Smooth. Romaine lettuce (Wal-Mart didn’t have any so I used a spring mix), kale, pineapple, mango, ginger, parsley (mine recently died after a whole year of being alive, so I use mint and still consider my parsley growing a success) and water. Sounds alright, right? You’d be wrong. 

Day One.

6:50 a.m. – Stuff greens and rest of smoothie into blender. Warn Riley (he’s now 3) that I am going to turn the blender on. Flip switch. Nothing happens. Push button on wall plug. Try again. Nothing. Try another plug, then another. Finally ran across the dewy grass to borrow my Grandma’s. Her response? “Blender? I don’t know. I have something that might be a blender…” How do you forget what a blender is? Anyway, take 60’s model blender back to house. Transfer contents. Warn son. Blend. Pour into glass. Goodbye kisses (and tantrum that I am not taking him to school) and out the door. Take my first sip in car. Verdict – disgusting. Tastes like ground up greens with water, which is exactly what it is. Choke down the last bit as I park the car and nearly vomit. It was mostly water that had settled out and floating bits of spinach and kale. Try not to think about what I just did. The pineapple, mango and ginger did not help the taste… at all. I at least had the presence of mind to freeze the fruit and refrigerate the water so the “smoothie” was at least cold.

 7:20 a.m. – First order of business at work: a cup of tea to get the taste of the smoothie out of my mouth. I use honey. Though I am not sure the cleanse gods would agree, I have already allowed myself this one caveat to my detox. Gotta have my tea sweet.

 8:45 a.m. – Still picking bits-o-green out of my mouth. Burps are the worse. Ever. Kale, spinach, mint…ugh. 

8:55 a.m. – Break the rules and have a piece of Xylitol containing gum. Horrible green smoothie taste almost gone. I love you, Trident.

9:40 a.m. – Hunger strikes. Drink more water. Already peed 3 times this morning. 

10:10 a.m. – STILL have not managed to dislodge rogue piece of kale (?) stuck in the back of my throat after a cup of hot tea and oh, say, 40 ounces of water. 

10:30 – Try my first nut/dried fruit ball thing. Recipe made it look like a cinch to make, but trying to get dried fruit and nuts into a little ball to roll in sesame seeds is really hard. So mine are more nut/dried fruit mushes with sesame seeds dumped on top. It’s actually really good. But who am I to judge? I’d eat a dead horse right about now. Heck, maybe even a Green Monster Smoothie. Nope. Nevermind. Take that last part back. 

11:25 a.m. – Lunch. Thank GOD. Lunch consists of an avocado, half a yellow bell pepper that I paid a ridiculous $1.78 for, and 5 grape tomatoes, a scallion I dug up from the garden last night with a flashlight in my hand, mixed with olive oil, lime juice and S&P. I left out the cilantro because I hate it. You are supposed to stuff it back in the avocado shells but I have no one here to impress, so I just dumped it into a Tupperware container. Not bad. Too oniony but surprisingly filling. 

12:00 p.m. – Burping onions and avocadoes. Gross. Should have left the onions off. The situations necessitates more gum. It contains Phenylalamine. Don’t know what that is but it’s probably not Whole Living approved. So suck it. 

1:15 p.m. – Snack of strawberries. So good I feel like I am cheating.

2:50 p.m. – Eat 3 nut balls (Yes, I know how it sounds, but that’s what they are!) and drink a tiny V8. Gotta have something on my stomach before plasma donation.

3:30 p.m. – Scheduling error. Couldn’t donate plasma. Instead, spend a ridiculous $11 on two butternut squash at market on way home.

6:00 p.m. – Have surprisingly yummy supper of Roasted Cauliflower and Red Peppers with olives, almonds and EVOO/lemon dressing. Endure negative comments and snears from both family members about my meal, including “what’s THAT?” and “that’s ALL you are eating?” Force one member to try it as punishment.

8:30 p.m. – Pretty hungry. Eat a banana and have a glass of lemon/honey water while painstakingly preparing tomorrow’s lunch, which I am sure will disappoint. Looks shady.

9:30 p.m. – Seriously? How can the kale from this morning STILL be stuck in the back of my throat? I’ve had food and drink to wash it down. Now it’s making me angry. I think I need to go probe with my toothbrush. Hopefully I won’t poke in the wrong place and trigger my gag reflex.

11:00 p.m. Proud to report no stomach growling today!

The Cleanse

Where have I been? I’ve sat down to write it out many times. I actually did once, back in Feb. Here’s the short version: son was hospitalized for a few days for RSV and pneumonia. He was having recurrent eye infections too during this time. IV’s, breathing treatments, masks, and 3 days stuck in a hospital bed was not fun for him… or us. Two days after we got to go home, I was rear-ended. Car was totaled. And WAS paid off. In fact, we have just paid off my husband’s car last winter. We were using the extra money to pay off my student loans. No more. Had to buy a new vehicle. Husband is ecstatic about truck. I was upset and sad and a little depressed, so I just stopped keeping up with the blog. Between going to the chiropractor for the wreck, doctor’s appointments for Riley, dealing with insurance, buying a vehicle and finding out the guy that hit me had none,I was more than a little stress and busy.

 I can’t say that I am back for good, but I am going to be writing about this detox/cleanse thing I am starting today. I eat too much crap and I want to eat better. I notice that when I eat cookies, I crave cookies. But on the flip side, if I eat salad, I crave salad. So I’ve got to reset, to get sugar and junk food out of my system and be healthy. I’ve gained a few pounds, but really I think my weight has just shifted. While I don’t weigh all that more than the last time I wrote, my stomach and love handles are making a run for it. I look like I have a baby bump, just minus the baby. So, with all that being said, I started my cleanse. It came to me via my email inbox a couple weeks ago. The first week is all fruits and veggies. As you progress through the month, you add back in dairy and grains and meat. 

I did my grocery shopping for week one on Saturday. I ran out of room in my refrigerator. My kitchen counter now looks like a produce stand. But that is also good for Riley. When he can see apples and bananas and the like, he wants to eat them more than when things are hidden away in the fridge. I have also noticed that Jordan will eat bananas if I leave them lying in plain sight on the counter. For supper, they will be eating what I am eating, but I’ll throw in our usual fish or chicken or meatloaf. These situations will be hard for me to resist the “good” food, since I am sure I will be starving. On the “what to expect” from the cleanse this week it said 4 good stomach growls a day is good. Ha. I never let my stomach growl. Growls mean something is angry. I prefer to feed it before it yells at me. Keep it happy, ya know. I HATE a growling stomach. It hurts! So, this should be interesting.

 I am also expected to appear in a bathing suit the middle of June for a mini-vacation with Jordan’s family to Galveston. Can’t very well swim in short and a T-shirt. And while “bikini” has never been in my vocabulary, this cleanse may help me to look a little better in my tasteful, black, Mom one-piece.

Tomorrow: Day One!

Patience is still a virtue.

And I am still working on it. Especially now, when I am trying to type this without an “s” key. My dad was babysitting a few weeks back one day when Riley was sick. There was an incident with some car keys and we lost a few letter. Jordan got them all back on, but S still poses a problem.

Anyway, back to Patience. I was at Hobby Lobby yesterday (scrapbooking supplies were 40% off!!!) and the whole time I was in there, they kept calling people to come check. They had almost every line in there open and they were all several people deep. A new checker came up and I got in her line, thinking it would be the fastest. The line I WAS in, ran through two people that had been behind me, before it was finally my turn.

The ladies in front of me were taking flipping forever. When she whipped out a checkbook, I silently cursed her. When she waited until the cashier gave her the total before even starting  to fill it out, I mentally squished her head by blinking hard. Then her daughter had the cashier helping her looking up something online on her smartphone. REALLY?! There are 47 people in line, for Pete’s sake! JUST WRITE THE CHECK! And she was the slooooowest check writer ever, too.

FINALLY, she tore it off, handed it to the girl, and got her receipt. THEN she offered me a 40% coupon that she didn’t use. She saved me $6.50. And I silently plotting her death the whole time. I felt a little bad, and mentally “un-cursed” her.

The universe was trying to teach me patient pays off.

Running kids over with mowers

I started cleaning out my “five things for each room” in my living room a couple days ago. I started with my scrapbooking cabinet.

It holds everything I need for all the scrapbooking I never do: cardboard stencils I’ve never used, patterned tissue paper I got when I bought something breakable at the Dollar Tree (that I have since gotten rid of, I imagine) that I have never used, stickers, decals, cute little papery leaves, gemstones, pipecleaners (you never know when you are going to need a fuzzy pipecleaner) that are now called “chenille stems” because that makes them so much more glamourous, patterned papers, glue, glue dots (A-MAZing invention), markers, mapcolors from my freshman year in high school (yup, we had to color), crayons from before my freshman year in high school and unopened scrapbooking kits (thanks, Mom! I really DO plan on using them!)

So, I threw away the cardboard stencils, tissue paper (I mean really, why did I save these?), paper cutouts of flowers and whatnot, some sports themed wrapping paper and file folders that held all this stuff. Okay, I didn’t throw away the file folders. I just moved them to the back room.

Also in my scrapbooking cabinet is everything “Riley”. Pictures, artwork, mementoes, all waiting to be glued onto fancy paper and labeled for future rememberings. While it would be nice to say, “I own every piece of artwork he’s ever made!” it is not feasible. I filled up a binder from his first 5 months at school. I had to whittle it down. Think how much I would have after 18 years? Report cards, tests graded with all A+’s (a mother expects no less!), school permission slips, blue ribbons from all the science fairs he wins, football trophies (according to his father)…

Along with all these mementoes are little reports on half slips of paper that he gets at school every day. It tells me how much of each meal and snack he ate, how his nap went, what his morning and afternoon activities were, diaper changes (for the babies) and other misc pertinent info. I look forward to being handed these and I treasure the little insights into my son’s day. It’s a peek into my son’s life away from me. I have kept every single one of these. He’s been in daycare for almost a year now. One everyday. That’s a LOT of slips. About a 3 inch high stack. Again, not feasible for me to save everyone. Though I, as his mother, might care very much that on 2/21/11 he made a heart owl, but it’s not something I need to remember and hang on to for the rest of my life.

So I threw away all but a handful of these. I kept my favorites. A few are listed below.

6/21/11 He bit his friend Desmond today on the face. 😦

6/23/11 He bit Brody today on the face. 😦

8/18/11 He’s been so ugly to his friends today, esp to Desmond. He kept pushing and hitting him.

11/4/11 Timeout: knocking friends down and the running over them with the lawn mower when they tried to get up. 😦

That last one still makes me bust out laughing. What a little turd. I promise he’s a very sweet kid. He just doesn’t take anybody’s crap. Just like his Mama.

Driving Habits (from last Thursday)

Good driving habits as of late:

Not changing lanes at a red light so I can be first in line.

Calling someone a moron instead of a jacka$$ when he pulled out in front of me while I was going 45, only to turn 10 yards up.

Not constantly changing lanes, ala Office Space, trying to find the fastest one.

Going the speed limit, in most instances.

 

Bad driving habits as of late:

Changing lanes at a red light so I can be first in line.

Laying on my horn at said moron mentioned above.

Somewhat constantly changing lanes, ala Office Space, trying to find the fastest one.

Slightly speeding, but no more than five over.

 

Hey, ya win some, ya loose some. And sometimes you eat that Snickers bar in your desk drawer at 1:30 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon.

Attempting to eat less than a million calories a day.

Tues, January 17th. Weight: hovers around 142 (was 132 this past summer), number of times poison ivy woke me last night: 3 (definitely improving!), number of times Riley said “No Daddy. I want mama” while getting ready: 4, number of times Riley said “No Mama. I want Daddy!” on the way to school: 6.

6:45 a.m. – Have sensible breakfast of Blueberry Bread, milk and 1/3 of a tangerine. Would have had a whole tangerine, but son was a bit demanding this morning. Will plan to get up 5 minutes earlier tomorrow to deal with early morning version of Riley.

8:35 a.m. – Sensible breakfast has worn off. Snicker bar left over from yesterday’s raid remains in my desk drawer…shouting my name.

9:15 a.m. – Eat rest of tangerine in attempt to silence Snicker bar.

9:25 a.m. – Does not work.

10:59 a.m. – Race to be the first one in line at the cafeteria.

11:15 a.m. – Have a smart lunch of chicken, vegetables and a not-so-smart-but-really-yummy egg roll. Was given an ice cream sandwich by my friend Jim. He must be reading my blog again. He wants me to fail.

1:30 p.m. – Got hungry thinking about what I had for lunch.

6:00 p.m. – Frito pie for supper. Picked lettuce from the garden for a salad, but decided to save it for later.

8:30 p.m. – Brushed my teeth in an effort to not eat anything. Seemed like a good plan at the time.

9:30 p.m. – The munchies hit. Dang. Could really use that salad now. But my teeth are so clean…. Will try to ignore hungry feeling.

10:00 p.m. – Dang.

All you can eat candy-fest

In an effort to make an effort to start eating better, I am gorging myself on the candy stash in my desk drawer. Yes, you heard me right. I am stuffing my face with everything from Nerds to a King Sized Mr. Goodbar in an effort to save my future self, who I am sure will be in a better eating mindset, the added calories and sugary junk. I figure she’ll thank me later. If I eat it all now (and maybe get a stomach ache as punishment) there won’t be any to eat later.

I never buy candy myself, but nevertheless, it always seems to find its little way into my desk drawer and subsequently, into my chocolate-covered fingers. Perhaps this is because I am constantly picking it up from our communal “dumping spot” at work for things we have cleaned out of our house and are up for grabs. My current contribution to the dumping spot? Cookbooks. About 10 of them. Ha.

My eaten inventory thus far:

2 boxes Nerds (LOVE strawberry)

Mini Twix (not as good as I remember, but now I kinda want another)

Rest of my KSMGoodbar

Mini pack of Reese Pieces (makes me think about my younger-movie-theater-going days

Mini Dark Mr. Goodbar (see? Healthy chocolate!)

My inventory yet to be consumed:

Snickers bar

Mini Butterfinger

Granola bar in mysterious silver packaging that simply states “Granol Bar”

White Mint Ghirardelli Square

One of those Carmel chews with cream in the middle (actually, just popped this one into my mouth. Needs to be moved to category above. Scratch that. I spit it out. Kinda gross.)

I started out the day healthy with some Blueberry Breakfast bread, a couple orange slices, and half a banana. Then at lunch, I got a sensible salad and the two HUGE pieces of pizza that came with it (Pizza and Salad Bar Day at work). But I only ate one! So proud! Then a friend and I were talking about ice cream and he came back with three Snickers Ice Cream Bars. 300 calories each. I had to eat it; I didn’t want him to feel bad. AND, if I had saved this in my desk drawer for later, it would have melted. So SEE? I had to eat it. For the good of humanity.

Let’s hope I can do better with supper. I bought this handy little tray with measured out portion sizes for easy control. You put it on top of your plate, then fill the little cups up. But I’ve only used it once. Clearly, that was $15 well spent. I’m going to try and start using it for reals.

After a semi-sensible breakfast, I write this to you. Oh wait, Jordan just made some chocolate chip bar things. Gotta go.

 

Oh, what you can accomplish in an afternoon…

Jordan was gone the latter part of this week for a baseball coaching camp sort of thing, and though all I wanted to do was watch the 4 hour Elizabeth I movie I DVRed a month ago, I took the time to clean out my utility room and kitchen/dining area.

I got rid of cookbooks I bought before I even had a license, 2 of my 4 pie plates (since I rarely cook 4 pies at once, ha), and a glass Eiffel Tower filled with those weird veges that you aren’t supposed to eat, but only look at. I glued a bunch of stuff in my “to be glued” pile and taped a bunch of stuff in my “to be taped” pile, which of course went right back into that pile after I handed it over to Riley. 

I found a stack of paper plates and plastic cups that I have had for who knows how long, so we are at least happy to not have to do dishes for a week or so. I kept about 20 candles that are half burnt, lightbulbs I don’t remember buying but I think will fit in a chandalier and I though I debated it, I still decided to keep my Quesadilla maker I wrote about in my two week trial of kitchen gadgets. You never know.

Some things I did get rid of: 1) bottles/nipples for nursing puppies, because really, how often do I do that? 2) two orange bottle openers from our tax guy 3) 8 of about 20 measuring spoons 4) a collection of colored glass wine glasses that started out around a total of 10, but thanks to my husband, has now dwindled down to a measly 4 5) 8 ice trays (why does one need 12+ ?) 6) part of a motor from a vintage ice cream maker ( I had to work on it and there was this piece with all this copper I thought I’d take and sell…) and 7) 4 cuzzies (sp?) for beer we don’t drink. And yes, that is a little wooden man with straw hair playing the drums on the back of the table. Riley keeps breaking his drumsticks off and I keep gluing them back on. NO MORE!

I did find all of these little cat balls under my Baker’s Rack, which Gollum was happy to see returned to him. Riley has since thrown them to (and at) the cat, so I think every room of my house can now claim 3 each.

I rearranged and organized the pantry and dishes cabinets, and now Jordan can’t find anything. What a fun little game…

Meanwhile, I write this in a Benadryl stupor, which I took last night in a moment of weakness and a last ditch effort to get any relief and more than an hour and a half of sleep  from my poison ivy.

I would rather have a broken leg for 6 weeks than poison ivy for one.

I would rather have the flu for a month, and live in my pajamas on the couch.

I would rather not eat for an entire week, and you KNOW how I love to eat.

I would rather give birth 3 times, back to back.

This sucks. Off to scratch…

“Patience is a virtue!”

Working on this one… I think I am doing quite well, when it comes to my kiddo, anyway. Not so much with other drivers though. I AM doing better at not verbalizing the slanderous curses that pop into my head when some jerk cuts me off with only half a car’s length of space in front of me going 45 miles an hour just because he didn’t get over into his lane in time to turn. It’s not my fault he’s a moron. I did call him a “dipsh*t” which is a new one for me. I don’t think I’ve ever said that before. My go-to phrase was always “dumba$$”. I think in my attempt to not cuss at drivers, my brain is having to come up with new things to say. I just have to rewire it to think things like “you cotton-headed ninny muggings” and “you scruffy looking nerf-herder” instead of “you %$@#* %*&@#$”. More along the lines of Chevy Chases’ rants and a little less of Robert Deniro.

Last night, my house was the epicenter of a Hurricane Riley Melt-Down like no other. Everything was pissing him off. His supper choices (all of which he liked), the cat scratching on his 4 foot cardboard Mater (that might make me mad too), the fact the we turned his movie off (heaven forbid!), having to brush his teeth (sooo terrible!), being denied another glass of juice/water (I don’t want to have to get up for him to pee at 2a.m.), his bedtime (not soon enough), and his pajama options (which were thrown all over his floor).

I kept my cool. Not once did I yell at him or spank him (not that I do spank him all that often anyway) all the while he is throwing himself on the ground, screaming “no” and “leave me alone!” (that’s a new one) and throwing his hands at us and running the opposite direction. My child does NOT act like this. Not ever. It was like a meaner, grumpier, turd of a little kid had temporarily inhabited Riley’s being. I had to pick his entire body up and lower it thrashing about into his bed, where, or course, he wouldn’t stay. Since Jordan has taught him he can get out of his bed in the mornings, he has quickly translated this into not having to stay in it at night either.

I heard the door knob to his bedroom turn for the 3rd time after we put him to bed. I glanced into the hallway but didn’t see him. I figure it must have been something else. Twenty minutes later, I see his Mater box in the living room moving. I count the cats. One, two, three. All accounted for. It’s got to be Riley.

Yup, sure enough, he has snuck out of his room and hidden in the Mater. His little eyes were peering at us from under the cover of Mater’s hood. We were putting up laundry in the bedroom, so if he had played his cards right, he might have just been able to stay there all night.

I walked him back to bed, threatened a spanking if he got up again, and went to bed smiling at his goofiness. He slept all night until Jordan woke him up at 8:15 this morning.

So… I was patient with him all night, talked softly, was encouraging… all the while he was a disaster with a capital D. But today after school, he was an angel. Didn’t argue about anything. Was good at WalMart. Very talkative and friendly. Ate his supper. Brushed his teeth without complaint. Picked up his toys the first (okay, second) time I asked him. Not one temper tantrum, even when I gave him a time out for playing in the cat water.

See what good I have done? My patience has paid off. 🙂 I am a Zen master of parenting.

Wait, did I just hear the door knob turn?