Leeks, lessons, and that wagon

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Aug 252010

If I hadn’t put it out there in tweets and blog posts, I may have just adding one more day and one more chocolate chip cookie to my deadline.

But I did. So I didn’t.

I have no qualms about admitting that I did enjoy a few too many soft-baked cookies on the way home from my 11 p.m. grocery store trek last night so The Husband couldn’t give me shit when I got home with my clean eating supplies. I’m nothing if not honest, right?

I had bags upon bags upon bags when I walked into the house. Fresh vegetables, fruits, organic and clean pre-made soups, fish fillets and…

“What the hell is that and is it going to eat me?” The Husband was suspiciously eyeing the green onion bunch on miracle grow I had plopped onto the counter for my Paradise Bean Burgers. “Remember the green onions I bought last time thinking they were leeks?”
Yeah?”

“I was wrong. These are leeks.”

(Which, of course, reminded me of this little Baby F(Ph)at excerpt. Oh far far I’ve come. )

***

I check my list again and look at my watch. It’s almost dinner time and I’m nowhere near done. And this, folks, is where it pays to be an over-obsessive compulsive freak of a mom who packs a diaper bag with the works each and every time I leave the house.

“Leeks, M’ijita.” I say, handing her a water bottle and a snack cup filled with all-natural apple chips. We’ve been at the grocery store for 45 minutes and haven’t even gotten out of the produce department yet. I’ve been aware of the fact that staying on the perimeter is the healthiest way to shop for awhile, but never followed an eating plan that actually had me following through. And because this clean eating thing is still pretty new to me, I’m nowhere near confident in my navigation abilities in once familiar territory.
Food isn’t good and bad anymore. It’s clean or not. And “not” means I’m not eating it if it can be helped. Like that venti, iced, unsweetened passion tea from Starbucks a few weeks ago? Totally acceptable. The little pastry I tried scarfing down before The Husband returned from getting us a cart at Target? I threw it away when he pointed out that it was probably as clean as the bottom of my shoe.

“What’s a leek, Mama?” Buttercup asks in between bites. “Do you know?”

“No, baby. Mama is clueless.”

This, of course, is when Buttercup spots the woman who handed her the parsnip. Before I can say a word, Buttercup gets her attention, tells her that Mama is clueless, and returns with a bunch of leeks as the woman walks away laughing.

Turns out leeks is the fancy word for green onions. Awesome. I feel so Fancy Nancy right now.

Update: Turns out green onions are actually scallions and I never got leeks in my Paradise Bean Burger. Whereas I once believed the kind woman walked away laughing because she thought Buttercup was so totally cute, I now realize it’s because she totally played me because I can’t tell a leek from a scallion. And yes, I learned this while bragging about my awesome Fancy Nancy line on twitter. Thank you to @lainasparetime for setting me straight. Pardon me while I go make vegetable flash cards to study before my next visit to the produce department.

** This post originally appeared on Bookieboo!

Fast, Cheap, and Easy

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Aug 152010

While the rest of the world was knocked off their BlogHer high with the immediate onslaught of screaming kids and loads of laundry that refuse to take care of themselves, I am still navigating the perilous role of The Visitor. It’s a strange place to be, especially since, until a little over a year ago, I lived my entire life within a 20 mile radius.

To say I wasn’t prepared for the mind-numbing politics that go hand in hand with the Who We Actually Make Time For in the 12 day period available to us for our hell-cation would be an understatement. There’s his side, my side, his friends, my friends, and the friends who I totally didn’t miss but feel obligated to make time for anyway. There are late nights (combined with too much sugar and the new toothpaste I stupidly purchased which is yet to be used) for Buttercup, early mornings for me and The Husband, and an ongoing game of Tug of War for our presence in a rapidly dwindling window of time.

Don’t get me wrong…we are having fun. It’s hard not to have a good time when distance and time haven’t stopped me from slipping right back into private jokes and secret punch lines with the friends who will be friends no matter the actual distance between us. But I do have to admit that there have been multiple days when I have wished multiple times that Aunt Becky had decided to go with Mommy Wants Vicodin for her twitter handle so I could change my identity to reflect my current state of mind.

I also feel it’s very important to point out that I, in fact, have eaten my willpower. I didn’t just choose a random photo to fill white space. Instead, I avoided the weird looks from store employees while snapping a few photos of clever aprons because they basically summed up which side of the bed I have been waking up on since landing in Michigan for the second time in less than two weeks.

I’m clean-eating. Or rather, I was until this whole little adventure began. And I totally thought I’d be faithful to my new eating habits while hanging in NYC with TBFF Juliette and schmoozing with my new bloggy buddies. That was before total exhaustion hit and I decided that I just didn’t give a damn anymore. Had it just been those 4 days, I would have been fine. It’s a vacation, right? A chance to let go, have fun, and eat a slice of pizza so good that there was a line out the door long after the sun had gone down?

But by the time I return to Tucson, I will have been gone for 17 days. And because PCOS, Insulin Resistance, and all the other fun little things wrong with me that make being fat so easy it should really be a hell of a good time have probably allowed my body to gain a sickening amount of weight in an amusingly short amount of time, I am perfectly aware that the Fettucini Alfredo eaten at Tio’s today or the Kickass Local Pizza we’ll be chowing on tomorrow with friends are really going to fuck screw with my plans for reinstating my MILF card sooner rather than later.

So what exactly am I doing to myself here? Am I allowing myself to enjoy my vacation or making my trip back to reality (and what The Husband likes to refer to as rabbit food) that much more of a pain in the ass? I’m gonn go out on a limb here and say it’s a Laugh and  Point because It’s Me and not You twisted little combination of both possibilities.

Until then, I’m fast, cheap, and easy.

No Room for Good Intentions

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Aug 102010

You may recall that I may have mentioned something about possibly squeezing in a workout during the Craziness For Which I Was Not Prepared at BlogHer.

And, like, i totally meant to! I really did. I even packed gym shoes and workout clothes in that practically empty suitcase the day before heading out to New York. I really totally meant to when I saw Mamavation Queen Leah in person for the first time at The People’s Party and realized how absolutely adorable she is in person. I may have even told her that I was going to make good on last week’s blog post and sweat my booty off BlogHer style. She said something about thinking I was adorable, too, and I walked away hoping to got she was drinking enough to forget about my promise to be good and motivated.

I may have been able to make it to the gym during expo hall hours, but that would have meant that I missed out on chasing down Elmo like a mother posessed for a chance at a photo and solidifying my place as the Best Mother in the World upon my triumphant return home with this photographic tropy. And really, I’m thinking you would have done the same in my position.

Normally, I’m just getting revved up when the rest of the world is starting to relax for the evening. I get my best work done at night and as soon as Buttercup is asleep for the night, I’m ready to write, blog, clean house, and find a way to get a good work out in between 9 p.m. and midnight. Of course, my suitcase didn’t have any room let over for good intentions, what with all that swag, and all, so I spent my evenings in New York fan-girling with the best of them while acosting innocent little Bloggesses like Jenny just because she was sweet enough to punch out poetry for her minions while The Voices of the Year Gala raged on a few rooms over. Luckily, I convinced Her Blogessness to drop the stalker charges with promises of self-mockery and photos of my pretty up-do un-done in its Mexi-fro glory for the world to see. (You know, because it wasn’t embarassing enough the first time around Stay tuned on round 2. It’s coming.)

I did have a few hours in the afternoon when I could have stolen away and gotten myself good and sweaty, but I spent that little segment of time in a shuttle and at a luncheon at BLT Fish where I had my Yo Gabba Gabba moment when I was presented with a plate of fish. It was either eat the salmon and tuna I’d been avoiding since I was pregnant and my taste buds mutinied on me (Try it! You’ll like it!) or starve while I learned about the importance of seafood intake during pregnancy (ironic, I know). So I dined on this…

 

and I actually liked it. DJ Lance would be so proud.

And I’m plenty sure I could have made time to work out to my heart’s content while traipsing around the big city in an attempt to keep up with my TBFF, writing partner, and roomate, Juliette, on her multiple mad dashes to see Time’s Square and shop at Macy’s and take a bike taxi and get whiplash in a taxi. But well, by that time I had whiplash and how smart would it have been to work out?

So I had pizza instead before getting my minimum 2 hours of sleep before hopping on a plane away from the crazy and back to the slightly less (but not much less) crazy that I’m like, totally used to.

The Aftermath

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Aug 092010

While the title might have led you to belive this was going to be a blog post about BlogHer10, it was written two weeks ago and cut and pasted into my files so I could look smart and update the blog whileI was living it up in NYC.

As you can see, I kinda fell off the grid when The Big Apple kicked my ass. (It also doesn’t help that instead of flying home and recovering in my own bed, I’m trying to stay sane after flying into Detroit to hang with the family for two weeks. I can’t say “blog” too loud without being offered a tissue.)

So until I get my head squared back on my shoulders, have fun with more elevator music. I’m off to pretend I don’t care Buttercup is watching Burn Notice with her daddy.

My sister couldn’t believe that this meal…

…caused this mess. And frankly, neither could I. There was a super yum black bean burger and some surprisingly tasty smashed potatoes on my plate (recipes from Tosca Reno’s Eat Clean Diet, Recharged) and I seriously enjoyed every single bite. But I couldn’t help but laugh at the mountain of dishes in my sink.

Back in the day when I didn’t give a damn and nuked prepacked food more often than I bought fresh, dishes were not a major concern. It’s not much work to throw away a cardboard box and wash off a fork, now is it? But boiling potatoes and parsnip and steaming cauliflower? Then straining all of it in a colander? And smashing it all up in another bowl? And don’t even get me started on the bean burger. I’ve made them a few times already and already know this is a new staple recipe for me, but holy hell, people.

Eating clean and healthy isn’t exactly a dishwasher’s dream come true.

(But it is totally worth the mess.)

**This post originally appeared on Bookieboo!

On losing things...

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Jul 062010

I lose my keys on a regular basis only to find them at the bottom of my purse.

I had Lasik a few years ago, but was known to lose my glasses…while on my face.

My blackberry gets lost in my bra on a regular basis. Don’t ask. Because if you do, I’ll be forced to dedicate a blog post to the very subject.

I’ve even lost the parked mini-van in the mall parking lot once and was wandering the lot long enough for mall security to take pity, offer me a ride, and drive me to the opposite end of the mall where it became apparent I had exited the building on the wrong side.

The Husband had a brain-glitch a few months back and told me to go buy myself that pair of Oakley sunglasses I had been drooling over and by drooling, i mean I knew I was never going to have them because I used to lose $5 gas station sunglasses every time the sun set so I grabbed they keys when I found them and ran out to the mini-van I knew where it was this time and drove to the mall Dont worry, I have a file in my blackberry for where I park now before he regained his senses. I’ve lost these bad boys a few times and have had panic attacks until they turned up again in the diaper bag, the mini-van glove box, or, not surprisingly, on the bridge of my nose.

The point is that I lose things. Without effort.

This brings me to two questions.

#1 Why haven’t I lost the baby weight yet? Buttercup’s blown out the candles on her third birthday cake. Self-imposed deadlines have come and gone. And I’m still trying to earn my MILF card. And the kicker is that I’ve been trying…like, for realz.

#2 Who was the jack-hole who decided to coin the term “weight loss?” When an individual needs to or desires to see a lower number on the scale for whatever reason, why is it that they have to “lose the weight?”

Losing things is easy.

Losing weight? Dropping the baby f(ph)at? Not so much.

Now…where the hell did my last nerve go?

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