Give a little love, have a little hope…

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My uncle said to my father at my Grandmother’s funeral… “Mom was love.” And I couldn’t respond because that just made me cry harder than I already was. It wasn’t an empty compliment, it was a bald fact. She was love. Don’t get me wrong, she had a temper like anyone else and she could get plenty angry, but, at the end of the day, she was love. It radiated out of her and brightened everyone she met. My son, Ian, reminds me of her every day- his sunny smile and the way he has never met someone who wasn’t instantly a friend are all her. Somehow that bright, shiny ability to see the lovability in everyone has passed itself down to him. I wish that she could have had more time to know him, and I hope that for all of us there is someone in this world who can say, when we are gone, “93 years were not enough.”

She loved the springtime flowers most of all, so I am glad to report that, under the snow that is falling right now, our daffodils are about to open up and shout, “here we are!” and make everyone who sees them want to smile back. Because that’s just how she was. It seems fitting to be waiting for the daffodils today, on her day.

We got to give a little love, have a little hope
Make this world a little better

-Ziggy Marley

Sigh of relief

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AND THERE IS FOOD IN IT.

Milk, please?

We have mostly managed to get ourselves back to normal now that the excitement is over. I will give you a tip, though: Do not mistakenly put the butter door from your new fridge in a bag full of bins from your own refrigerator and then donate it to the Purple Heart. Because a replacement door? $50.

Also on tap this week is the fact that a missed nap turns this:

Into this:

and this:

Day 78 (late… and not necessarily short…)

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Ian is on the job!

My day 78 update on my health overhaul is actually a good one. But, by rights, this week should have been a disaster, which is why it’s now been a week and a half since my last update. Last weekend (ongoing through my “Day 71” post) we were troubleshooting our dying refrigerator. We figured out that it was really most severely broken and, also, that we had killed it. After a week without a refrigerator, we shopped for and purchased a new-to-us model for not very much, which has all been time consuming and exciting and has saved us a lot of cash. Plus, we met a really nice gentleman named Curtis who hauls things as a side business and also apparently has all the charms of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. He did a great job, went above and beyond, and also contributed to the general crazy unicorn roadshow atmosphere of the weekend by bringing his dog along. Let me know if you need any hauling done and I will supply his number.

Unfortunately, after his kind and valuable assistance came to an end, we discovered that the refrigerator was exactly 1/2 inch larger than the doorway to the kitchen, which easily quadrupled the excitement of installing the new fridge. As a DIY project, buying a used fridge is somewhere in the middle of the pain in the neck scale. The general level of chaos and inconvenience is well worth the substantial cash savings versus buying a new fridge in the long run. In the meantime, it’s also a rather un-beautiful snapshot of complete and utter system breakdown. If possible, I recommend not having a broken fridge. Ever.

I’m sure there are strategies that allow a person who doesn’t have access to electric refrigeration to prepare fresh, healthy food every day without either going broke, shopping all the time, or wasting a lot of food, but seven days is not enough time to learn them. It is enough time for my patience to give out completely, and also I can tell you we ate out more than normal. And that it did not thrill me.

I am providing some highlights, here. Please feel free to feel superior as you browse through the ever-so-classy way we handled this whole thing. Did I mention that it happens to be Raccoon Crazy Season? Yes, it is. As a result, after months of giving lip service to the idea that we need to address our raccoon problem, it has become a priority. Ian performed a raccoon repelling dance, leaping about and screaming “WHAT THE HECK! GET OUT RACCOONS! GET OUT!” He was ably assisted by the Littlest Loud Thing, who hopped along after him shouting “Out! Out! Out!” No one actually promised us this would be effective, but it seemed appropriate, so we rolled with it.

Apparently, it’s all over when you disturb a man’s sleep, and we have dedicated ourselves to pursuing EVERY raccoon repellent, deterrent, and/or removal advice known to humanity as represented on the internet. Up to and possibly including dude urine. Today at the Crazy Unicorn Road Show, we have high-fume tennis balls and home made pepper spray. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you my house smells funny, and there is a mariachi band in the attic.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Monday Progress Report

Day: 78
The scale has moved: -17 lbs
The inches have changed: -18 inches
I feel:rather like running away from home, but motivated.
I’ve walked: 98.87 miles and counting!

 

Getting rid of the old fridge turned out to be the easiest part.

Pinterest, you don’t own me!

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I know that it’s become sort of fashionable to bemoan the way social media is ruining our society, but honestly, I love social media. (Okay, I don’t “get” twitter, can’t be bothered with Linked In, but… I’m a Facebook addict, and I’m feeling the Pinterest love, too.) The biggest problem I do see with it is the fact that it fuels the whole idea that the grass really is greener. It’s easy to convince yourself that you are the only one who struggles. It’s easy to look at everyone else’s photo albums and think how bad your life looks in comparison and to forget that what you are seeing is CURATED.

Seriously, it’s not that these things aren’t real. They are real, and that’s part of the insidiousness of it all. You know everything I post here is real. (And I am using myself as an example because I am not trying to criticize anyone else, and not out of any illusion that you should, for some reason, be jealous of how I have it all together. Particularly since I tell on myself often enough that I’m not about to pretend that I believe that.)

I’m a real person, this is my real family, these are real, crappy cell phone photos of food I actually prepared and we really ate or of us really doing the goofy things that we really do. And I’m showing you REAL photos of my REAL progress. But do I choose to show you a photo of me realizing that my tee shirt is too short in the middle of kickboxing, or of me coming in from the rain with wet pant legs, feeling sorry for myself? NO, of course not. And it’s not because I’m trying to pretend that my life is perfect and those moments don’t exist. It’s because, like you, I don’t enjoy those moments and I’d prefer they go away as quickly as possible. There is nothing wrong with this. It’s just that we all need to agree to regard the internet as a visit to the Museum of Us, filled with selected items we want to preserve. It’s not a bus trip through real life. That’s also why it’s so important to leave sometimes. Because museums are fun, but they are no place to live.

In some ways this is nothing new. Picture June Cleaver running the vacuum cleaner in heels and pearls. And… there we are. There is a reason the Stepford Wives were robots. (Spoiler, sorry.) Because being a real person is messy. There are things you are good at and things you are not so good at. You require inspiration. Balance between passion and necessity is not easy.

So let’s all love Pinterest in a little corner of our world, and keep it where it belongs. Don’t let it creep out of that corner and make you think your storage closet needs perfectly aligned bins with decorative labels made of scrapbook paper. (No, I’m not making that up. I contemplated that detour into frou-frou overload for about 11 seconds and then I pulled myself back from the brink.) If that’s your THING, then… well, go you, but it’s not for me. Labelled cardboard boxes from the recycling bin will work just fine. In some ways, the more we try to pretty things up, the more bland and boring they become. We are robbing our children of the charm of going through old boxes dated in Grandma’s not-so-perfect handwriting and discovering treasures. Much like the men of Stepford robbed themselves of the joy of having their wives surprise them by being so much more amazing than a cleaning service with pretty hair.

Join me on this bus trip. We’ll stop at coffee shops (that aren’t part of a chain); we’ll write post cards. We will lose things and be elated to find them again. We will triumph over bad habits and we will have crazy jokes about that one time when something ridiculous happened. We will meet people and tell stories. We will grow old and wear red and purple together. We will have quirks and get on each others’ nerves, and WE WILL LIVE. We will love. We will sing, even if we don’t do it very well. We’ll try new things. We will remember that as much as others annoy us is how much we sometimes annoy others. We will teach our kids to know the words to things, and we will somehow rub along together very well. And we will all be stronger. Yes, we can!

Monday Progress Report

I have now completed three weeks of the 10 lb slimdown xtreme. In some ways, I am not surprised because this is part of how things are supposed to progress, but in other ways I am amazed at how quickly I worked my way up to having this feel normal. Yes, we can! If you’re not ready for “Xtreme,” find a 10 minute total body routine you like and start working it into your day. If that’s too much, find a 10 minute Yoga routine. Or go for a walk. I’m not trying to boss you around, but I know you can do it. I believe in you!

Day: 71
The scale has moved: -16 lbs
The inches have changed: -17.25 inches
I feel: like wearing purple.
I’ve walked: 93.87 miles and counting!

We were trying for a two kid stunt, but it turns out that Keeghan is not good at either taking direction or holding on, so this is the best we could do.

Whole Wheat Gingerbread Waffles

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Last night, as a special treat, Ian got to help me make whole wheat waffles for his dinner. (Breakfast for dinner- it’s a thing.) I froze the leftovers for his lunches. Apparently, he really likes them, because he tried to steal the cooling leftovers to eat all at once, and then this morning he raided the freezer to make sure I would put some in his lunch today. Keeghan and Michael also each gave them two thumbs up. The dudes had them with store-bought blueberry syrup that I believe came from Trader Joes, but you can definitely make some from fresh fruit. (These obviously are not on my eating plan, so I had one bite to make sure the recipe was good and stopped.)

This little foray into breakfast for dinner was partly inspired by the fact that I love that awesome kid and cooking with him is getting really fun, partly by a search for a little more variety to pack in his lunchbox, and partly by my embarrassing discovery that, among other excesses and tomfoolery, we had three jars of open molasses in the pantry. Molasses, in addition to being the sweet, delicious star of gingerbread goodies, is also really high in iron and lower on the glycemic index than sugar, so I Googled for recipes that used molasses and, after adjusting for what ingredients I had on hand, came up with this.

Whole Wheat Gingerbread Waffles

I can’t tell you exactly how many this recipe makes, because 1- it depends on your waffle maker, and 2- the dudes were eating them so fast I didn’t really get a chance to count. But it’s at least a dozen square waffles, and probably 18.

  • 1/4 cup plus 1/2 Tablespoon canola oil
  • 5 large eggs
  • 2 cups skim milk
  • 1/2 Tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons molasses
  • 2 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour (I use King Arthur)
  • 2 Tablespoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoon sugar

I turned on the waffle iron to preheat, and then, in the biggest mixing bowl I have, we combined the wet ingredients. (Spray the measuring spoon with cooking spray before you measure the molasses.) I let Ian prick each egg yolk with a fork and then taught him how to whisk the ingredients together. While he did that (greatly amused at how the molasses sank to the bottom and then stuck to his fork before finally combining with the other ingredients- a little side lesson on density going on there) I measured the dry ingredients into a smaller mixing bowl and combined them well. Ian slowly added the dry ingredients to the wet while I blended with a hand mixer. (If it looks too thick when you are done, add some more milk, 1 Tablespoon at a time, until it looks right for waffles.)

I dropped the batter onto the waffle iron (use the appropriate quantity for your iron) and cooked each one until it was golden brown- 2:30 was about perfect, but expect a little trial and error. These waffles were light, fluffy, and released beautifully. To freeze leftovers, just cool them completely on a wire rack and then package them for the freezer. I used sandwich bags, so they could go off to school with my dude, but you could of course put them between layers of waxed paper in a freezer container.

I SEE GRUMPY PEOPLE. I SEE THEM EVERYWHERE.

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It is rainy and cold today and so nobody wanted to smile and say hi this morning when I was on my walk around the neighborhood. Don’t get me wrong- I love my alone time and I am not looking to have a long conversation. But, it has occurred to me that some people lead lives that don’t offer a lot of social interaction, and I always wonder… what if I’m the only person they see all day? So I smile, even at people who are turning their faces away from me or staring at their shoes. Just in case.

On another note, have you ever read something totally wrong, then been disappointed when you realized what it really said? I had one of those moments this morning. All those quote graphics were going by in my facebook feed, and one of them was loading slowly and I tried to read it while it was still blurry. I thought it said:

Once I got it to load, it turned out to be something about happiness and windows and things you never knew were possible that was very sweet and cute, and I realized I didn’t really like anything about it except the font. But, anyway, just remember, there’s probably a silver lining, even if it’s in the pantry right now. You just have to look for it. Also, you should smile, just in case the grumpy people are really sad or lonely and could really use a nice word, even if it’s only “good morning.”