Mama Thursday (on Wednesday): It's been a while. Have a picture.

I haven't been writing a whole lot about Lily lately because from my perspective she's in a kind of holding pattern.  She's past that huge growth hump.  She's still not talking but she continues to try.  She's a typical toddler minus most of the screaming, I think.  She's still surprisingly tantrum-free unless she's tired.  She has more hair now and it's starting to darken up.

She's still the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen.  I mean, come on:

 

She got waaaaaay more presents than we have room for in the house.  This weekend I'm hoping to turn half of the office into a playroom because I can't tell you how sick I am of picking up Mega Blocks.  And the Lego table in the picture above is kind of huge too.

Foodblogging: Mandu (만두) Cups

I am a mandu fiend.  Mandu is the Korean version of a potsticker -- only they're about a million times better than their Japanese/Chinese counterparts.  They're kind of a drag to make if you do them the traditional way.  So I did this shortcut.

They kind of look fancy, no?  I made these for a Christmas snack with my in-laws.  They went over pretty well.  They were kind of thrown together last-minute and I included a few leftovers from the fridge.  The nice thing about this recipe is that you can add, subtract, and substitute anything you want.

Mandu (만두) Cups

1/2 lb ground pork
1 Tbsp ginger, peeled and grated
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1 large carrot, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1 each red and green bell peppers, chopped
2 cups napa cabbage, chopped

2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp sugar (more to taste)
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper (to taste)
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 tsp cornstarch

salt and pepper, to taste
24+ won ton skins
toasted sesame seeds, for garnish
sliced green onions, for garnish

Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.  Place a won ton skin in each muffin cup.  Bake at 350 5-8 minutes until slightly crispy.

Whisk together soy sauce, sesame oil, chicken broth, sugar, crushed red pepper, and cornstarch in a small bowl.  It should taste savory, salty, and sweet.  Adjust accordingly.  Set aside.

Prepare the filling while the skins are crisping.  In a large skillet or wok, cook pork, ginger, and garlic until pork is browned.  Remove from pan.  In same pan add the green onions, carrot, onion, bell peppers, and cabbage.  You may want to add a little oil or broth.  Cook to crisp-tender.  When vegetables are done, add the pork mixture back in and add prepared sauce.  Cook a few minutes more until sauce thickens.  Remove from heat.  Season with salt and pepper.

Fill the won ton skin cups and put them back into the oven for 8-10 minutes, until edges are brown and everything is bubbly.  Garnish with toasted sesame seeds and green onions.  Serve immediately.

Monday Meal Plan

It's been a while since I posted a meal plan.  Here's what we've been eating:

Meal plan and shopping list for 12/20/10

• Italian Beef, crusty rolls, peppers, onions, swiss cheese
• Dan-Dan Noodles, Baked Crab Rangoon
• Spicy Pasta Puttanesque-a
• Crispy Falafel with Yogurt Dip, pita, tomato, cucumber
• Greek Bean and Vegetable Soup, bread, salad

And there was that.

I binged yesterday.  I mean, really binged.  Binged as in, Lifetime Movie Special binged.  All the stress and frustration of the last few weeks went into this.

It's probably good that I didn't make it to D&D last night (due to being a one car family and having to pick Lily and Husband up out in the 'burbs where the traffic flows like molasses in February.  So we went home and I ate a tiny corner of pizza and drank two glasses of wine and went to bed.

And you know what I did when I got back in to work this morning?  I ate some more of the stuff I binged on yesterday. 

Ugh.

Ugh.

Ugh.

Gym today.

WTF Just Happened, Or: How Not To Sell A Fridge on Craigslist

Let me tell you a story about the last week, the shit sprinkles and shit whipped cream and shit cherry on top of our shit sundae.

We got home from Duluth last Sunday after Thanksgiving to discover our refrigerator had died sometime that weekend.  We lost everything but a few condiments.  Stuff that I had frozen from our garden.  Tons of herbs.  Produce.  Meat.  Gone.

After we determined that the fridge was out of warranty and repairing it would be all but impossible, we fired up Craigslist.  Found one for $50 about a mile away.  Perfect!  Husband and Friend go haul it out of this lady's basement, cash was exchanged, and after much struggle, sweat, profanity, and minor injury the fridge was in place.  Hooked up to the water line, even.

Fast forward two days: the freezer wasn't even close to cold and the refrigerator was leveled off at only 45 degrees.  I threw a shot in the dark and send an email to the seller.  Uh, hi, your fridge is crap.  Refund please?  She felt bad, didn't know it didn't work, blah blah, let's get this done.

Back and forth it went.  Emails, text messages.  Can we stop by and pick up our money?  Yes.  No.  Yes.  Great!  I'll stop by on my way home from D&D.  I call as I leave North Minneapolis.  No answer.  I leave a message.  Hope I hear from you before I get home....  Didn't hear from her until the next day, when I get another SMS.  Now her boyfriend thinks she's getting scammed.  I invite her to come over and take a gander or two at Fail Fridge II herself.  Because, yeah, I love wasting my and Husband's time and energy hauling a fridge up out of a basement, then up our giant front steps to scam someone out of fifty fucking dollars.  Ho ho ho.

I didn't hear from her all weekend.  Last night in one last fit of desperation I email her again with my credentials.  Here's my blog!  Twitter!  Reddit account!  LinkedIn!  Character witnesses!  I'm not some scum-of-the-earth scammer, I'm just a desperate mom who's trying to feed her child.

Today I got a voicemail from her.  She doesn't want any more "sob emails" to make her "feel like shit."  FINALLY I can come and pick up our goddamn money to try and make up for the forthcoming New Fridge Numero Tres.

So I just got back from her house.  And you know what?  She tried to lecture me.  Apparently she's butt-hurt because she sold something that she thought had value, which in fact did not, and had to return the money.  And didn't I know that everyone is hurting in this recession?  And that she was going to use the money for Christmas presents?  Waaah waaah waaah.

Because, you know, that's a lot more important than us being ripped off and still not having a working refrigerator after hauling her junk away.  For free.

As she was delivering her sad sermon I saw red but that sane part of my brain just said, "She's not worth it.  She's not worth it.  She's not worth it." 

I said, "Okay," and walked away.

::FUME::

Positive. Positivity. I am being positive now.

So my family has had a hell of a couple of months.  I'm not going to go into detail.  It's just... bad.  But I'm ready to fly a giant middle finger into the face of whatever this horrible storm is that we're passing through.  I've had enough.

Here are the things I am thankful for:
My window seat at work.  Hello sunshine!
Four functioning limbs.
A wonderful husband.
The best baby in the world.
Sledding!
Friends online.
Friends IRL.
Friends who were just online before, and now are IRL.
Parents.
Delicious shrimp.
The cold, because when you are operating without a working fridge you can at least stick your stuff outside.
All of our other working appliances.
Family.
Days off of work.
One working vehicle.
Warm dog and cat bodies in bed.
Cloth diapers.
Really cold tap water in the winter.
Webcomics.
Gainful employment.

Not that I care what you think

I'm going to just say right of the bat that I like myself just fine.

I signed up for a global Secret Santa this year.  It is a little weird to think that some stranger on the Internet is essentially stalking my posts, blog, and Amazon wish lists.  So of course I start wondering about exactly how much of an asshole I come off as on the Internet.

I vent here on this blog.  I am an opinionated motherfucker and I usually don't hesitate to call someone out on their bullshit.  I'd like to think that any negativity I put out here is negated by IRL me.  But honestly I don't think I'm all *that* negative.  Frequently disappointed in my fellow humans, yes.  Frustrated by the lack of social decency, sure.  It's true that I want to change the world for the better but I have no idea how to do this so maybe my inaction could be taken as apathy (the true enemy!) or vitriol.

IRL me is quiet (fucking stutter), polite, and a bit of a doormat.

Internet me is a frustrated ball of fire.

In which I ramble on about women in tech

So I'm annoyed.  What's new, right?

One of the fastest and surest ways to piss me off is to be a misogynist.  I'm hardly a militant feminist because some of their "arguments" are seriously absurd.  But I'm fed up.  Really.

FIRSTLY: the "women in the kitchen" and "make me a sandwich" jokes.  If you think these are funny, fuck you and fuck everything you stand for and fuck everything you have ever loved.  There's not a whole lot else I can say.

SECONDLY: How women are perceived in the world of IT and tech.  This is a complicated issue, because on one hand my experience says one thing and mass media says something completely different.  In my personal experience I've only gotten a slight whiff of sexism in the workplace, and exclusively from my last place of work. 

But if you believe the media (oh, that wacky, nebulous media machine), the handful of us vag-possessors are browbeaten on all sides, struggle for positions of power, and are all forced to deliver blowjobs in server rooms across the country for a shred of recognition in our respective companies.  But there are so few of us that the question is asked: why are there so few women in tech?  And it's asked over and over and over and over and over.

But here's the thing: we're already here!  Hi!  Yoo hoo!  Over here!  And over there!  And over there too!  We're here working our asses off every day the same as anyone else in any other industry, male or female.  Nobody in the real world seems to be making much of a stink about the fact that we have ovaries and are fixing computers because we're just doing our jobs. 

By making a stink about gender ratios and whatever bullshit affirmative action-type programs that should be magicked out of the air across the business world to bring more vaginas to the party, the stink-raisers are only marginalizing us further.  It doesn't have to be us-versus-them, male-versus-female, or any other polarizing make-believe.  We're all just humans doing our jobs.  Ants in the hill.  Lemmings on the same treadmill.

And then there's the sexualizing.  Because surely all any woman wants to do is take their clothes off and appear on the cover of a magazine, no matter how much innovation and technical knowledge she brings to the field. 

That all said, I do like the idea of networking.  We can trade war stories or deal with workplace issues as they come up as a community of females who happen to share an affinity for technology.  I'm all for that.

What pisses me off about organizations like Girls In Tech ("Girls"?  Really?) is that they're lumping PR and marketing in with tech.  Frankly, it's off-putting.  My job is so far away from PR and marketing it's not even funny.  I don't want anything to do with that industry.  If I'm going to network with someone, it's only going to be useful to me if I can have a discussion about how other companies are handling wireless security in the office, or which commercial MPLS options make the most sense for the size of a business, or who makes the best business-class laptops.  I don't give a rat's ass about building brands, corporate social networking, anything involving the word "leveraging", spin, adspace, or SEO.

Monday Brain Dump

So a bunch of us nerds from the Internet have been getting together for a weekly D&D night.  I've never had the pleasure of playing with an actual group of people and the last time I looked at D&D was in junior high? Maybe? Back when there was D&D and then there was fuckin' hardcore AD&D RRRAAAAUUUGGHHH.  Almost all of us are completely green when it comes to D&D but luckily we have an experienced DM (or do we call them GMs these days?) and a couple of veterans of previous versions.  We're still in the hand-holding stage but fuck if we didn't massacre the shit out of some kobolds the last couple of weeks.  I'm 30 years old and I play D&D and I have no shame.

Speaking of that, I've had a new life mantra.  It goes, "I'm 30 years old and I'm going to _____ if I want to."  It has many applications, such as, "I'm 30 years old and I can wear novelty socks to work every day if I want to", and, "I'm 30 years old and I'm going to cut my hair into a mohawk if I want to", and the recently-uttered, "we're 30 years old and we can buy our own Fun-Dip if we want to."  This is all part of my larger life-altering plan to Stop Giving A Fuck.  Why yes, that is oatmeal on my pants.  And I don't give a fuck.  And yes, I'm probably going to wear these pants again tomorrow.  Because I don't give a fuck about that either.  And also, I'm a goddamn midget who's going to tell you to move your slow ass over to the right in the Skyway because I don't give a fuck and I'm hungry and I'm on my way to get some lunch.

Since we switched to DirectTV so we could watch the hockey games that we were paying for, we've been enjoying the hell out of our new DVR and new fancy channels.  I've been particularly happy about FitTV.  Last night while Husband was at band practice I fired up some saved episodes of Namaste Yoga, Shimmy, and Bollywood Dance Workout.  You know those people who claim that anyone can belly dance?  That all women's bodies were made to do the movements?  THEY'RE LYING.  I'm glad I never went to an actual belly dance class in public because those people who tell you that you can do it just want to see you make an ass out of yourself.  At least I only made an ass out of myself in front of my cats and dog.  I did slightly better with the Bollywood show, but there was much flailing and tripping.  At least I had a good time and I was winded in the end.  I'm comfortable with the fact that I lack all the bodily control over my limbs and hips that is required for dancing.

I don't know why I do this to myself

I just got back from lunch.  I was craving tacos so I went to Taco John's.  Again I am reminded why I loathe fast food.

I haven't been eating well (or at all sometimes) lately.  There are a lot of reasons for this, but there's just no excuse for the past few days of self-sabotage.  I haven't been to the gym in two weeks.

I looked up from my #3 (with sour cream and cheese on the side) and just couldn't eat any more.  Everyone around me was fat.  Everyone at the register was fat.  Everyone walking through the Skyway with a Taco John's bag was fat.  Every. Single. One.

I feel awful now, both physically and emotionally.  And I have that phlegm.  You know, the phlegm you get from Taco John's and Taco Bell.  I'm kind of dizzy and sick to my stomach.

I wish so badly that I had more of the hash I made this weekend with sweet potatoes, fingerling potatoes, red onions, and kale.  Everything was organic and local and at the peak of flavor.  It was quick and simple.  It had nutritional value.  This weekend wasn't terrible all in all as far as food went.  After eating nothing but candy at work on Monday I went home and made a simple soup with organic carrots and celery, ginger, egg noodles, and leftover chicken broth that I had from simmering organic chicken a few days prior.  We ate this for dinner with toasted rye bread.

So today I demand a do-over.

The tiredest sushi

Scooter scooter scooter (RIP Gretchen)

My adorable pink and white 49.5cc scooter (Gretchen) is dead.  Dead.  The spring from the starter somehow wrapped around the drive chain and oil was lost somewhere and there are metal shards and everything. 

But.  Um.  This weekend I got the shock of my life.  My dad had Gretchen in his shop and was attempting to fix it (this was before I knew about the absolute self-destruction involved).  I got this picture in a text message Saturday morning:

Ugh.  It's a little like seeing a family member go in for surgery.

I got another text that afternoon saying they were on their way to drop her back off at home.  So they drive up with a scooter on a trailer.  Only it's not Gretchen.  It's a badass yellow 150cc scooter.  I believe the first thing out of my mouth was, "Uhh…?"

The scooter, as it turns out, is my birthday/Christmas present for the next 40 years or so.  They found it on Craigslist for a ridiculously crazy deal (seriously half of what it should have cost) and snapped it up.  My dad is still going to fix Gretchen but we're going to sell her when she's functional again.

The new scooter looks sort of like this (these things are all over Craigslist right now).  Mine's got a few more chrome appointments.  Bad. Ass.

I'm SO EXCITED to be able to scoot faster than 25 mph.  I can take her on highways and everything!  No more moving into the bike lane!  This reminds me: I have to get my helmet fixed.  Also, now I have to learn how a 4-stroke works.  No more dealing with smoky 2-cycle oil?  Awesome!

I'll be taking pictures this afternoon.  I'm taking suggestions on what to name her.

Also also: I need need need a FLCL sticker now.

Mama Thursday: She's Taking Advantage of Me

Lily's still not really talking yet.  She did try to say "one, two, three" yesterday and it sounded like "uh, oua, eh."  But she's trying!

She's got this bad habit of not wanting to eat or drink unless I'm physically feeding her.  Last night she want so far as to grab my hand, move it to her cup, and make me hold it for her while she sucked on the straw.  Ah hell naw... this stops today.

Speaking of eating, she still won't eat more than a bite or two of meat.  I am OK with this, but it's difficult because I've been in a carnivorous mood lately.  I think it's the change of seasons.

I'm dreaming of the day when I can do something with her hair.  It's so thin and fine that there's no way I could get it into pigtails or anything.  As much of a pain in the ass as it is for me, I wish she would have inherited my family's thick, dark hair.  We'll have to beat the boys off with sticks because of her straight, soft, strawberry blonde hair.

We met some of the other kids on the block the other day.  It's weird that we've been living there for over five years and haven't really seen anyone's kids.  One couple carts their new baby all over town (to Plymouth!) for playgroups, new dad groups, and that sort of thing.  Another lady sequesters her three kids in the backyard and was ruminating on how much better she feels now that there's a padlock on their fence gate so she can run in the house for two minutes to change her youngest's diapers and let the other two stay outside.  I wanted so badly to suggest she read Free Range Kids but I was polite and kept my mouth shut.  One of the ladies on the block is currently unemployed and stays home with her 1-year-old and is thinking about organizing a playgroup or babysitting exchange.  So we've got that going for us.  Hopefully.

It's so amazing how different everyone's parenting styles can be even on one city block.

The Real Food Boot Camp 2.0 is underway

So I've been rewriting the RFBC and it's coming right along over at http://realfoodbootcamp.blogspot.com.

What I learned last night

Drinking a shot of Galliano on the same day that I give blood will make me vomit.  On the bathroom rug.

Taking Charge: Part 2

I'm a butterfly!  Whee!

No, seriously, I feel like I'm coming out of my shell.  Maybe I'm just going through some kind of manic high period, but I've been totally cool with social interactions lately.  I did get a little agitated in the crowds at the downtown farmer's market yesterday, but fuck those market tourists like to move slow and block the sidewalk.

I've had a mental bucket list going for a while now and it's time to get it out in the open.  I have avoided most of these things because my social crutch husband hasn't been the least bit interested in most of them.  But you know what?  Fuck that.  I'm going to do stuff because I want to do stuff and I'll do them alone and be fine with it.  Rawr.

• Take a voice acting class
• Take a real acting class
• Take regular yoga classes
• Go back to school and finish a degree
• See the Badlands
• Visit Utah's national parks
• Visit the Headwaters of the Mississippi
• Gather fellow geeks together and establish a regular D&D night -- done!
• Learn how to fix my scooter
• Buy a longboard
• Run a 5K
• Find a best friend
• Take more cooking classes
• Teach a class
• Do mehndi again
• Dye my hair
• Make at least one female friend
• Laser hair removal
• Lasik
• Learn Korean

Mommyblogs, advertising, corporate whores. As usual.

So there was this.

This is pretty much the worst thing ever. 

OK, maybe not ever, but certainly the worst thing to hit the women's blogosphere. Way to drink that Kool-Aid, ladies.

I'm not going to derail into a tirade about the irresponsibility and naivete of these misguided individuals and the evilness that is HFCS, lobbyists, corn subsidies, sugar tariffs, and GMO crops.  Some other time, perhaps.

I'm not generally a fan of mommyblogs.  Besides the inane prattling about the 14,709 pictures of junior's latest block stacking conquest, a lot of them force products down your throat.

I wouldn't have so much of a problem with the product whoring if it was the bloggers themselves approaching companies with a, "Hey, I really like your thing.  I'm going to write about it, 'kay?"  Hell, I've done a couple of product endorsements myself.  But no, companies actually have people whose job it is to contact bloggers and social media-related people and ask them to push their wares.  In return the bloggers may get paid money or free product.  Many of the bloggers will use the free product for a giveaway, thus increasing their blog's popularity.  Does a giveaway mean these bloggers retain their integrity?

Not in my book.

They are being paid in goods or cash by a company.  They are, to be perfectly frank (it's what I do), corporate whores.  Whether they're offering up a good, bad, or indifferent review of something, they are still providing advertisement for a company at a fraction of the cost of traditional ad.

"But PPC," you will sneer, "I've seen you put your name in on some of these giveaways!  You're a hypocrite for supporting the very people you revile!"  And I say to you: damn right I want a free KitchenAid Mixer.  If the Pioneer Woman wants to give me one, that's great.  If she's getting them gratis from KitchenAid she's still a corporate whore.  And I still despise that shit.  But if the Pioneer Woman decides tomorrow that all her giveaways are going out the window, it doesn't affect my life in any way.  And besides, it's not the people I have a problem with (unless they're homophobes, bigots, or misogynists as well -- then I hate their guts and hope they lose an eye or a limb), it's their actions.  Semantics, baby.

And thus she spake her judgement upon the bloggers.

Taking charge: Part 1

I am unattractive.

Stay with me here.  I swear this isn't a waaaaaaah post.

I am not what you'd call classically beautiful.  I'm short, have a wide back, giant calves and thighs, a bulbous nose, terrible thick and unruly hair, moles everywhere. 

Me tonight

I don't photograph well.  I have a weird smile and one of my eyes always closes halfway and makes me look stoned out of my gourd. 

I can only remember two times in my life where someone called me "beautiful."  I remember one of those times very clearly because it was only a few years ago.  I was wearing a dress and actually put on makeup because we were going to a wedding.  Husband's aunt actually stopped short and said, "You're beautiful!"  I was caught off guard and managed to stutter a thank-you.  I didn't look like myself that day.

Me not looking at all like me

I've gone through all the stages of questioning, doubt, denial, and acceptance.  I look like what I look like. 

I am determined to take pictures of myself nonetheless.  I want to do this for my daughter.

I realized today that there are very few photos of me from about age 7 to age 23.  My family and friends just didn't use cameras very often, and if they did they weren't taking pictures of me.  And I was just fine with this.  As unattractive as I am now, I was exponentially so when I was going through puberty.  I don't even want to talk about my giant frizzy hair.

As few pictures as there are of me, there are far less of my mother.  She died when I was 10.  I have a terrible memory anyway and I don't remember faces very well.  I only have two or three photos to remind me what she looked like.  I barely know what kind of person she was.  I know she liked to crochet.  She was a good cook.  She was a hard worker.  Photos might have been able to provide some kind of clue as to her interests, her dreams, her passions.

I think about this all the time: what if something happens to me?  Will Lily remember my face?

So I will take pictures of myself not as any kind of Internet attention whore.  In the end I only care about me and mine.  I will take pictures of myself even if no one else will.

Depending on the day, and depending on what I ate
I'm anywhere from 20 to 35 pounds overweight
I got red eyes and one of them's lazy
And they both squint when the sun shines so I look crazy
I'm albino man, I know I'm pink and pale
And I'm hairy as hell, everywhere but fingernails
I shave a cranium that ain't quite shaped right
Face tight, shiny, I stay up and write late nights
My wardrobe is jeans and faded shirts
A mixture of what I like, and what I wear to work
I'm not mean and got a neck full of razor bumps
I'm not the classic profile of what the ladies want
You might think I'm depressed as can be
But when I look in the mirror I see sexy ass me
And if that's something that you can't respect then that's peace
My life's better without you actually
- Brother Ali - Forest Whitaker

Souls are worth the price of a gift certificate, evidently

This makes my blood boil.

More later.

Brain input overload

I desperately want to get my scooter back up and running.  I haven't been able to use it this year at all and it looks like I won't be able to either.  I need to replace the air filter for sure and probably the spark plug too.  There's really no reason why it's not starting.  The carb is spotless.  All the fluid levels are fine.

I know that I will have to learn how to do this myself.  But when I'm working full time, taking care of the baby, trying to learn Korean, trying to learn how to play the ukulele and tinwhistle, and working on plans to go back to school I just don't know when this is going to happen.  Oh, and I want to take voice acting and/or real acting lessons too.

I've already tried asking someone to help me and show me how to do basic maintenance on it but this person has made it pretty abundantly clear that they have no interest in helping me with this.  But that's a whole other situation.  Husband knows a little about small engine repair but lacks experience.  Brother-in-law is too busy putting his new house together. 

I guess I'll go to the library and see if they have some kind of small engine repair for dummies book.  They've got the Haynes scooter manual but it does me no good when I don't know what problem I'm looking for in the first place.  So... dead scooter.  Yeah.

Another working mom's vent

I'm going to riff on Lutherliz's post about the lack of classes and fun stuff available for working parents and their kids.

I don't know the statistics, and I can't be arsed to look them up, but I'm willing to venture a guess that most parents in the US right now are working parents.  And most of us have day jobs.  So staying up until midnight to sign up for an evening or weekend community ed class the moment registration opens?  Not cool.  Free family movies at the Mall of America?  Tuesday mornings.  Wee Wednesdays at the Midtown Global Market?  10:00 AM.  Playdates, parenting groups, mom & me classes, La Leche League meetings: all weekdays during business hours.

Working parents: we have to fix this.  So what can we do?  Start a letter writing campaign?  Raise funds to guarantee community ed classes for us?  How can we use technology to our advantage?  Start a website that lists things just for us?

I'm not a web developer but I know what would be nice in a website like that.  At the very least it should be searchable and browseable for activities, cost, day, time, age, etc. 

Social inside of me...is on the riiiiiiiiiise

So I had basically the entire Dr. Horrible soundtrack in my head all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Rewatching it on Friday and last night didn't help.  I'm listening to the sountrack this morning.

Four sweatervests!

Goddamnit!

The big news for me today is that I went to a party this weekend -- get this -- by myself.  No social crutch to lean on (besides beer), just little ol' me in a backyard full of strangers.  And it was awesome.

I didn't spend any time at all afterwards obsessively going over every detail in my mind.  Maybe I said something stupid to somebody.  Oh well.  I'm getting better and better at this social thing.

Herp derp numbers

I'm looking at starting school in January to get a CIS degree.  I am not looking forward to the math classes I will be forced to take.

Here's a semi-related tangent: the Korean number and counting system sucks.  Hard.  It's completely baffling to me why they would have to completely different sets of numbers.  One set is used to count certain things, and the other set is used to count other certain things.  And then just to be really confusing sometimes you have to mix the two, like when you're telling time.  You say the hour one way and the minutes the other. 

I've always struggled with math.  I'm sure I'm somewhere on the dyscalculia spectrum.  I have no problem with fractions.  I was always able to make my way through algebra.  But when it comes to understanding the concepts behind math and putting them into practice I just can't seem to make the connections.  When I see a bunch of numbers my brain sort of goes into a test pattern and a beta wave hum.  I have a very hard time paying attention to the weather report on the news or even just remember what time it is.  Phone numbers and addresses are a joke.

The majority of my math issues stem from one very terrible math teacher, Mrs. Osiecki, in junior high.  This woman's teaching style was and still is incomprehensible to me.  We'd spend the entire period going over the previous day's homework, then maybe spend the last five minutes on what we were supposed to be doing that night.  What?  My stepmom also had Mrs. Osiecki and also credits her for a lifelong math learning problem.

As an aside, Mrs. Osiecki the woman is kind of a legend in my hometown.  We'd take bets on how many pens she'd pull out of her afro (she's a white woman) in any given school period.  I bet you can still see her around town to this day, giant fro bouncing up and down as she jogs. 

Mrs. Osiecki taught 7th grade algebra.  I barely passed.  Subsequent classes in junior high and high school in trig, statistics, functions, and geometry were completely ruined for me.  When I got to college I took what was basically a remedial math course called Math Appreciation in which our final grade was based on writing an essay.  About math.  I took the smartass route and wrote something called "The Hatred and Humor of Math" where I basically made fun of math geeks.  Somehow I got an A.

I seriously doubt the credits from that class will have any bearing on my future college career.  Now I'm looking at the daunting list of college algebra, trigonometry, discrete math, and calculus.  And those are just the pre-reqs.  I will also have to take calculus II or higher and comp theory or whatever seq. & par. algebra is.  I'm doomed.

My thought: They make machines to do the computating for us.

Mama Thursday: Outkide

I just know that one of these days Lily is going to look up at us and start speaking in complete sentences.  She talks plenty at home -- just not in English.  This morning was a little bit of a breakthrough though.  She said, "outkide" and pointed at the door.  This child is always wanting to go outside.  Any time of day, rain or shine, cold or hot.  She wants to climb down the front steps, run down the sidewalk, and sit on the retaining wall three houses down.

She has a little sandbox in the backyard now, and that has been just awesome.  I wish we had one of those climbing cube/slide thingies for her but that will probably have to wait until next year.  She's a slide junkie.  She also loves to be swung around in a circle by her arms but Husband and I get nervous because we feel like we're going to rip her little arms out of their sockets when we do it.

She's got such a strong personality.  That's our fault, I suppose, because Husband and I are pretty stubborn people and her obstinance is as much as we deserve.  She has a very short attention span for books being read to her, but she will "read" them to us in her own babbling language.  She's still hitting me when she gets overly frustrated (I read that she hits me because she trusts me -- WTF?) but when she does this (or when she grabs the kitties by their tails) she looks me straight in the eye and gives me a devilish smile.  It takes everything in me to not yell or grab her hand and smack it.  The other day she hit me but then I could see in her face right away that she knew she had done something bad.  I was angry.  She stood up, got her face right in mine, and gave me a big kiss right on the mouth.

I melted.

Too Geeky to Diet?

I understand that the way to lose weight is to simply burn more calories than you take in.  Running is my primary form of exercise now that I'm not playing roller derby anymore.  I've been spending a bit of time on the stationary bike too.  But food is my downfall.  I like food too much.

I've been trying for years to find the best way to track my diet.  I've tried meticulous calorie counting at SparkPeople, not counting anything at all, the Hacker's Diet, and most recently simple food journaling.

Calorie counting is such a drag.  I used to not mind it but now that I've got a child occupying a good chunk of my active brain it's become unrealistic for me to continue researching the caloric content of every bite.

Food journaling is supposed to work because it's supposed to make you think about what you're eating.  It's supposed to make you go, "If I eat this doughnut I'll have to put it in my food journal and then I'll look back on that entry and feel really horrible about myself and the next time I see a doughnut I won't eat it because I don't want to feel bad anymore."  But because I'm not a normal person with emotional ties to journal entries, when I look back at my food journal I just see pure data.  Ones and zeroes.  I can say, "Yep, should have made a better choice at 12:47 PM on Thursday the 19th of August."  But the emotional connection just isn't there.  Maybe if there was a shock collar involved....

The Hacker's Diet should have worked for me, but it's more data entry than I'd like.

You know what's been working for me?  Slim Fast.  Fucking Slim Fast.  Slim Fast!  Me!  The Eat Real Whole Foods girl!  I'm absolutely disgusted with myself.

But fuck if it isn't getting the job done.  I see the numbers on the scale go down every day and my mind goes, "Target approaching.  Continue current trajectory."

Foodblogging: Cold Soba, Sesame, and Carrot Salad with Baked Sesame Teriyaki Tofu

Dinner last night:

Cold Soba, Sesame, and Carrot Salad with Baked Sesame Teriyaki Tofu

On Studio Photography

I've been thinking about taking Lily in to get professional photos done.

Specifically, I've been thinking about not taking Lily in to get professional photos done.

I'm not a fan.  There is no way for studio photos to ever not look cheesy.  There is only a spiraling ladder of cheese, with JC Penney's grey-background-and-big-white-letters at the top, moving down toward Glamour Shots' soft, filtered lens; and ending down at Olan Mills' epic laser backdrop.

The only way I'll ever set foot in a portrait studio is to go in a completely opposite direction, such as a Tim and Eric-style family portrait with closed eyes, awkward grimaces, and bad holiday sweatervests.  Then we'll put it on a Christmas card and send it to our families.

Call me old fashioned, but I much prefer the candid shots of yesteryear.  Back when we didn't have the option of instantly deleting any imperfect photos.  Before people were carrying around pocket tripods and worrying about light levels and SLRs or whatever.  I love my family's crackly old photo albums.  The greenish shade of the 60s.  The brownish shade of the 70s.  The orangey shade of the 80s.  People caught mid-bite or mid-laugh or mid-speech.  The textured matte and rounded corners of old photos.  That smell, the smell of vinyl and extended family.

Raising a kid, not grass

We're entering the hell season for allergies.  Late spring and late summer are an orgy of Claritin and Kleenex for me.  Though I can hardly wait to sniffle my way around the State Fair, I will do it it a sleepwalk-like state due to my stacking of Claritin and Benadryl.  I'm going to start chugging local honey like it's a bottle of Jag at a frathouse and bringing my neti pot to bed with me.

Our front yard is a total wreck of weeds.  I can only pull them for about five minutes while wearing a bandana over my nose and mouth like an anarchist outside of an RNC ralley.  Only my bandana is bright orange and I've got tears streaming down my face not from tear gas, but from the pollen and dust and whatever other evil particles these things that are taking over our yard throw off.  After five minutes of furious plucking and twine-bundling I race inside, peel off my clothes directly into the washer, and run into the shower where I scrub every inch of myself like a rabid cokehead.  Then flush each side of my sinuses three times each with my neti pot, drink a gallon of water, slam another Claritin, and collapse my puffy body onto the couch.  I can only two this once every couple of days.

So, neighbors, that is why our yard looks like it does.  I wish we had some teenagers in our neighborhood who would weed our yard for twenty bucks and a pizza.

The silence

I go in cycles of almost-depression.  If I get stressed out I start dwelling on the fact that I have at most a flimsy and tenuous social circle.  I have many acquaintances, but no friends.  I haven't found a group activity of any kind where I fit in.  Blah blah blah, I've been over this before.

So I'm sure I'll find another group to try and wedge myself into (D&D Encounters at a local shop, more than likely), get frustrated because my social anxiety is crippling my ability to act like a normal fucking human being in public, then quit and slink back home again.  And the circle will be complete.

I'm usually a very positive person.  Lately it's been hard to keep this up.  Again.  I feel miserable about the state of my body despite my efforts to exercise and not eat everything I see.  I have had a very short fuse lately and I'm finding it hard to cope with things going on in current events. 

I'm trying not to fall into despair about whales, dolphins, and seals being cruelly slaughtered by bullying assholes.  I've avoided any mention of the flooding in Pakistan.  I can't read anything about the gulf oil spill.

I feel helpless and more than a little angry and bitter at myself for not joining the Peace Corps or something like the Sea Shepherds when I was younger, before I got tied down by a house, marriage, and a child.  I wouldn't trade those things in for anything right now, but I just can't…….do anything about anything right now.

Personal betterment and enrichment for dummies

I'm learning how to play the ukulele.  On one hand it's easy.  On the other hand it's very, very hard.
I never quite got the hang of the guitar because I have weak girly hands and am almost completely unable to perform a barre, which is pretty much a requirement.  I can sorta barre on my uke because the strings are a great deal easier to push down.  I'm getting better.  Now I need to drill chords over and over and over again.

I'm also learning how to play the tinwhistle.  It is just as easy/hard as the uke.
I've wanted a tinwhistle for years now.  Every time we'd go to the Irish Fair I'd look at them but never pull the trigger.  Dan got me one at the last minute this year.  It's a cheap one so it doesn't really do the higher register notes but it's enough to learn on.


I'm an idiot so I'm drinking Slim Fast for lunch.  I'm desperate.
I've been eating poorly lately.  I've also been eating meat and I'm not happy about it.  So it's time to reboot the system with a liquid diet for lunch.  My self-image is so not good right now.

I'm on week 8 of the Couch to 5K program.  Yeehaw!
I may be fat but at least I can run 2 miles.


The State Fair is looming on the horizon and we've got our tickets ready.  OMG YAY!

Wednesday's Food

I'm asking for a do-over today, because yesterday was horrible.

Breakfast started out OK: oatmeal with raisins, almonds, and a Coffeemate creamer.

Lunch wasn't the greatest.  I didn't touch my salad.  I ate the whole giant piece of leftover spanakopita.

Things really went off the rails when it came to my snacking throughout the day.  It was someone's birthday so there was a bunch of free food.  I had this peanut butter cereal bar...

...and these crackers...

...and this piece of cake.

Dinner was monochromatic.  Spaghetti and cheese bread with a side of more spaghetti with butter, salt, and pepper.  Because that's how I roll when it comes to spaghetti.

Sigh.  I need to do better today.

Tuesday's Food

I need to start keeping track of what I eat on a day to day basis.  I keep gaining back the weight I lose from running because I'm an emotional eater.

For breakfast I had muesli with 1/2 cup old fashioned oats, walnuts, almonds, dried fruit, coconut, raisins, honey, and milk to cover.  It was deeeeelish.  Even Husband said he liked it.  I will have to pick up some more dried fruit because this might be a breakfast staple for me.

Lunch was a salad with Morningstar Chik'n Strips and strawberries.

I also ate many, many grapes.

And a granola bar.

I also had probably 6-7 mini 3 Muskateers.  Um.

Dinner was cheater's spanakopita-type-stuff and a greek salad with tofu.  I didn't take a picture last night but I'm having it for lunch today.  The heirloom tomatoes, one of the cucumbers, the lettuce, and the red onion were all from the farmer's market.  One big cucumber was pulled out of my garden yesterday, as was the dill for the spanakopita.

I hope the two salads sort of almost balanced out the rest of the calories.  Probably not, though.

Much muches

Busy, busy, busy.

Our new niece was born last week.  I'm trying to get someone to pay us to tow our dead car.  Still trying to learn Korean.  House is a disaster.  Hormones are crazy.  Baby is a hurricane.  New kiddie pool.  Baking bread.  Got fruit to make into cobbler.  Couch to 5K.  Shopping.  FAFSA.  ARGH.

ISP bullshittery

Back in 1999-2000 or so I got my first 56k ISP account with a local company called MNInter.Net.  Eventually I graduated to DSL.  Then the company got sold.
Then it got sold again.
And again.
And again.
And again.

And then today I get a call from whoever last bought our account saying that they turned our Internet connection off because they received a notice from the Entertainment Software Association that claimed that we had pirated software.

...which is funny because the only thing I have torrented in the past year is Ubuntu.  You know, Linux.  Freeware Linux.

Fuck you, USFamily.Net.  Fuck you right in the teeth.  Fuck your spammy-looking homepage.  Fuck your rude customer service rep.  Fuck your jumping to conclusions and fuck your false accusations.

And also, fuck the Entertainment Software Association and your phone guy who didn't want to believe that wardriving is a real thing or that perhaps one of our neighbors was using our wifi while I didn't have our router locked down (while setting up the PS3 on the network), or even when it was (it's really not that hard to hack a router).

I'm going with ipHouse, a local company just around the corner from me at work and the only ISP in town that has a favorable review on Yelp.

Living the dream

Real Food Minnesota Gathering
I bucked up and drove my ass to St. Paul last weekend to attend the Real Food Minnesota gathering.  I was only able to go to a morning session, a farmer's market tour and cooking demo by Molly Herrmann of Tastebud.  I'm sad I couldn't stick around for the panel discussion and social hour, but I'm glad I went.  I learned that the St. Paul Farmer's Market only allows vendors who grow/make their own food.  This is in contrast to the Minneapolis Farmer's Market, which has vendors trucking in produce from all over the world.  Which is not exactly what I'm looking for at a farmer's market to begin with.  That's why I try to stick to the vendors who are actual local farmers, like Untiedt's.  It's awfully tempting to drive across the river though....

Anyway, Molly made a fantastic pasta dish using ingredients she grabbed while we were walking around the market talking to vendors.  It was spinach pasta with beet greens, chorizo, and cilantro pesto.  On the side was a raw beet and corn salad.  These will definitely be replicated at home soon.

Something that was brought up on the market tour that doesn't get mentioned nearly enough is the fact that getting your product certified as organic costs a lot of money and involves a lot of red tape.  Much of the stuff that is sold at farmer's markets is, for all intents and purposes, organic.  One more reason to get to know your farmers.

C25K
I'm officially on Week 7 now.  Holy crap.  I can run over two miles now.  Week 7 is the week where Shit Gets Real.  Aside from the warmup and cooldown, it's straight running all the way through.  Husband and I are planning on running an actual 5K in September.  He just completed Week 1 yesterday.  I've been running with him so there are some days where I run twice in a day and there are some days where I don't get a rest day between runs.  It's nice having some variety between the treadmill and a lake path. 

Roller Derby, Again
I'm giving it up.  I've been thinking about it a lot (and I mean A LOT) the last few months.  I decided that if I'm ever going to go back I'm going to do it because I want to do it and not because everyone around me wants me to do it.  And right now I don't want to do it.

Kieran's
If you're in the downtown Minneapolis area, try the ahi tuna burger at Kieran's.

Runzas
Husband's family is from Omaha.  I had never heard of a runza before a couple of years ago when I had my first one at a Huskers game.  It's a soft pillow of dough stuffed with ground beef and cabbage (and cheese!).  It is so simple and so good.  I made them using the plain boule dough from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.  That dough comes out a bit more sturdy than the egg dough that you'd normally use, but the chewiness really added another level of awesome.

Bread, Bread, Bread
I've been baking bread almost every night thanks to Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.  And I am so very happy.

Party
We went to a small barbeque last weekend to see Husband's bandmate's new baby boy.  This was sprung upon me at the very last minute so I had no time to obsess about the impending social anxiety crush.  And thus I had a good time and wasn't awkward.  It helped having to chase Lily around because I wasn't distracted by all the pesky adult conversation.

Hookah
It was enjoyable and I would do it again.  But not too often, because tobacco smoke makes my lungs feel like they've been smashed with a sledgehammer.

Real Food Boot Camp: Links of Interest

I've got to get better about posting relevant links when I come across them.  Here are a few I've had in the hopper:

• Conner defines Organic vs Real food.
• The Marketing Mama Blog talks about HFCS.
• The Coborns Delivers blog talks about your spice cabinet and gives info on shelf life.

Real Food Boot Camp: New, improving, and relocated

http://realfoodbootcamp.blogspot.com/

Foodblogging: Perfect Coconut Curry!

Finally I think I've perfected my fast veggie coconut curry!  I've covered this before but this time I think I really nailed it.

I used the red version of the same brand of curry paste as before.  I've been a little intimidated by it because I'm not hugely into overly spicy stuff, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the red stuff is slightly milder and a little less "bright" than the green.

All I had was light coconut milk.  At first I was like, ehhh about that, but I think that was the way to go.  It wasn't over-the-top creamy and tasted good on a hot summer day.

Warning: you end up with a buttload of veggies after you chop them all.  I think I had about 7 cups of veggies total.  You only need 2 cups of the veggie mixture and the rest can go in the freezer.  It's possible to cut down the recipe by 1/3 and I'll put that option [in brackets].  The veggie ratios don't matter that much and you can use whatever veggies you have lying around.  Broccoli in particular would have been nice in this.

Red Coconut Curry

1 red bell pepper [1/3 red bell pepper], cut into 3" long matchsticks.
2 [1 carrot] large carrots, cut into 3" matchsticks
1 [1/2] yellow summer squash, cut into 3" matchsticks
1 [1/3 sweet potato] sweet potato, peeled and cut into 3" matchsticks
2 [1 ear] ears sweetcorn, kernels sliced off
1/2 [1/4 cup] cup peas

1/2 block firm tofu, 1/2" cubes
1 can light coconut milk
1-4 tsp red Thai curry paste (I used around 1 1/2 tsp)
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt, 1/4 tsp or to taste
soy sauce, to taste
lime wedges
hot cooked rice

Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan over medium heat.  Add curry paste and saute for 1 minute.  Add coconut milk and tofu.  Simmer 5 minutes.

Add veggies, then salt to taste (I used around 1/4 tsp of kosher salt).  Cover and simmer 10 minutes.

Serve over rice and pass the soy sauce and lime.

o hai

The whiny emo girl that was here last week?  She, um, she may or may not be stuffed in a trunk in the basement bedroom closet.

SO POSITIVE IT HURTS.  OW.

I've got things to blog about.  Clearly.  But besides those demons in my braaaains I've got other more interesting things that have been happening lately.

• I went to the Real Food MN un-conference thingy this weekend.
• I'm making major headway in the C25K program.
• I've got decisions to make on roller derby once again.
• I ate good food at Kieran's last week.
• I made runzas this weekend, and lots and lots and lots of bread.
• I went to a small party last night and wasn't awkward.  For real.
• I had my first hookah (tobacco) experience last night.  My lungs are angry but my brain is happy.  Must...not...buy....hookah.........

America, fuck yeah.

Pity Party

Move along, there's nothing to see here.

Mama Thursday: Month 15, Week 3 - The Mayor of Frown Town

The past week and a half have been what people with early childhood education degrees like to call "challenging."  Challenging, as in my child has been replaced by a back-arching, face-contorting, screeching demon.  All last week she was cutting a new pair of teeth (her fangs are coming in!  She has teeny fang nubbins!) so she got the requisite fever and runny nose.  And she decided that she needs to eat cheese popcorn morning, noon, and night.  And all of her toys are boring.  And she wants to read books instead of go to bed.  Point, grunt.  Point, grunt.

Her tantrums have become refined to a razor's edge.  If we tell her no or don't pay attention to her RIGHT NOW she'll drop to the floor, screech, and start banging her head.  She's slowly learning that Mama doesn't pay attention to these displays, and that banging her head on the tile kitchen floor, or the sidewalk, or the brick patio doesn't feel very good.  She compensates by giving the floor surface a tentative test whack, and if it's too hard she'll put her hand down as a soft strike zone.  She's a wily one, this child.

On the upside, she has finally decided that since her cousins know how to sign "please" and thus get what they want, she can too.  It's so great to see her embrace actual communication.  She'll make the sign, then beam at us because she now knows that "please" is truly a magic word.  "Please" gets her cheese popcorn.  But not for breakfast.

Operation Affirmation Day 1

I love this!

Here's my first: I'm feeling strong because today I'm going to move past week 5 of the Couch to 5K program!

Thank you.

A Different Kind of Christian Demonstration at Gay Pride

Real Food Boot Camp: Week 8 - Wrapping Things Up

I'm wrapping up the RFBC this week and there are just a couple of things I'd like to touch on.

Incorporating Exercise
Eating real, fresh food will give you more energy.  That's just how it is.  So as long as you're making major lifestyle changes you might as well get in some exercise to burn some energy off.  There are a million and one websites, articles, and magazines with ideas on how to incorporate exercise into your busy day.  Some of the ideas are impractical (join a gym!  Sure, I'll get right on that after I work my full time job, then pick up the kid and make dinner and clean the house and take the kid to soccer practice and put the kid to bed and maybe say a couple of words to my spouse before passing out and go back to work in the morning so I can continue to live paycheck-to-paycheck) or just plain stupid (jumping jacks in your cubicle!).  If we're being completely honest with ourselves here there are many good excuses not to exercise.  But here's the thing: most of your excuses are crap.  Take the stairs.  Park farther away.  Get up 20 minutes earlier.  Play with your kids.  Go for a walk.

Feeding the entire family
It's possible to feed your kids something other than french fries, Happy Meals, and frozen chicken nuggets.  If your kid has never tasted jicama or kohlrabi, why not?  If they've tried them once and decided they hated them, did you try to prepare them a different way?  Have a few years passed since you last tried?  Kids are pliable.  I encourage you to get kids excited about trying new things.  I know that some kids are steadfastly stubborn little bastards, but I don't think you should ever stop trying. 

Do you have a baby?  Have you ever considered making homemade baby food?  It's easier and faster than you think.

Do you have school-age kids?  Do they eat school lunch?  Do you know what they're eating?  Please find out and consider sending healthy, fresh food with them.  With a little pre-planning mixed with freezer and food storage skills it's easier and faster than you think.  Better yet, start a conversation with your child's school about the quality of the food they're serving.

The Big Box Of Crap
Remember that box of crap food you've been adding to this whole time?  It's time to go and look at it.  How have your feelings toward this stuff changed?  

Your Homework:
Donate your box of crap to a food shelf.  I'm sure there's a box at your local supermarket.  There are a lot of hungry people out there and even if this food isn't the best, it's better than nothing.

Week 8 Links: 8.1 8.2

Oh by the way

Still sober but awake

I broke down and took a Sominex last night.  I have had such a hard time getting to sleep naturally and on top of that I have a lower respiratory thing going on.  So I took at Mucinex and a half dose of Sominex and slept like a baby until 4:30 AM when the cat woke me up by repeatedly sitting on one of Lily's toys that sounds like a doorbell when you push the button.  The cat almost went out the window this morning.

We were in beautiful, exciting Omaha all weekend for the 4th and Husband's grandmother's 90th birthday party.  We experienced something called a Cheese Frenchee, which was talked up to no end by Husband's parents.  It must have been a nostalgia thing, because it really wasn't that great.  It's a grilled cheese sandwich with a thick smear of mayo inside that has been battered, dipped in cracker meal, and deep fried.  Somehow I don't think this nutrition profile is accurate because I'm pretty sure I hit my grease ceiling for the next month. 

Speaking of Omaha food, I got myself a Cheese Runza and enjoyed every morsel of it.  Why don't we have Runzas in Minnesota?  Huh?  HUH?  Runzas are like meat-and-bread crack.


I'm not even from Omaha, but I'm sad that they're tearing down Rosenblatt stadium.  I've never even been there.  But it's always been there sitting right next to the zoo.

Omaha is SERIOUS about its fireworks.  We were driving around on Sunday night and the air was so thick with smoke we could hardly see the road.  There were fireworks going up on each side of the road as far as the eye could see.  At one point our car was almost hit by a bottle rocket. 

Lily got to wear her pretty party dress and make a friend out of a distant cousin.

Real Food Boot Camp: Shout Outs and Links

This is overdue.  Here are some awfully nice people who all have fabulous teeth, great hair, and above-average children.

Counting Girl - Your latest weight loss is inspirational, even if you think it's water/sodium related.  ;D  And I'm totally jealous of your hiking trip.

Julie Lost and Found - *sober 4th of July weekend high five*  We did it!

Wishful Shrinking - Cracking me up with a daily picture of the adorable Molly.  P.S.: You CAN do it and you ARE worth it!

A SAHM's Musings - Good golly, you've got a beautiful family.  Hope you make it back home safely after your trip.

The Snyder 5 - Your organizational skills are awesome.  And honestly, Aqua has some pretty good songs in their catalog and they can lead you into a YouTube video spiral.  ^_^

The Marketing Mama - Even though I loathe and despise your chosen field of work, you are one of the nicest people I've ever met online.  ;)  Also, you're one of the strongest women I've ever met for actually resisting the siren call of Red Lobster's cheddar biscuits.

There are more!  Oh, there are so many more in my RSS reader, but they will have to wait for another post.

Real Food Boot Camp: Week 8 - Real vs. fake foods (the truth about butter)

The butter vs. margarine debate has been raging since margarine's debut in 1869.  The dairy lobby has had a heavy hand in the villainization of oleo (as my grandma calls it) and there's a lot of truth mixed with a lot of fiction floating around.  It isn't one molecule away from being plastic and it wasn't originally developed to fatten turkeys.  It was developed as a low cost butter substitute to feed the French military and the lower class.  You can read all about it here.  And here.  Also here.  Speaking of lobbying, margarine manufacturers couldn't add coloring to their products to make it look more palatable until the end of the Second World War.  Imagine spreading your morning toast with something that looked like shortening.  Does that make you change your mind about margarine?

Margarine is lower in saturated fat and cholesterol than butter.  Stick margarine usually contains trans fats, which we all know to be evil and wrong.  If you're going to use margarine, get the kind in the tub.

However, you need to decide if you really want to eat something that involves bleaching, deodorizing, fortification, colorization, and (sometimes) hydrogenation. 

Assuming you're not vegan, consider giving butter a second chance.  Butter contains one, maybe two ingredients: cream and (sometimes) salt.  It contains the same amount of calories as margarine.  Personally I think it tastes better.

But the key here is moderation.  Moderation in all things in good.  Moderation in fats is better.

The butter vs. margarine debate is a good example of real vs. fake foods and how politics and lobbying have shaped our perception about acceptable foods.  Somehow along the way we decided that fluorescent powder in a packet (or fluorescent ooze) is an acceptable substitute for real cheese.  That vitamins sprayed onto empty calories and chemically manufactured sugar substitutes were more acceptable to feed our children in the morning than buttered toast and fruit.  Colorful advertisements, cartoon mascots, and special interest lobbying have led us down a terrible path.

I don't mean to sound preachy here, but this is the bread and butter (ha!) of the Real Food Boot Camp: to get you to think critically about the things you put into your body.

Your homework: If you have any stick margarine, throw it away.  There really is no excuse to subject yourself to trans fats.

Week 8 Links: 8.1 8.2

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/booleansplit/3060838705

Sober

It's been six days since I've had any alcohol.  I wasn't exactly a hard drinker before -- maybe one or two beers or weak margaritas a week -- but I made a conscious decision to be clean for a month.  Just to see how it goes.  I've been in the self-challenge kind of mood lately.

I was in the mood for a margarita yesterday because we were talking about going to Pancho Villa to watch the Mexico-Argentina game.  We didn't end up going so I wasn't tempted even though we had most of the ingredients at home.  I think I'm going to make myself a virgin margarita tonight because what I'm really craving is that combination of salt and lime on a hot day.

I've been having a hard time getting to sleep lately so I'm hoping this sort of cleanse that I'm doing will help things.  I'm not taking any Sominex either.

It's interesting to see how I'm holding up in social situations without the liquor lube.

Real Food Boot Camp: Week 7 - Budget Shopping

Finally she's writing about money, right?

It is possible to eat real food on a budget.  I promise.  You may just need to adjust your shopping style.

Be A Coupon Ninja
This is the most time-consuming thing you can do, but the deals you can score are amazing.  The jist of super couponing is this: store has something on sale, say, 2 widgets for $1.  You have two coupons for $0.25 off 1 widget because you bought 2 Sunday papers or printed 2 off the Internet.  The store doubles coupons.  Thus you end up with 2 widgets for free.  I'll wait while you work out the math.

This is how you can get a lot of things for free or extremely cheap.  And you don't have to work out all the sales and coupons yourself.  Through the magic of the intarwebtubes people have done all the work for you: see A Full Cup, Pocket Your Dollars, and a number of other sites like these.  I've got a bunch in my RSS reader for ease of reading.

This all being said, don't be sucked into the trap of free or cheap convenience foods just for the sake of getting them free or cheap.  Bad free food is still bad food.  Get them and put them in a donation bin if you must.  Look for deals on produce (they exist!), pantry staples, and household goods.

Buy In Bulk
I'm sure you've heard this before, but have you ever actually taken a stroll through your store's bulk section?  Some stores are better than others and it can be worth it to drive a little farther to the store with the better selection.  If you're in Minneapolis, the Rainbow at Lake and Minnehaha has a stunning bulk area.

But the bulk section is scary!  There's all these bags and weighing and labels and scoops and oh god nobody is here to hold my hand fffuuuuuuu....

Get over it and stop being such a lazy asshole.  Grab a bag, a twist tie or label, and a golf pencil or one of the attached pens.  Scoop your stuff into the bag.  Write down the PLU, the number code on the bin of whatever you're buying, on the twist tie/label.  You don't even need to weigh it because the cashier will do that at checkout.

Better yet: bring your own container so you don't need plastic bags.  If you do this, weigh your container first and write the weight down on your label.  This is called the tare weight and you may need to remind your cashier about it.  Don't forget to write down the PLU too.  There's no need to make your cashier's life harder; they get enough shit from bad customers as it is.  Seriously, if you talk down to your cashier I will punch you in the face.

Another bulk tip: near the bulk bins you will usually find bulk or bagged spices.  Go ahead and compare the price of bagged peppercorns or cayenne with the jars in the spice section.  Mmm hmm.  Yup.

Farmer's Markets and Farmstands
If you have access to a farmer's market or a farmstand, GO.  The food is more often than not local, very often organic, as fresh as it gets, and cheap.  I mean, really, really, really cheap.  It's sickening to have to pay $1.49 or more for a single avocado at the supermarket when I know I can go to the farmer's market and get a bagful of 5-8 for $2 or less. 

In addition to actually meeting and speaking to the actual farmers, you have the benefit of finding produce you never even knew existed.  When it's so cheap, why not try something new every week?

Ethnic Markets - Field Trip Time!
I went to United Noodles this weekend and picked up a pound of frozen shelled edamame for $1.49.  I usually get 12 oz for $2.59.  Lemons and limes can be had at Latino markets for a couple of bucks a bag, as opposed to $1 each at the supermarket.  Spices that run $8-10 for a few ounces can be found at Asian and Indian markets for pennies on the dollar.  I saw a huge bag of whole cardamom pods at United Noodles for less than $3.

So get on over that xenophobia and go.  You won't get any funny looks even if you're not brown or yellow.  The clerks are usually more than happy to answer questions and help you find stuff.

Don't pass by the ethnic aisles at the supermarket, either.  The Latino section, in particular, can score you cheap cinnamon, whole dried peppers, cayenne, beans, and rice.

Co-ops (really!)
Co-op and budget aren't usually two things that go together.  You picture co-ops as places where yuppies driving Priuses and Minis buy expensive organic soap and carrot juice.  While this is mostly true (Wedge, what up?), it is possible to find reasonable prices there too.  Membership truly has its advantages in the forms of coupons and member-only specials.  Co-ops usually have fabulous bulk sections too.

CSAs
The only problem with CSAs is that you have to come up with the money up front.  It's a bit painful having to drop like $500 all at once, but if you think about it it actually works out.  You're getting local, organic (usually) produce, and a LOT of it.  If you freeze what you don't eat right away rather than giving it away or letting it go bad, you can stretch out your CSA goods well into the winter and maybe even beyond.


Gardening
You can garden almost everywhere, even in an apartment.  If you get involved in seed swaps or seed giveaways, it's nearly free.  If you're in the "I hate tomatoes" crowd and have never eaten one straight off the vine, you may just change your mind.  Those mealy bastards at the supermarket have absolutely nothing on a homegrown heirloom tomato still warm from the sun.


Your Homework:
Find and visit an ethnic store or a farmer's market.  Buy at least one thing you've never heard of.  Research it online when you get home.

Mama Thursday: Month 14, Week 4 - Miscellania

Lily is almost 15 months old.  I'm so glad we're at the age where we can dispense with the age counting in weeks, because I think that's annoying and tiresome.  "How old is Jane?"  "She's 74 weeks."  NO SHE'S FUCKING NOT, SHE'S A YEAR AND A HALF YOU PRETENTIOUS TWAT.  When Lily reaches 18 months we'll do away with the month counting as well.

Last weekend we went up north.  We visited my grandpa in the vets' home.  Lily got to run around with my cousin's kid, who is a couple of months older; and my brother's kid, who is four.  They have a variety of toys at the home, and I am unsure of whether they're for visiting children or the residents.

 We went to the beach a few weeks ago.  Lily got to wear her swimsuit for the first time.  Her hair looks red in the sun.  Normally she looks blonde.  We have no idea where this comes from.  Now, in typical toddler fashion, we can't keep this kid out of the water.  She sees water, she charges.  When we were at my parents' place on the lake last weekend I actually let her charge straight into the cold water on a not-so-warm day so she would hopefully learn that this is not a good idea.  I think she got the point.  Now she still charges the water, but she's much more careful about barreling straight in.

On a more unpleasant front, she has started pooping in the tub.  At first I was like, ha -- she farted!  Then I was like, OH GOD GET THE BLEACH.  This has happened twice.

She continues to talk away at daycare and do the ol' point-n-grunt at home.  But this morning I gave her part of my bagel and I swear she said something that sounded like "thank you."

She has a little dance we call Stompy-Stompy.  Be careful, because the cuteness may melt your eyeballs.