Day 3

Holy hangover, Batman! I woke up feeling shaky and nauseous, and two minutes into my workout I was pouring sweat. Like cold, nasty, I'm going to yarf, sweat. A friend met me for boot camp this morning, and I felt like a big baby with all my whining (and excessive sweating.)The idea of eating eggs made me sick, so I went very easy with a little chicken and a banana, and then a cup of warm bone broth (that I made myself, thank you.) I felt less shaky after that.

I never thought to take pictures of food today (I did later when I got to snuggle one of the precious newborns in my life after work, which was the "sweetest sugar of all," according to my friend L.) Lunch was the same as yesterday - the chicken salad with the spinach and bell peppers, and that chicken salad is mighty tasty. I don't care for the Whole 30 mayo on its own, but mixed with other stuff works. Dinner was on the run, as I was visiting babies, so it was the rest of the chicken and leftover broccoli from last night. I ate while driving, which is not so good, but it was either that or not eat at all, and then I had some olives when I got home. Now I have tea, and it is lovely. I ate some of the apple rings and almonds and cashews today, but I wasn't as hungry. Probably because I started the day feeling like I had taken down a fifth of vodka?

I've had a few people ask about the snacking thing - is snacking not allowed?
The answer - it is recommended that you eat 3 meals per day and limit snacking, but it is not a rule (they are very definite about the difference between the rules and recommendations.) The reasoning they state in It Starts With Food is that the fasting period between meals keeps your hormones in a healthy rhythm, and it helps promote mindful eating. I am a binger, and this is the #1 reason I am giving this program a try. I tend to binge on snacks, so focusing on eating mindfully is extremely important if I am going to get anything out of this. Today at 2:00PM, I found myself reaching for my baggie of nuts, and desperately wanting the chocolate I asked my coworker to hide in her office. I made myself stop and figure out what the issue was - I wasn't really hungry. I am just used to snacking in the afternoon. Snacking ALL afternoon. That is a habit I need to break.
That said, I also need to figure out what size these meals need to be so I am not whimpering with hunger 2 hours later.

When I got home tonight, I put chicken in to marinate for tomorrow night's fajitas, and I am really looking forward to those.

Welp, I've got a book to read, and I may fall asleep right here, so I'm off. We'll chat tomorrow...

Day 2

Only 28 to go. I thought of food all day, and I have a headache. But I really can't complain yet, it's only 2 days.

This was breakfast - Trader Joe's Cruciferous Crunch sauteed in ghee, roasted sweet potatoes, and two fried eggs, with a few olives. It was good. I drank my coffee with coconut cream and a bit of cinnamon, and it wasn't bad. I had chicken salad I made with the Whole 30 mayo, spinach, bell pepper, and an orange for lunch. That was also good. Then a piece of pot roast with broccoli and roasted potatoes for dinner. I couldn't eat the sauce with the pot roast, and it was a bit dry, so I used Tessamae's barbecue sauce, which is meh. Date paste is a bit of an acquired taste, apparently.

Here's the kicker - I was starving between the meals. Like, my stomach was growling, starving. Which makes no sense, as the meals seemed fairly large, but I was so hungry. It's hard to determine if I just can't judge an appropriate meal size, or I really do need to eat more. I did end up eating a handful of almonds and cashews in the afternoon, and I had an apple after dinner with my tea. Which, I think, is not the point. Argh. Ok, but I can do this.

What works well is that this is the week I do manager assessments for my staff, and I do have a tendency to be too nice in these things, so maybe this is the perfect time to be depriving myself?

You all remember Dutch, right? Our pretty little pumpkin girl that joined our family in August?

She's on the top bunk.

Well she is not as snuggly as I like - during the day. But around 3AM, she jumps up on my bed, and purrs, and rubs against my face and meows her little peepy meow in my ear, and she does not want me to go back to sleep. This happens about 3 times a week. Sometimes more. And I try to explain to her that I need to sleep, and she just doesn't understand. She thinks, well that's silly, why don't you just take many naps? Wouldn't that be lovely?

Time for something new.

It's January, and it's too warm in here. A whole weekend in the 60's, how gorgeous, although admittedly, I am hoping for at least one more good winter storm. Not this week.

I haven't been back to boot camp all week - Monday I went to the doctor, and I had bronchitis, so I spent the week resting (from boot camp, I did work most of the week) and taking the 'roids to clear up these here pesky lungs. I'm much better - still gloopy and coughing some, but not sick, and better enough that I got to go snuggle a beautiful little princess baby this morning, which started this Sunday off on the right foot.  Three of my friends and one of my sisters have had babies over the past 2 months - there is much snuggling to be done.

I started Whole 30 today. I was going to start tomorrow, but my husband was all, "why start Monday, you could start Sunday," and I said, "well, maybe I will." And I did, which works well, since February is 29 days, so March 1 will be my first day off Whole 30. Please give me strength, my friends. I spent hours prepping food today. Hours. I made bone broth, cauliflower rice, baked chicken, Whole 30 mayo, planned out dinners for the week, and packed breakfasts and lunches for the next two days. I'm plumb worn out, let me tell you. Luckily, the husband made dinner, and he has been super supportive (in his way) by going through recipes we all like and picking out the compliant ones. Tonight he made pork tinga, and there was a ton of leftover, so I'll have plenty for lunches or breakfasts, if I choose.

It's not pretty, but oh so good. Usually you eat it in a tortilla, but grains are verboten, so I put it over leftover home fries (Husband made up a mess of those, as well) and a pile of spinach. I am really drawn to the whole "pile a mess of food together" way of eating, so hopefully my concoctions will work. I'm stressing a bit about this, but I really need to relax - I think it will be helpful. I'm interested to see what my body does with this particular experiment. I will try to post more often while I am doing this, as I think it will help me stay accountable, and I have had some requests. I don't know how often I will photograph the food - do you really want to see what I'm eating? I can't be tied down people, I will just go with the vibe...

This weekend was also rather lovely in that we had no tournaments, so my Girl and I had lunch with my sweet baby sister yesterday, went shopping, and then my husband and I watched "Straight Outta Compton" last night, which was quite good - and wow, does Ice Cube's son look like him! Tonight we watched "Amy" which was just sad. Such a talent, and you feel like, if she just had the right kind of support...I was actually not a fan when she was alive, as I hated Rehab, which was her biggest song here; my lovely friend A with fantastic taste loved her and introduced me to her music, which grabs your heart and plucks and pulls at it like a harp. Rather messy metaphor, I know, but it's how it feels. So, it was a decent movie, and very sad, but lots of lovely Amy.

I am getting up for boot camp, and I promised to paint my Girl's nails tonight, so I'm off to bed. Sleep well, lovelies.

So, this is what I did this week...

Hello, my friends, hello.
It started out such a good, productive week, what with my going to boot camp, and eating well, and putting away laundry, and doing my job without whining, and I really was feeling pretty good. Wednesday evening I went to Classics Book Club. It was a movie night, and I have now added "On The Waterfront" to my classic movie repertoire.

It was a decent movie, although I wasn't in much of a movie-watching mood, to which my friends can attest, as I spent the whole time chattering. In my defense, my friend is pregnant, and she wanted to talk to me, too. And I'm pretty sure the rest could hear...

Thursday morning, I woke up wheezing, terribly. That went on most of the day, and around 10, I started running a fever. That continued off and on until Saturday morning. I was achy and lethargic, and I felt awful. One of my coworkers was sweet enough to be concerned, which is lovely. Everyone likes to feel taken care of.

Anyway, because I was feeling so awful, I did not end up going to my daughter's volleyball tournament this weekend. She and her dad were gone for the weekend, and I spent Friday evening until Saturday afternoon watching Criminal Minds with my brother and sleeping and drinking endless cups of Yogi Respiratory Care tea. I felt much better Saturday afternoon, although I still am not breathing well, and went to visit my mom, and then hang out with another group of superhero women friends. We were supposed to have a girl's weekend away this weekend, but with the threat of snowmageddon, which apparently skipped us and doubled its efforts before hitting east, and invalid status, we postponed the trip (Ladies, Weekend of Debauchery 2016 will happen, and it will be spectacular!) So one of them shipped her people out for the night, and we went over there. I only stayed a few hours to nosh and have one margarita, and make my newest best friend, a dog named Spike, who has decided I am a princess, and who am I to dissuade him? We had a great time, but what with my wheezing, and my rather severe asthmatic reaction to dogs, I needed to leave and hopefully learn to breathe again. I am still working on it - this is rather uncomfortable.

Today I spent the day going to the grocery, meeting with some boot camp friends to discuss health stuff, and food prep. I roasted veggies, made a big pot of my tortilla soup, and roasted 2 chickens with other veggies, and froze the carcasses so I can make broth next weekend. My house smells like heaven.

Next Monday I am starting Whole 30. I promised my friends from last night that I would blog about it. There are 1000 people who blog about this, but, well, you know me, and you know I have a little problem with commitment, so it might be a little more fun to read about my particular adventures with this eating plan. I will give all the details next Sunday, as well as do some serious food prep. Thank goodness we don't have a tournament next weekend.

Alrighty, so, have a good day. Wish me luck that I get my lungs cleared out without any medical participation. I am going to boot camp tomorrow, but I'll have to take it easy for a few days or so until I can breathe hard without hacking up a lung. I'm going to drink tea and read another chapter - I am finally reading Fried Green Tomatoes (I love Fannie Flagg), and listening to Nick Offerman's Gumption. What are your reading? Inquiring minds want to know...

Missy...In...Space!

One unproductive and seriously uncomfortable way to prove you desperately need to change your eating habits? Skip your antidepressants one night (accidentally), and spend the next day fuzzy and eating all the junk food you can get your hands on. Including, for crap's sake, McDonalds. Lots of McDonalds. I haven't eaten McDonalds in months and months. Almost a year. And it was awful. And then I got home and spent the rest of tonight feeling really sick. I still feel really sick.

On a positive note, I went on vacation last week! I spent a week in Florida with my girl, and some of my favorite people.

I love the ocean. and the Space Center. Ooh, and we spent New Year's Eve and Day at "Nana's Condo" (my niece's name for it), overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. It was lovely. 

The worst day ever? The day you go back to work after being on vacation for a week.

Fun way to embarrass your daughter and your best friend? Respond with an excited giggle and a loud "me" when the bus driver at the Cape Kennedy Space Center asks who has been there before. Nothing brings out the nerd more readily than the opportunity to walk under Atlantis. 

Trips to the moon were cool, don't get me wrong, but I grew up during the Shuttle years, and that is what gets me excited. I was going to be Lea Thompson, go to the Air Force Academy, and be an astronaut (I wasn't all "I want to be the first female shuttle commander," I didn't care, as long as I got to go.) This, obviously, did not happen - I found boys much more interesting than physics, and math never came easily to me - but I still got all misty-eyed the first time I saw the VAB this visit. And every subsequent time. (I also get misty-eyed every time I see a dolphin show; just a little tidbit you didn't know about me, just in case you want to make me cry for some reason.) I did find out, however, that most astronauts have been over 35, so I still have a chance!

Anyway - something I added to the list of things I have to do - I would say before I die, but I would really like this to be sooner rather than later - I want to see a launch. A real launch, preferably a manned launch, and I want to be there on purpose, actually on the property. Which means I am going to need to form a relationship with someone who has ties to NASA or whatever space organization running the launch. Seeing as I am married to an engineer, this should not, in theory, be an issue. Speaking of said engineer, when we were in the Orlando area for our honeymoon, we inadvertently witnessed the launch of the Mars Global Surveyor from Cape Canaveral on 11/7/1996 whilst driving to Cocoa Beach. That was terribly cool, but I need to be there, amidst the excitement. I want to actually feel the rumbling of the earth as engines ignite. 

Anyway, so it was a great trip, and I am back home, back at work, back to boot camp, and planning to do a Whole 30 session starting February 1. We'll see how it helps my sugar issues, my eczema, my allergies. People at boot camp keep talking about how good they feel, so I am interested to see how it goes. I am not much of a cook, so I am a little nervous about prep bit, but I just need to suck it up - I think I proved to myself that McDonalds is not going to make me feel better.

Gotta go, have a good night.

heeheeheebooks!

I feel like chatting about books tonight.
It's been awhile since we talked about books, and books are my favorite.
As you can see from my sidebar over there > I'm on Goodreads, and we may even friends there. Goodreads gives you a challenge every year - pick a number of books to read in the year, and then read them. Last year I chose 80 and surpassed that number, easily, so this year I chose 100, and darn it if I'm not still only at 95 with only 4 days left to go. There is no way I can read 5 books in 4 days! Agh!
But let's converse about some of those recent choices...

I finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn today. I have this friend L, with whom I work out, and we like to talk about books, a lot. She has been at me to read this book for as long as we've discussed books, as it is her favorite, and she reads it every year. For her part, she did end up reading A Handmaid's Tale this year, and she loved it as much as I told her she would. Anyway, I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - what an amazing portrait of youth in the tenements of early 1900's New York. I love a strong and intelligent female character, and Francie is both of those, and a reader to boot.

Last week, I read The Martian by Andy Weir. I may be the last person to read that book, but it did not disappoint. Mark Watney is such a likable character, you don't mind spending a year and a half on a desert planet with him. Mad engineering skills and a great sense of humor - Mark Watney is my fictional character crush of the year.

Beach Town by Mary Kay Andrews - a happy book with a happy ending. Greer is a location scout, looking for a "classic beach town" atmosphere in Florida for a big-budget, action-adventure movie. Mary Kay Andrews' books are a bit formulaic - girl meets boy, boy and girl are irritated by each other, but secretly attracted to each other, other quirky characters are involved, nasty characters want opposite things from nice characters, craziness ensues, happy ending. But the protagonists are always likable, the female characters are intelligent and strong, and I love a good happy ending. Not a brain busting book, but fun and fluffy.

Just so you don't think I love every book I read (although, let's face it, I'm pretty easy to please,) I didn't love The Life List by Lori Nelson Spielman. This was my chicklit book club selection for January (chicklit book club being a bit of a misnomer, as several of the books we have read have not exactly fit that description.) Anyway, the premise is decent - the protagonist, Brett, is a young woman who has lost her beloved mother. The mother, who was a successful cosmetics company founder and CEO, leaves her children large inheritances, but Brett will not receive her portion until she completes a list of goals she wrote when she was a child. She has a year to complete the list, and the list is so far outside the scope of the life she is currently leading, that she has no idea how to begin. The relationship between Brett and her mother is heartwarming, and Brett definitely grows as a person, but honestly, the story is predictable, and the outcomes rather unlikely. The relationships form too quickly for reality, and it is pretty difficult to relate to most of the characters. I didn't dislike the book, and I did finish it, but it was really only ok.

I love lists of books, and there are a lot of "Books you should read before you die" lists out there. One book that shows up again and again on these lists is If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino. It kind of reminds me of a David Lynch movie - purposefully obtuse with its novel within a novel within a novel within...ad nauseum. At the end, however, I honestly did not feel like it was really all that hard to understand, and it was kind of silly. Again, I did not really dislike the book, but I doubt I will be on my deathbed thinking, "Thank the gods I read If On a Winter's Night A Traveler."

My son is watching "The Matrix." I haven't watched this movie in ages. Keanu Reeves was so adorable in this movie. In his silly, stoned, surferboy kind of way.

We'll chat about health, and goals, and all the other fun stuff I want to focus on next time. For now, only try to realize the truth.
What truth?
There is no spoon.

Falalalala-lalalala

I have a 150,000 things to say when I get home in the morning, but no time to write. Unfortunately, as the day goes on, my brain gets scattier, which makes it very difficult to write anything interesting. Which is why I tend to write in lists and weird, rambling babblings.

So, how are things? Did you enjoy your Thanksgiving? Are you preparing for whatever fun December holiday you celebrate? Remember, when the kids were littler, how I tried to celebrate all the winter holidays? All the ones I knew how to celebrate, anyway. We put out our shoes for St. Nick, lit a fire for the Solstice, lit a menorah and played dreidel for Hanukkah, read a story about Kwanzaa, etc. My people are so busy, though, and they stopped getting excited about the celebrations, and honestly, I really haven't had any holiday spirit over the past few years. Imagine my surprise when I woke up Sunday all ready to put up our Christmas tree. And the spirit continues - today I put up decorations at work. So much shopping...and I've been really wishing for snow (flinches - don't hurt me!)

Ha! My husband is watching The Flash and a snowy blast just blew out a window. It's like they heard me...type...

All this happy holiday spirit could be due to the great fun I had at MOMS Club party I went to last week. Yes, I am still doing MOMS Club stuff, well, as much as I can, anyway. I do work all day, but when they have evening activities, I am all over them. Anyway, every year we get together and drink and eat and be merry, and then we exchange white elephant gifts which range from really surprisingly nice to bizarre to just horrible (big, plastic butt, open bag of nursing pads.) This year, I got a peacock made from wire and a rock, a package of beer bottle tags, and a package of  Christmas themed cocktail napkins. Hey, family, we'll have real napkins at Christmas dinner this year!

Also, though, I've been working out - a lot. I joined one of the groups at boot camp, and I have to get 20 classes in this month - but there are no classes on Christmas, and I'll be out of town the last week, so I have had to go as much as I can. I worked out 6 days last week, and I am planning on doing 6 days this week, and I feel so freaking good. Of course, I know that - I know how good I feel when I exercise and eat right, and then I stop, but right now I am on, and I am going to be happy about that.

Sore. But happy.