Call me, any anytime...(day 15)

After day two of crazed running about taking care of state testing needs of a school with over 700  students, I came home to find my home machine blinking madly away and decided to let those messages sit for a little longer than I already had (it'd been about a week).  When I finally got around to checking the hundredty messages, I discovered that one was from an actual person and the rest were hang-ups.  This caused me to check the caller i.d. to see who had been calling and tricking my digital voice service into believing they were going to leave a message.  If you haven't noticed, the home phone goes largely unused, and the handsets are largely missing or without power.  Damn you triple play bundling.  Anyway, to my surprise, all of the recent missed calls are from either ARC or Disabled American Veterans.  Approximately thirty calls from one or the other of these organizations, causing me to wonder what type of crisis situation (other than the obvious) they have reached that they are calling me incessantly to procure donations.  If their crazed calling is a sign that I am their last bastion of hope, these folks are seriously f$*ked. 

In other news, I am officially at the two week mark of 21 day challenge & all is going smoothly.  Due to the insanity of the past few days at work, I haven't had time to eat breakfast or lunch until about 2 p.m.  Needless to say, I was angry-hungry around 10 a.m. today.  This problem was solved by a quick dash to the local taqueria where I purchased an egg, potato and cheese burrito and had myself some blunch.  I would normally call it brunch, but there were no mimosas or bloody mary's to be had.

2/3 stats:
Food: Breakfast burrito, almonds, salad with black eyed peas, feta cheese and spinach, a few bites of pasta fagioli that the toddler was thoroughly enjoying, dates, more caffeinated drinks than should be humanly possible
Movement: Day 2 of racing around large school with state tests and reluctant children, laundering, sleeping in blue chair while my middle lovely watched Diego (those unsupervised nature-freak latinos are a total snoozefest)

Werewolves of London (day 14)

Since I've had my kids, my facial hair has kicked it up a notch and looks remarkably similar to the above.  I've always been a hairy kind of gal, and have long been thankful for being blessed with having light hair.  It has gotten to a point, however, where I cannot bear to look at myself in the mirror in the car as this is the cruelest, most unforgiving mirror.  Incidentally, it is the best mirror for tweezing eyebrows, which I can be found doing at stoplights all the way to work.  Anyway, in the vein of looking sharp for imaginary upcoming interviews, I waxed my face this weekend.  It was not the first time, but it may be the last.  What I really needed to do was dip my whole face in the wax, but since that wasn't a possibility, I just stuck to important areas ~ you know, goatee, beard, eyebrows.  Since my waxing expedition, my face has now broken out and the above mentioned areas are not only shiny with hairlessness, but highlighted with red skin and unsightly bumps.  Sexy and I know it.  I look quite a bit what I imagine an Italian grandmother who is going through puberty looks like.  I'm considering the following to take care of unwanted hair in future.

Next step to prepare for imaginary interviews is purchase of support hose and nurse shoes to go with interview suit.

There's a Man in the Mirror Stats:
Food: Almonds, bean salad, cheese, pasta, ridonculous amount of iced coffee
Movement: Spent the entire day literally racing up and down stairs and hallways delivering state tests, shuttling children around, retrieving state tests.  Also, spent about 1/2 hour chasing toddler lovely around tae kwan do studio while waiting for his siblings to finish their classes. 

Another day in paradise (day 13)

Things we tried to feed my baby today:  Cheeseburger, yogurt (full of fat and flavor), garlic knots, pizza, blueberries, honey-nut cheerios, string-cheese
Things my baby ate today: Piece of popcorn off the floor, toothpaste ~ also used this to decorate his toes, pretzel of indeterminable age stuck in the side of his car seat
Things my baby said today: Shut-up, mine, ready, go, boot, boat, bark, meow ~ these last two he didn't officially 'say', rather he barked and meowed

I'm at a complete loss with this guy, but as evidenced by above picture, he is not suffering in the chub department, nor is he showing signs of lethargy; quite the opposite. In fact, he spends 3/4 of the day running with the remaining 1/4 of the day a mix between scaling walls and hiding in the pantry closet ~ perhaps he's eating in there, we don't ask because we wouldn't want to invade his privacy.

All told, it was a pretty great day.  There were a lot of laughs at work, over ridiculous circumstances, an astounding letter of recommendation from my assistant principal, and an over the top amazing report card from my oldest lovely.  Finding myself a step away from the two week mark of 21-day challenge, I feel great.  Not suffering from lack of chocolate or the occasional potato chip ~ this weekend I did confess to my husband that I wouldn't mind a snickers bar, but I didn't give in and the feeling passed quickly.

Case of the Mondays stats:
Food: Almonds, 40 oz. of iced-tea, olives with feta cheese, nut-thins crackers, hummus, dates, pizza with red onions, black olives and green peppers,
Movement: Brisk walking around school building to make sure that teachers are ready for state testing, hauling boxes in and out of closet, soaking up vitamin D at lunch recess, yelling at miscreants at same lunch recess, shooing toddler on a mission out of the bathroom

Sunday, that's my funday, my I don't have to run day (day 12)

For years now I have suffered from self-diagnosed, untreated, Sunday anxiety.  Oh, the day starts off quiet and unassuming.  But then, the hours creep by and I start doing math.  You know, the kind of math you do when your alarm clock goes off ~ if I hit snooze two more times and don't blow dry my hair, I'll totally be on time.  Or, the clock is actually fifteen minutes fast, so if I get 18 minutes more sleep, I'll  only be running three minutes behind.  I find as four p.m. on Sunday approaches, I am counting down until I have to go to bed and lie sleepless in the dark as I await dawn replaying all the things I didn't get to over the weekend.  There are never enough hours in Sunday, and after lunch, I swear someone is pressing fast forward on my weekend. This is something I am working on, and hopefully will improve without medical intervention and heavy medication.  For now, I'll amp up my wine consumption on Sunday starting right after breakfast, and maybe I won't even notice what day it is.

This Sunday was great.  We took the kids swimming to a really awesome indoor water park type venue.  All three of the lovelies had a blast; I had a blast watching them be little water monkeys. And, I had the opportunity to sit in the hot tub with my girlfriend and shoot the breeze a little bit. Complete aside, I'm going to need a new bathing suit as mine no longer fits quite right.  I'm thinking I'm going to look in the tween girl section for the top and the husky boy section for the bottoms.

Funday stats:
Food: Bean and cheese burrito, one slice of ridiculously bitter orange, pretzels, pasta with red sauce, garlic bread.
Movement: Swimming, chasing toddler around swimming pools, swinging toddler around in water ~ 'cause he's a swinger, hot-tubbing, laundering, cooking; I find you can make most things seem like an activity if you add 'ing' to the end; to this end, I will admit that I am currently blue-chairing

It's fooooooood (day 11)

A few years ago, during children/infant medicine recall hoopla, I spoke to my pharmacist about purchasing store-brand medications.  The pharmacist assured me that there was absolutely no difference between the name-brand and the store-brand, other than packaging and price.  Since that time, my entire family has been using store-brand drugs that have clever names like Wal-dryl, Super-phed, and Nytime.

More recently, I've read a ton of articles regarding purchase of store-brand food items.  All articles point towards saving money while not chintzing on taste.  So, I've given it a whirl, specifically with staple items, like cereal.  I have taken to purchasing the cereal that comes in a bag instead of a box and remarkably enough, it tastes the same.  I say this with complete confidence, as I don't eat cereal at all.  The kids don't seem to notice.  I'm not at the point of buying powdered milk (although I don't drink milk either, so it wouldn't matter to me at all), or getting bricks of cheese from old people.  I'm going to consider this a point of pride for someone soon to be unemployed.

Faturday stats:
Food: Eggs, left-over roasted brussel sprouts, crabcakes, goat cheese, raspberry-chipotle salsa, olive salad, hummus, unseemly amount of beaujolais
Movement: Ridiculous amount of laundry, walking around Big-Lots, grocery shopping, playing peek-a-boo with toddler

Apropos of nothing... (day 10)

Twice this week I was asked if something was appropriate.  My answer both times was:  First of all, I'm not certain that I am a good measure of what is appropriate.  Secondly, I don't think just because something is inappropriate means is shouldn't be done.  With that very attitude, I decided to have a day off today.  It was a grand day, mental health wise, although one in which I spent a good deal of money.  My car needed some tinkering, and it turns out my vacuum cleaner needed a new clutch ~ did anyone else know that vacuums needed a clutch?  On the bright side, I got to both bring my son to school & pick him up from school.  I got two new dresses ~ I love that the clearance rack always has clothes for those whose top half is not unlike a prepubescent boy.  I got to spend the day with my hilarious daughter and made a new friend who goes by the name of Taco.  All in all, a good day.

Sick day stats:
Food:  Iced-coffee, cheese and pretzels, tilapia, roasted brussel sprouts with pecans, semolina, dates, 1/2 bottle of pinot grigio
Movement: Placing robust toddler atop toilet bowl again and again to foster a love of potty training, perusing of various department stores, petting of Taco (do with that what you will)

Pain in the arse (day 9)

When it comes to eating and food, I'm a real pain in the ass.  More so than my children & I try very hard not to show them how annoyingly picky I am; what a refuser eater I actually am.  My eating habits left my parents frustrated and confused. My mother often wondered why I couldn't eat the last bit of my meal, especially if I'd smelled it.  My husband, thankfully, is a go with the flow kind of guy, and doesn't give me a hard time about my likes and dislikes most of the time.  Below, are some of the things I especially dislike & my paltry reasons for disliking things beloved by many.

 I really dislike duck in all its various forms.  It's greasy and has tiny little bones.  I only like big bones.

I didn't always have a problem with mayonaisse.  I never liked a lot of mayo, but when I was in college, I worked in a bowling alley where I got to say things like 'ball stuck, lane 10' which is a fun thing to say regardless of location or vocation.  At the bowling alley, there was a snack bar, and at the snack bar there was a tub of mayo that sat out all day and the edges were yellowed and crunchy looking.  I'm throwing up in my mouth just thinking about it.

Hot dogs are one of my longest running dislikes.  I gag at the very smell of them.  Of course, my children love these filthy 'meat' tubes.  I got violently ill on them as a child (proving that I must have liked them at some point), and haven't been able to get past this in thirty years.  My husband also got violently ill after eating hot dogs as a child, so in this we are simpatico.

Once, when I was very small, my mother's friend tried to feed my liver and onions for dinner.  I refused to eat it, and she refused to let me leave her dining table until I'd had one bite.  I took one bite and tucked it in my cheek, never chewing it, or swallowing it.  For hours.  The smell of the incense they shake around at mass has always reminded me of liver and onions.  This may, or may not, play a large role in my lack of attendance at mass for much of my adult life. 

None of the above play a role in my lenten, or 21 day prohibitions.  If they were, lent would be a breeze for me.  As it stands, I'll continue to try to stay away from Kashi bars and jolly ranchers ~ I've a good run so far.

Non-Maundy Thursday stats:
Food:  Almonds and dates, iced-coffee, greek salad, grapes, kung-pao shrimp (no rice), crab cheese wonton, 2 tbsp. of Nyquil.  It should be noted that there was cake at work (at 3 p.m.) today and that I abstained.  It was good cake too ~ chantilly lace cake from Whole Foods, which if you've never had, I urge you to do so. 
Movement: Walk, walk, walk, around school building, chase toddler around entire 3rd floor of doctor's office, brow-beating my son into finishing his homework.