How to eat cheesecake (the healthy way)

 
So, last weekend my mom and I went to Charlotte so she could get a pair of "birthday boots" (which are beautiful and I wish we wore the same size!) and I took her to eat at the Cheesecake Factory for her birthday dinner. Nick and I have been eating pretty well at home and I've promised to try to not sabotage this lifestyle with my love of sweets.

Well...as we're eating dinner I decide that I should offer to bring him a piece of cheesecake because it'd just be rude to not at least offer.

So I call him: "Not to try to tempt you or anything, but do you want me to bring you a piece of cheesecake?"

Nick: Let me do a little checking and see what the damage would be.

Fair enough. Then I get this text:

Nick: No thanks on the cheesecake. Only about 1100 calories per slice.

I share this info with Mom, but that doesn't make us want it any less. So I leave with a piece of Snickers cheesecake. Of course, I have to have one bite before we leave the restaurant.

Now here's where you learn how to eat cheesecake the healthy way.

You eat one bite before leaving. You walk off those calories hiking through the mall and back to the car.

You offer your husband a bite when you get home. Another 100 calories gone.

You eat 1/2 of the remaining cheesecake before bed. So you've really only banked 450 calories.

Then when you get up at 3am (to feed a baby or whatever) you eat the rest. It's technically the next day so those calories go on that day.

See, not that bad for you at all. I can justify anything!

Nesting...or I might just be losing it?

So, anyone who's been pregnant or has been around anyone who's been pregnant knows that pregnant women are crazy. Certifiable. But it's okay, because we're making a baby. Or as one of my favorite co-workers said, "You're growing a head. Right now, you're growing a head." So it seems to reason that we'd lose a few brain cells along the way.

Coupled with my insomnia, the nesting instinct has kicked in full force which makes for some pretty fun late night "thinking". Here are a few things that have been on my mind lately...

1. I need to do my Christmas shopping. Like yesterday. And I need them wrapped and in a closet just waiting for December to arrive.

2. I need to stockpile food. You'd think it was the Great Depression, wartime, or that a catastrophic event was about to occur, so great is my need to "hunt and gather". I not only want to fill my pantry, but I want to have a good supply of toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, etc. *Maybe I just remember how "fun" shopping with a newborn can be.

3. I have a great desire to sell my belongings. Who knows where in the world this came from (maybe just to have extra money in the bank), but I have recently thought of selling my Louis Vuitton purse, several pieces of furniture, and a good bit of my wardrobe which it seems like I will never fit into again.

4. I want things organized...drawers, pictures, toys, books. This makes me want to buy an abundance of baskets (which I'm resisting at the moment).

There's only one problem. When you're up all night thinking of all of these ideas, you lack the energy or motivation to actually do any of them when morning comes. Such is life. :)

Things Change Quickly

Yesterday morning, I woke up feeling glad that it was an Early Release Day at school. That meant I'd only have students until 12 and then I could "relax" a bit as we just had professional development in the afternoon.

I was helping present the prof. dev. (with my assigned job as "master clicker" on the computer so I wouldn't have to stand and talk) and after just a bit I went to go get a cushion to sit on because my back started killing me.  As I walked to my room and back I felt more pressure and tingly twinges.

As soon as the session was over I decided to go ahead and leave. I called my mom and Nick, and somewhere between the two calls I went from "thank goodness I only have 2 weeks" to "I can't do this another day".  I had a lot of guilt after Colson was born at 31 weeks. I felt that it was my fault, or that I should have been more in tune with what was happening to my body.  Now I am listening to every feeling because I can't bear to go into labor all because I wanted to tough it out for a few more weeks and overdid it. So,  I thought it would be a good idea to go in and be checked and I headed on to the doctor's office.

Once I was there, they asked me what symptoms I had experienced.  I explained what I felt and they decided to do a non-stress test and exam.  The non-stress test showed that the contractions I was feeling were very mild, nothing more than Braxton Hicks and definitely not productive at this time. It also showed that the baby is doing very well...she explained that the monitor showed "accelerations"(?) which indicated that our little ButterBean is neurologically intact and thriving. The exam revealed that my cervix is still closed, but is presenting as "soft" which can be normal, but they suggested that I limit my activity. The increased pressure I was feeling was likely to to the baby being so low. She said that the baby was very low and a lot of the bumps and kicks I feel are "down there" and the position will naturally create more pressure.

This visit changed my last day from next Friday to yesterday. Now I can focus on resting, nesting, and growing this precious baby.

A True Story

There once was a girl who started a blog while trapped under a nursing baby. And now that baby is two and a half. And that girl is back at work, and still being wifey and mommy, and daughter and child of God, and housekeeper and friend, and the list goes on. And the little blog went neglected, but not forgotten because so many other things took priority.

But the girl was sad. She missed writing and talking to bloggy friends and keeping a journal of her thoughts and life. She's still trying to think of a time to carve into the day/week to write a bit. She doesn't want to let her blog get too far gone because one day she'd like to be trapped under a nursing baby once again.  And she'd like to write about it.

Nerdy Girl

Yesterday was just one of those days.  My mama and I took Bug to get her 2 year picture made and she lasted all of about 4 minutes.  We quickly picked the one decent photo that didn't have half deflated mylar balloons and crumpled gift bags in the picture and got out of there.

The Monkey was whiny and Bug ran around every place we went like a bull in a china shop. She even managed to throw a bag of goldfish across the restaurant and it landed on an elderly lady's table who was none to happy about Bug's antics.  However, we did end the day with some fun at the pool after the RedHead got home. (Oh, but then bedtime came to a nasty end at 10pm after a hour of struggle.)

This morning wasn't looking much better when the Bug said/screamed the words, "MILK MOMMY" about 100 times in the first 10 minutes I was awake. But then I remembered I got to go pick up my new glasses today! Many will hate on them, but I love them!

Today's ˈaʊtfɪt

The Bug photobombing my picture!

Dress: Mercer & Madison

Belt: Forever 21 (only $2.5!)
Shoes: Jack Rogers Navajo
Glasses: not the new ones :)

Here's the nerdy girl glasses

Happy Little Friday friends!

 

Some Days Are Stranger Than Others

Ever had a day that was going perfectly normal and then one weird thing happens and then all of the sudden you feel like you're in the middle of the twilight zone. Um, that was my day today.

Wake up feeling a bit dehydrated from muchos margaritas last night. Normal.

Go see Eat, Pray, Love with my Mama. (Loved it!) Normal.

Change diapers, feed babies, dole out discipline. All Normal.

Make a quick trip to Walmart...well, about that. It was all perfectly normal until a man approached me in the produce aisle and said, "Mmmm, onions." To which I looked at him and them back at the produce. Then he says, "You've got really pretty feet." And I look at him like, "Dude, you're freaking me out and I'm here with my baby so back the hell up." Sensing my uncomfortableness, he proceeds to repeat his point. "I just wanted to tell you that you have beautiful feet." Not normal. One more reason for me to avoid Walmart.

Then on the drive home I find myself behind this really cute old Mercedes. I look at the license plate because it's one of those phonetic spelling puzzle vanity plates and it reads, "IMAGYN". I immediately had duel thoughts go through my head; one did not come before the other, I literally read it two ways at once. Is it, "Imagine" or "I'm A Gyn (as in gynecologist)"??? You decide. Definitely not normal.

So my day went from plain to strange in about an hour. Happy Sunday!

*Note, those are not my feet. Those are google image feet. I'm sure the Walmart weirdo has googled feet many, many times!

I Don't Remember Asking For More Patience

This is a Happy Girl...not an Angry Girl. You'll see why if you make it through this messed up post!

You know how people say to be careful what you ask the Lord for...as in, if you ask for patience then you are likely to receive events in your life that test and build your patience (instead of just being granted patience as a divine gift). Well, I am about 99% sure that I didn't ask for more patience, yet I am called to have more of it lately.

Incident #1: Having no idea what my job is going to be next year. Yes there have been postings. Yes I have called, emailed, and all but begged to just go ahead and be placed. Yet, nothing. I know there's a job for me in the county since I did a contracted leave of absence, but I'd kindly like to go ahead and know what that job is...pretty please!

Incident #2: Arriving at our house we're building and being VERY excited to see that our front door had been delivered. Only to find out that they put the WRONG glass in it.

This is what I wanted:

This is what they put in it:
swirly, not seedy!

Because apparently this company doesn't use the seedy glass anymore so they thought it would be acceptable to just make that switch.

So after much "mature" conversation with the company about the incident we are having another door delivered next week with just clear beveled glass. We did lose $ on the deal since we were returning a custom door...boo! :(

**RIGHT HERE...I was typing along and the phone rings. I know the number because I've dialed it 1000 times. It was our HR Director. Calling to offer me a job! WooHoo! I accepted and I'm very excited that I'll be a Title I reading teacher next year. It made my day...I think we'll have to celebrate tonight. **

Guess I can go cross out No. 1.

Proving Our Contractor Wrong

At the beginning of the building process we asked the "Golden Question"...how closely do you come to the projected cost to build?

His answer, "I've only ever gone over budget twice and once was a lady who picked out things like an $800 soap dish for her bathroom."

Well, he may as well go ahead and mark us off as No. 3 on his list. (Not crazy over, but over none the less.)

Front door...over.

Master bath tub...over.

And our newest purchase, the Rohl Shaw Apron Front Kitchen Sink...over.

It's a beauty isn't it?

Ironically (or maybe not so) these are all things I've picked out. I think I'll leave the rest to the RedHead. I better get out while I'm ahead; or at least not too far behind.

Tales of Insomnia

[anne taintor]

I posted here about my little bout of OCD that was causing me some anxiety and unfortunately I can't say that I've stopped checking the county website for job vacancies multiple times a day.

Last night, just before I went to bed, I checked it one last time. What?!? New job postings! Who posts jobs at 9:00 at night? Apparently our county. And one just happens to be a first grade position at the school less than a mile from where we are building our home. (It's not my first choice; I'd rather take a reading position, but none have posted.) Needless to say, my good friend anxiety came back and brought along another friend named insomnia.

I lay awake in the bed last night for hours thinking about the job and different scenarios that could play out. Then I'd try to NOT think about it so I'd think about the house. I seriously mentally constructed and decorated each room in our house last night. I thought about hardwoods, ceiling fans, shower curtains, tile, cabinets, bedding, lamps, landscaping, faucets, and on and on.

Clearly the distraction was a problem in itself. As if anxiety and insomnia weren't enough, a third friend came and crashed the party...paranoia. I felt a pain on my foot which (obviously) was a spider bite. I continued to imagine the spider crawling around in my bed. I may or may not have slept with my legs crossed to avoid having this imaginary spider bite me on my lady bits. Weird, huh? Yeah, that's what lack of sleep will do.

To sum it up, I'm dragging today....anxiety, insomnia, and paranoia--the three worst friends anyone could have.

I hope it was worth his quarter...

Yesterday it was me versus the Subway worker. Not the subway you ride, the restaurant made famous by their Jared diet and five-dollar-footlongs. If you happend to read my first post (which I smartly decided to delete), you know I was a bit stressed because we sadly forgot my m-i-l's birthday so consequently I had to head to the mall yesterday to find her a gift.

The trip actually went surprisingly well. I was able to find her a gift and get new shoes for both babes before anyone had a meltdown. Monkey had seen a Nathan's hotdog stand as we headed to the shoe store so I promised him that we would return after getting shoes and he could have a hotdog for lunch. So we did. Except that they didn't have any kid drinks so after we ate the hotdogs I took him to Subway to get a drink.

He chose a chocolate milk...that doesn't have a lid...just a big opening perfect for spilling. As I purchased the milk, I asked the man working if I could have a cup and a lid so my little one wouldn't make a mess. This man spoke English. He was of another ethnicity, but he clearly spoke English. Except he tried not to understand the words "cup" and "lid"! After finally getting my point across (with a lot of pointing and even though he KNEW what I was asking for) he told me it would be 25 cents. I told him fine, just add it on, but he then informed me that he had already swiped my card and he couldn't run it again. I checked my wallet and offered the 15 cents I had, but he just shook is head no.

I have been trying very hard to live as a Christian (and I know this is going to sound terrible), but I left Jesus standing outside of Subway yesterday. I thanked the man for his help and we started to leave.

But then I had a better idea.

We stayed...

parked at the booth closest to the register. You see, I was trying to get a cup to go so I could be on my way and make Bug a bottle because she was getting CRANKY! I was here to deliver his karma...I let the Bug yell and scream her little heart out (with an occasional Cheerio to sustain her) while I made comments like, "If we just had a cup with a lid, brother could have taken his milk with him and we could have been on our way to make you a bottle." I thought it was pretty funny.

Subway man did not. Maybe he'll think twice about the way he treats a mama next time.

**Note to any haters. I don't withhold food from my child. She eats like a 200lb man and wants (not needs) a bottle before she goes to sleep (and it was nappy time) regardless of whether she ate 20 min. or 2 hours ago. So don't leave me any nasty comments or I'll enlist you to serve for her night feedings because yeah she's 10 months and still gets a bottle mid-night. **

Life's Little Curveballs

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I have been on blogging hiatus for the past several days. Things started last Thursday night when Bug woke up to be fed and we noticed that the heat wasn't running. We said, "Hmmm...that's not good," but we fed her and bumped it up a few degrees since the thermostat said the temp was only about 3 degrees below what we had it set on. Fastforward 6 hours and we wake up and it's about 58 degrees in our house. We snuggle all four of us in our bed and the RedHead calls a repairman asap. We spend Friday going back and forth between our house and my Mama's and when the repairman comes and checks it out he gives us the news. The good news was that it was just the small motor on the blower that had died, not a problem with the central heating system. The bad news was that no where locally stocked the part of the brand we have, so it would be Tuesday before the part arrived.

Given the news, we decided to split up. The RedHead and Monkey would stay at his parents' and the Bug and I would stay at my Mama's. Things go as smoothly as possible Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, and Monday night. Tuesday arrives, but sadly our replacement part does not. And then the story gets even better. Monkey went to Preschool and I went to Bible Study Tuesday morning, we got some lunch and then got ready for swim practice. As we were getting ready to leave, Monkey started telling me that he was tired. I asked him several times if he'd like to stay home and he said he still wanted to swim, so we went ahead. By the time we arrived at the Y, I looked back and the poor thing had tears in his eyes.

I told him I thought it would be best if we just went back so he could take a nap (I attributed this to being away from home and probably not sleeping well). He agreed and we had been home about 10 minutes when he said his tummy hurt and the puking began. Twenty minutes later I was sick, and twenty minutes later my Mama came home from work and was sick. Being that there's only one bathroom in her house we decided to get a hotel room. The RedHead came home and rescued the Bug from the sickhouse and took her to his parents. Then the three of us headed to the Holiday Inn for the night. Poor hubby stayed to help us, but about 10 that night he got sick too. The boys escaped with the lightest version of the illness, while I was the sickest. No matter what the illness, I always seem to get it twice as bad as everyone else.

Finally, about three p.m. yesterday we got our heat back on and everyone was feeling better (although very tired). We decided to let Bug stay at his parents one more night just to be safe. Today, we're all feeling MUCH better and I am so happy to have all of my family back under one roof. There's nothing like life's little curveballs to make you appreciate all you have!

Laundry Fail

So ya' want to know what's NOT fun??? That would be going through the laundry fail that happened to me yesterday. Domestic goddess that I am, I decided to multitask several chores so I threw in a load of laundry and went off to sweep and wash up the dishes. I heard the machine cut off went to the mud room to switch everything to the dryer. When I opened the machine, nothing could have prepared me for what I discovered.

No, it wasn't a red sock in with the whites...or bleach on my darks.

It was something that is supposed to help prevent messes. Yep, it was a pull-up. Let me rephrase that, a Busted Pull-Up! My Monkey still wears them sometimes at night just as a precaution, but no more. I'd rather wash sheets a hundred times over to avoid the mess I made yesterday. In my haste to accomplish maximum work in minimum time, I overlooked the pull-up that was in a pair of pajama pants. As I pulled each article of clothing out of the washer, I had to shake off a thousand of little gel pellets. It was an absolute mess! Two rinse cycles later, the clothes were mostly clean and I was able to dry them (no harm done). Moral of the story:

A bad job done twice is never as good as a well job done once.

...or my moral: feign incompetence and hope your hubby will do the laundry instead.

"Simple Enough"

"This should be simple enough." These are often the words that go through my mind before a disaster...before I attempt a new recipe, a home improvement project, or as it was most recently, an outing with the children. We had a birthday party to attend, so the plan was to make a quick trip to the mall to get a gift. I had already picked out a cute dress online and was going to zip in and pick it up from the store and be back home in time for lunch. Now here's what really happened...

First, the skys darkened, the heavens opened up and it poured rain-- which is always fun (especially for a 3 year old boy who happens to LOVE puddles).

Then the Bug (who went on a hunger strike before we left home when it was convenient for me to nurse her) decides 5 minutes into our visit that she's now ready to eat. Soooo, I find the closest department store with a mother's room and I feed her.

Now, it wouldn't be any fun if my Monkey didn't decide to pitch his own little fit as he got a case of the "gimmes." But I quickly settled that by threatening to paint his back porch red calmly explaining to him that we were only shopping for the birthday gift.

45 minutes into the "quick trip" I had fed the Bug, put my Monkey in his place, and entered into the store to get the dress. Of course...they were out of her size. This was going well!

We spent the next hour going from store to store trying to find a gift we could afford, but was still cute. And as we went from store to store, we had a lovely friend join us. Enter the mall walker. Her route and our timing must have been in sync because she passed us 3 times. And when I say "passed," I mean walk right up on our heels before stomping around us only to cut back RIGHT in front of the stroller. (Excuse me, but the mall is for shopping...and I don't like being stalked by an enthusiastic senior who about plows me and my toddler over in her attempt to burn a few calories). I swear my patience grew 3 times that day because I succeeded in not speeding up the stroller as she cut back in and accidentally clipping her heels.

We did end up finding a beautiful little dress for a great deal, had pizza at the food court, and both babies fell asleep on the way home. See, it was simple enough.

Use No. 127

Babies have many uses...they can help you end a phone call with a telemarketer as they exercise their piercing cry, they can help you out of most any type of situation that you'd like to escape because they either need to be fed, diapered, or put down for their nap. But this morning I discovered use No. 127 (for this use, baby must be in her carrier). They can help you exit a restaurant after you've spilled an entire cup of coffee in your lap. That is how the Bug helped me this morning.

Everything was going just great; my Monkey started back to his swimming lessons and made it through with minimal whining so we decided to celebrate with his favorite breakfast, "drits." We ate our food and then out of nowhere I just dropped the freshly refilled coffee cup in my lap. Luckily we were the only table in the back section of the diner so I mopped up what I could, but panic set in as I tried to figure out a way to exit without everyone seeing me (it totally looked like I wet my pants). That's where the Bug and her monstrous carrier came to the rescue. I just lugged that thing in front of me and it hid my "accident"! Thank you Bug, thank you Graco for making an enormous carrier that, when strategically placed, can hide anything!