Reason # 1345 why I love having lost some weight - today I was able to sit cramped in a car and paint my toe nails! I can give myself my own pedicures now! Done been a while since I could pretzel like that....Fantastic (and shimery) :)

I swear this recipe is what love tastes like. I enjoyed it so much I had it today for lunch and it was just as good. I used gluten free Rice pasta from Whole Paycheck - er I mean whole foods. :) easy, kid friendly and YUM - even good cold today.

 

Garlic Pasta - feeds 8-10

 

1 bag gluten free rice pasta - prepared to package

1 lb shrimp deveined and deshelled -tails off (I used a pre-prepared cilantro shrimp from Costco)

1 brick Mizithra cheese shredded (the kids LOVED using the grater!)

1/2 stick butter (I used Omega 3 alternative)

1 tbsp. crushed garlic

 

Prepare pasta - rinse in cold water. Melt butter and garlic, add pasta and brown. Add shrimp and cheese. Serve. See? Easy as pie!

 

I srved with an italian salad and sliced strawberries - DIVINE!

 

Have i mentioned that I have the patience of a gnat? I just got home from Children's - Riley needs a lay down after all her poking and prodding today. Poor love. To catch you up to speed - Riley has been bleeding in her LEFT ear because the tube in that ear has cut into her ear during a bad infection. We thought they would remove the tube today, but I was told that the infection is just too swollen to do anything more but try to keep her pain under control and the earliest she can see her surgeon is Oct. so that they hope the infection is all gone and they can retest her hearing. At that time we will find out if she needs a second set of tubes, so we will be scheduling her surgery right around Halloween again. She has hearing loss in her left ear, we dont know how permanent it is till we retest in October, so if she is loud or does not respond when you call her please understand. It is her LEFT ear so try to talk to her RIGHT side. She is compensating nicely, but when we tested she had zero response on her left side when they tested her ear drum. I am hopeful she wont be deaf in that ear. Please say some prayers to whomever you pray to. I am SO angry we cant do anything till October and she is being so sweet and lovely it makes it that much worse.

BTW the new AC Harry got us is going great if anyone want to come by - cant tell you how messy the house is while dealing with the heat and a sick baby girl, but you are welcome! My sweet, brilliant and loving hubby was sad to see me so stressed out and grumpy due to the heat yesterday (apparently I become a real Bee-Yatch) that he got up at 5:30 am and was at Home Depot by the time it openedto rescue his family from the heat! The pool is lovely too, but Little Miss cannot get her ears wet so we have to be vEry careful while playing near water.

 

Julianne

Today I got a few board games for the kids - too hot to do much outside, Riley has a MASSIVE ear infection 9complet with bleeding when her ube in her left ear peferated her ear canal - lovely) so NO swimming - so I got some games at Target when I went to get things like TP and vitamins.....I allowed each child (and myself) to pick out one game. Riley picked a Princess card set of Old maid, go Fish, Matcing and something else - I dont remember - after WAR and these games all I know it poker but I a sure that the DISNEY people did not include poker fr4 year olds....Patrick got a game of Operation (gon are the days wen the piceces looked likeactual bones - now it is al fart humor, he LOVES it) and I picked Connect four because it is something we an all play.

 

Cut to this afternoon we are all at each other's throats because it is HOT HOT HOT(was 110 in Fall City where we were today!) we decided to take his gme for a test run. Patrick, reading now, declares he must watch RIley because he box says his game is for ages 6 andup wen he marches her o the TV room and says, "You will have to only play this with me, Mommy o Daddy - it is marketed for kids ages 6 and up because thy are scared you will swallowgame pieces and choke. But you wont do that, yu are my smart little sister"...and that was that....except I cant stop laughing at my little 6 year old PM..."It is mareted for..." how many 6 year olds say the work Market in the correct tense for conversational use (and sibling warnings)??? Ha ha ha ha

Did you catch any of the World Championships in Swimmng in Rome over the weekend? It was a fantastic show - the Men's relay had me SCREAMING at the screen - my kids thought I had lost my mind! The litle boy from England who won in the men's diving competition stole my heart - he just turned 15 and only last April had to switch schools because of bullying and now he is the World Champion! Eat it, bullies! He was SO cute! Only 15/ i better get cracking on Patrick's lessons - speaking indelicately of cracking, did you see Ricky Beren's "wardrobe malfunction"? While warming up and stretching on the block, he bent down and this happened to his suit - ahem...nice show, Ricky sweetie- ROAM if you want to....in Rome....

 

At a party yesterday evening, before my bout with insomnia (it is 4 amand I am up up up! Great - tommorrow will be brutal!) my boy got to play drums with a band at a party Harry took him to while I was working....sniff.... at least he remembered pictures! Harry "Tweeted" this awesome shot of my litlle drummer boy:

 

OK I dont know where you are but here it is actually getting pretty hot - well hot for us! My kids REALLY wanted Ice Cream and I really wanted a Science Lesson - so voila! Ice Cream hand made - Ths is our BIG Science project on Thursday as well - the kids will be measuring their own stuff....FUN!

 

I  tweaked the recipe to be sugar free and used 1 % milk for mine instead of cream, so it turned out like ice milk, but it was tasty!

Ingredients:
•1/2 cup milk **I used 1 % milk fat milk, but for the kids I used whole
•1/2 teaspoon vanilla
•1 1/2 tablespoons sugar (or to taste)**I used 2 packets of Splenda
•6 tablespoons salt
Preparation:
Put milk, vanilla and sugar into a pint or quart-sized freezer bag. Seal well.
Fill a large, gallon-sized freezer bag with ice. Add the salt. (We used rock salt.)

Put the smaller bag into the larger bag and seal.

Shake and mix until the ice cream thickens, about 10 minutes. You can also let the kids gently throw the bag back and forth to help mix the ice cream. The bag gets very cold, so you might want to use towels to hold it.

Makes 1 serving.

 

IDEA* - for mine I used about 1/2 cup cold coffee left over from the morning and a few semi sweet chocolate chips - voila! No sugar added coffee chip ice cream! It was fun, easy and yummy.

SO if you are looking for a sweet something that wont kill you too badly that is also an activity (everyone made their own and got their own bags) and this recipe yielded enough for me to have two maybe 3 servings! My kids will be using fresh picked rasberries in theirs for a sweet fruity taste. I hope you enjoy it!

Not really the same ring tho, huh? I woke up today at 5 am after having one of the worst dreams I have ever had. Lets just say it featured my darling baby girl going missing. It was horrible. I did not even try to get back to sleep. I just found her, hugged her, and let her go back to sleep with her daddy and brother and came downstairs to make some seriously strong coffee and hang with the BIG dog on the couch. Why is it that the things that scare us most are not easily put away science fiction or insects or whatever you THINK they are but instead anything that involves someone close to you? That is just too easy a pull...my subconscious and I have some talking to do throughout the day today, seriously.

 

So, now I am up, kitchen is done (yes again - the later Harry stays up the less likely he is to actually DO the dishes he says he will do....grrrrr...lucky he is so cute!), laundry is started and I am packing us up for the day outside. It is going to be a hot one - almost 90 - this area I live in does not do snow or heat well, luckily for the most part it does nt have to, but on the days it does - well you better have a back up plan. I am taking the kids to the free movie festival at the local theatre this morning, shopping, and then home for slip and slide and water gun fun before swimming classes tonight! Whew! SO glad I got a good night's sleep to help with the day's activities! Do you think they will nap two days in a row? Yeah, me neither.

Last night the dress was a micro mini, the heels made me damn near 6 feet tall and BTW the dress was a size MEDIUM!! Black, short, low cut and fabulous. I ran intoWHole Foods to get some movie snacks - our BIG date was to see a rather disappointing Harry Potter (bummer) and then to a tequila bar for late night Happy Hour. I was dressed right for the happy hour, not so much for the wholesome Whole Paycheck or the Movie. At the store something that honestly had not happened in years reoccured - men stopped and looked again, they turned when I walked past and I swear one actually dropped his jaw! Ha ha ha SUCKAHS! Harry had a permanent smile and was a bit grabby - not too habby after almost 12 years together! I am almost 50 pounds smaller than I was when we were married so that is good, right? STill, I was a bit racey for here in Stepford.....must remember my place! The last time I was this size I was out in LA, and in LA I was just another size Medium in a little dress to go out on the town - even at the movies people dressed like that - up here I was shockingly out of place, but whatever I was the attention was something new - again.....ha ha ha again...suckahs!

Have you ever noticed while watching The View (Oh come on - you know you do - ok well I do!) anyway while watching I saw Elizabeth Hasslebeck usually has a rubber band around her wrist. Did she forget it? Is she a "snapper" (the kind of person wh compulsively snaps when angry - anger management trick, or does it to remind them of something? if so WHAT???)

 

We all do it - while cleaning up you find a band from you or your daughter or a friend aimlessly laying around. What? Only in mty chaotic house? Well suck it, it happens. Anyway you absent mindedly put it on your wrist to take it upstairs with the next load of laundry or whatever. Now, honestly, a few pounds ago it HURT to do this. I looked like a little buddha baby, you know the ones with bracelets and anklets because they have cute little fat rolls? Only cute on the wee babies I might add, but on my plus sized figure it was less than appealing and cut off circulation in an already pretty circulation challenged environment....

 

Today I was cleaning up. Gotta earn my stolen date with my hubby! And of course while cleaning up found a band or two. Without thinking around the wrist they went - this is normal. What is not normal was 20 minutes in I was not scratching like a captured beast to get it OFF - I looked down what must have been an hour later and had forgotten it was there! FORGOTTEN IT! WTF? it is rolling around aimlessly on my wrist perfectly happy and no redness, swelling or painful Dear God in Heaven save my hand before amputation affects - nada.

 

Whoa. Maybe I had Elizabeth wrong, maybe she is not a neurotic snapper, maybe that skinny bitch just forgets about them....maybe....I will continue to be catty while I wonder how many more I can fit on me. Sick, I am sick I know, but come one you would do the same!

I have a date tomorrow - A REAL DATE! Babysitter and everything! I went to get nylons (boys sorry but I am a chick these things matter!) anyway when I started last year I was a Q3 (sometims a Q2) - fella's sizing for panty hose is as follows from small to largest - A,B,C,D, Q,Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4.... So as you can see when I started at a 5'2" frame I was at the END of the spectrum. Today, I saw some cute little packages on sale for $3 and thought no way they have my size. I found a Q and thought maybe I would squeeze into them, but before putting it in my cart I looked at the sizing, something I usually cringe at but I want to look AMAZING for my date...Qwas too big. D was too big - I am smack dab in the middle of a C in this breand...DUDE! A C! I cant believe it - I am happy dancing and doing the roomba as I clean the house so I can get the night off - FAN FREAKING TASTIC - had to share -

I just posted this to my on line support group - thought I would share it here too -

 

Last night...well in actuality the entire weekend has been a roller coaster. Summer is in full swing and I, as Mommy, am a camp directopr, cruise director, maid, chef, teacher, taxi driver, etc. as all Mommies are. It would be very easy for me to snack my way fat again, but I dont. I dont eat myself fat either. Have I cheated? Sure here and there - but the deal is I have not lost mysefin an entire bag of whatever or eaten my weight in pizza, etc. It is for this reason I am writing to give thanks, not just to the people who help "band" me, but to the friends here who help ground me.

I read everyone;s posts every day even though I dont write in as much, because, well see my job description above! Last night I went to a friend's for dinner. They cooked me Polis food - AMAZING meatballs, cabbage salad, beets and rice - I skipped the rice. Then for dessert we had Ice Cream. They made everyone big helpings and it was indeed delicious, but it was as if Jessie were sitting next to me. A few botes and I was done and explained whie I could eat ice cream it just was not part of my plan and delicately said thank you but I have hd enough. While everyone around me had 4 or more meat balls I stuck to just one and a half. While everyone around me had huge piles of rice with ther meal, I was very happy with the cabbage and beets. After dinne people sat back because their tummies were so full and I was able to jump up and play with the kids because I ate till I was satisfied and was able to stop.

That is the key isnt it? Jessie said she had a satiety poblem and her band helps her with that. I remember the Dr saying these things and rolling my eyes - nothing kept me from ric, bread, sweets and savory food before - how could it? I was ilke an addict - no wait - an addict is someone who looses control to the t hing they desire - in that sens I very definately WAS an addict. To food. To the happy, gluteonous FULL feeling - when the endorphines kick in and you are left reeling in a sea of high from the food as your senses over dose. Yep - that was me. I ate till the pain was gone, the voices were gone, till I did not care what I looked like, or what my health was like, even what my example to my kids was like. I ate to eat - I ate to be happy - I ate to be social - I ate sometimes just because I could.

Last night I ate to be social, true, but I only ate what I needed. I stopped. I STOPPED! I was not feeling that hurt full either - you know where your band screams at you "SLOW YOUR ROLL!" no no no - I could have eaten more, I CHOSE not to because I ate what my plate and my eyes said was enough food - the meat was the size of my fist closed up, the veggies the same. I counted only 5 spoonfuls of the VERY good ice cream and had unsweetened tea. When we came home and my husband had a beer, I had my crystallight - NOT ONE BIT of remorse, or regret, or martyrdom. I just wanted something to drink that was non calorie and sweet - I got what I wanted.

SO, long stor short (too late) I am thankful. For your input (even if I dont always respond) and insight as well as for the unbelievable gift of my band and how it has helped me fight my demon...FOOD....and self loathing. I think I am starting to not hate myself - what a concept!

This is my dog, Killer AKA Maddie Blue. Watch outif you see us coming - she is my mean, ferocious attack dog, as evidenced by these pictures of her baring her LARGE white canine teeth! Be warned, this picture may terrify and otherwise disturb you - she is a ferocious beast....I mean it! VERY SCARY! Shield your children's eyes...or they may ask you for a St, Bernard of their very own!

 

Ha ha ha  notice Patrick in this picture is explaining to the other kids who just loved all over my scary beast that she is STILL just a puppy - no one ran screaming this time Maddie better step up her game...

 

 

It was a blistery park day today. Some dear friends were having a play group at the very park we happened to be at so it was a giant fun date after all! Cathia got a fewpicturesin - I am trying to get them here - lets see if this works!

 

 

Are you tired of those sissy 'friendship' poems that always sound good,

But never actually come close to reality?

Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship.

You will see no cute little smiley faces on this card --

Just the stone cold truth of our great friendship.

1. When you are sad -- I will help you get drunk and plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad.

 

2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

 

3. When you smile -- I will know you are thinking of something that I would probably want to be involved in.

 

4. When you are scared -- I will rag you about it every chance I get until you're NOT.

 

5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining.

 

6. When you are confused -- I will try to use only little words.

 

7. When you are sick -- Stay the hell away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have..

 

8. When you fall -- I will laugh at your clumsy ass, but I'll help you up.

 

9. This is my oath.... I pledge it to the end. 'Why?' you may ask;

because you are my friend.

 

Friendship is like peeing in your pants, everyone can see it, but only you can feel the true warmth.