Feeling a Little Better & a Little Worse March 31, 2012

Better:

Being spring break and all, I finally bit the dust and conquered three rooms of my house. The kitchen, living room and bathroom are CLEAN, yo! My mom came on Thursday and pulled out the appliances and whatnot in the kitchen and got it really clean, even in the “invisible” spaces. Then she helped me flip over my heavy arse living room furniture, so we could clean under there, too. I found ALL the missing toys. Poor Bert’s been under there since Thanksgiving! So, I feel so much better about the house. It no longer feels like this:

 

Also, I did go food shopping and bought the stuff to make five of the Pinterest meals I was salivating over the most. So far one was awful and two were great. When these meals are gone, I’m going to start my juice fast. The hubs is in complete agreement on this plan. So, next week I’ll be back on the juice wagon.

 

I think I mentioned that I stopped the Arava. Which was the breeding un-friendly drug. We have decided to still spend a couple of months actively preventing, then we’ll re-address. Or, as I like to phrase it, we should have listened to Mrs. Gamgee in the first darn place!

 

Worse:

Holy sickballs, Batman! I freaking hate being sick. I have been sick less than normal, though, what with not interacting with the public on the daily anymore and actually building some kind of immune system with my juicer. But, this latest bug got me and Baby G square in the ears, nose and throat. He was really bad for a couple of days (wouldn’t eat of drink, getting on the verge of needing IV fluids), but thankfully forcing water and medicine down his throat seemed to have worked, because he’s drinking today and less cranky pants. He’s napping now, and has been down 2 hours, which is twice as long as he napped yesterday, so fingers crossed he’s on the mend. Because I am not. I feel asstastic! Gonna take a nap myself I think when the hubs gets home.

 

The brokeness is wearing thin. I miss having disposable income. Less than 2 years until the big credit card is paid off, though, then we will have money again. Hanging in there…

Out of Control March 26, 2012

Right now, my life feels out of control. As in I have no idea where to start to get back on track. Or even where the track is. I’ve been drifting. Treading water. Lately, I’m just drowning… So, I need to get some goals in line and get my lazy ass in gear!

 

•  House: My house is a mess. MESS. Embarrassingly messy. This is not me. Don’t get me wrong, I hate to clean. But, I’ve always had one of those houses where a quick trip through to pick up the out of place stuff was all that was needed to prep for company. Then I had a baby. And that baby came with stuff. A giant truck load of stuff. And it ate my house. And it overwhelmed me. Now my kitchen floor needs mopped, my toilet is gross and the laundry monster is threatening to suffocate me in my sleep. Unacceptable. So, what am I gonna do about it? Well, it is spring break… I suppose I need to clean this shit up. Then get myself a little plan together for keeping on top of it.
• Food: I haven’t been food shopping in two weeks. Don’t get me wrong, we still have food left from the last trip. I could probably feed my family for another week or two without going to the store. Not wholesome or nutritious meals, but meals… Yeah, I need to make a shopping list and get my arse to the store.
• Health: Pinterest be damned, I have to do a juice fast. At the end of my 10 day-er last summer I had lost a bunch of weight and my RA was starting to feel better. It was working. I need to get back on it. Give it a couple of months. Holy hell, if I could lose 50 pounds (200′s I could be in the 200′s!!!) and get my RA better in control my energy would SKY ROCKET. I need energy. I know juice fasting brings me energy. My hang up here is just how much I enjoy yummy tasting food, and the comfort of a nice warm, filling meal. But, I need to put that on the back burner. Temporary pleasure is so much less important than improving my quality of life right now. Those temporary pleasures will ultimately decrease my QOL, a juice fast will improve it. I’m gonna do it. I am!
• Marriage: Yeah, so RPL and crazy families and conflicting parenting styles… not so good for the marriage. We haven’t had sex since we found out that Nora was miscarrying. That’s been like 5 or 6 weeks now. Honestly, I’m in no rush. I was going to say it’s the last thing I want to do right now, but then I realized I probably would rather have sex than properly clean my house… Still this is one of the longest stretches we’ve ever gone and typically for us, no sex is not a good sign. We fight almost every night. He’s driving me crazy. Between saying just stupid shit about current events that don’t even affect us, to totally killing me on the discipline front to making shitty-ass little comments he is driving me bonkers. I don’t know how to turn things around. I don’t have an action plan for this one. Maybe fixing the other things will help it?
• My Appearance: The longer I’ve been out of the work force the rattier my clothing has gotten. My mom infused my wardrobe with some of her clothes she doesn’t wear, but… it’s still not quite a wardrobe anymore. I spend most of my days in pajamas, my shirts have stains on them and nothing fits right or matches. On top of all that, I need a haircut, my nails are a mess and my eyebrows look like Huxley’s. Good grief, why would he even want to have sex with me? Anyway, we don’t really have the cash to invest in how I look, and it’s been low priority to me (obviously), but I’m starting to think maybe it I spruced me up a little I might be able to kick this depression faster?
• Homeschooling: This isn’t so much school as just doing activities with the littles. I started wanting to do something to enrich their little brains everyday, or at least a couple times a week. But, I don’t. I need to get with it, though. Even though the TV is valuable for a small bit during the day, I’m finding the more out of control I feel, the more TV we’re watching. Less TV more activities!!!
• Business: Actually have a plan here! Am going to focus more on patterns. This will hopefully result in more cash… Have 6 more hats to ship, then will be caught up.
• Writing: I have so many ideas!!! Must make myself write everyday.

OK, I think I feel better. At least have the start of a start of a proper to-do list.

Going Bananas for Bananas January 1, 2012

There are two things that I will openly own being a judgmental bitch about when it comes to parenting. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll judge in private all day long about lots of things, but about two things only will I really be a vocal bitch: healthy 4 & 5 year old’s who still wear diapers and super picky eaters.

 

I get that diapers are a big deal for some kids, especially with pooping. Big C would pee on the potty all day long from 18′ish months, but asked for a diaper and had to go hide and be in a certain position for MONTHS before he finally got to the point where he was all the way out of diapers. But, that was when he was 2. Not 4. When we start getting past three and a half and potty is still an issue, it’s time to talk to the doctor, to make sure everybody’s healthy, then get on the ball. Because you can’t wear diapers to kindergarten. (If you are dealing with a 4-5 year old in diapers, I’m sorry. I get that it’s probably a huge PIA for you and you wish the kid would shit on the pot, too.)

 

The picky eater one, I have always been much less understanding on. Hard to imagine, yes? Here’s my take, you offer kids TONS of variety. Give them lots of healthy options, eventually they will get hungry enough to eat. Little C rocked my world on this hypothesis, a little, but eventually even he came around. See his first nanny would let him eat ANYTHING just to get him to eat. So guess what he was eating? Well, what would you eat if you could eat ANYTHING? Duh, Cool Ranch Doritos and Fruity Pebbles all day! Or, even better, let’s not eat, let’s just drink milk. Gallons and gallons of milk. I did not realize he had been surviving on nothing but trans fat and high fructose corn syrup, so of course when he started coming to my house and was offered things like cheese, strawberries, cantaloupe, apples, broccoli and Cheerios he wouldn’t eat. He was three, and he went two whole days not eating here and only eating at his mom’s. But, eventually, he did try some of my “weird food.” He now eats pretty normally. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a picky eater, but he will try new foods now, and has gotten used to the fact that Aunt Minta just doesn’t let kids eat crap. But see, he was three when we fought this battle…

 

At 16 months those reasoning skills just aren’t there. Likewise… a 16 month will just be a hungry ass until you give them what they want. So, right now, we’re mostly just eating bananas, peanut butter toast and avocados. Because everything else ends up on the floor to screams of “b’NANA!!!!!!!!!!  b’NANA!!!!!!!!!!!” (or, “mmmm st”, that would be mmm toast, which is what I say as I cut it up and put it on his tray, or “CAAAAAAAAAA-do”). Last week, it was eggs. Eggs, eggs and more eggs. Now, eggs are “cucky” and are met with a deliberate head shake and “hunh-uh.” This kid used to bash Indian food like nobody’s business. He was the baby garbage disposal. You needed food eaten? Give it to Baby G, much like Mikey, he’d eat anything. These days, not so much. He’ll eat 7 bananas in a day, or 3 pieces of PB toast in a sitting, sure… But pasta? You must be kidding!

 

Tell me this is just a phase. Tell me I’m not reaping the fruits of my judgement. Lie to me if you have to…

Eating Should Be Easier November 2, 2011

Yes, yes, I know eating is easy. Trust me, I got lots of ass testifying to the fact that I know eating is easy. However, that abundance of rump is also my evidence that knowing what to eat can be very, very complicated.

Recently I embarked on a 10 day juice fast. At the end, I felt pretty good. My RA was not terrible. I had lost a good deal of weight. It did me right. But, only a few days after my fast ended I was in the accident and all (yes, ALL) benefits were immediately nullified. At this point my RA is right back where it was, and my weight is darn close (and it came on OVERNIGHT which = water weight). After the juice fast it was my intention to maintain a primarily veggie/vegan’ish diet. I was going to allow a couple of meals a week for splurges but the majority of meals were to be plant based.

Not only was that my intention, it’s what I did. Really. No, really. Yes, in the time immediately following the accident we had a few more splurge meals than I prefer to admit, but… as soon as I was able we were back to mama making salads for dinner every night and the splurges were cut back to truly 2-3 meals a week. Proof of this? My husband has lost 35 pounds in the last month. I have not.

So, what conclusion do I draw from this information? It would appear the plant centric diet doesn’t really agree with my body. But, but, but!!! There is so much evidence that plant diets are good and omni diets are bad, right? Meat causes acidosis and bone erosion, no? Casein has been PROVEN to grow cancer?!?!?!?!?

Well, I suppose that depends on who you ask. See, I was rather addicted to nutrition documentaries for a while and they all agreed: vegan = good, meat = death. So, I tried. I really tried. Sure, I don’t want to die young and I do want better health, but my primary motivation is giving Baby G the best possible diet from the start. I want him used to the healthiest foods. I want him to have everything he needs to grow up strong and healthy. I want him to have a mama that can play and will live to see his kids.

So, how do we get there? What the hell do I eat to 1) lose weight and 2) improve my health and 3) set a good example for my little man?

I don’t know, either. But, I’m working on it.

The Juice Fast: It Continues September 6, 2011

Yeah, so this juice fasting thing is kicking ass. And by kicking ass, I mean shrinking my ass! Which is, you know, AWESOME! It has inspired me so, that I’ve made yet another blog to chronicle it (and record my juicetacular recipes).

So, yeah, now I have three blogs (the super-secret family blog, this one and the juice one) that I will surely let languish. But, I really didn’t think ya’ll wanted to read about juicing recipes everyday in this space, nor do I really want the people searching for juicing recipes getting confused by all the baby talk. I’m so full of it, like anyone is searching for me! Ha! Well, actually, they are searching some pretty fun stuff to lang here. Maybe it’s time for another keyword salad.

If these babies can ever learn the meaning of the word NAP.

Oh, right link! http://juicingfoodie.wordpress.com

The Juice Fast: It Begins September 4, 2011

Well, folks I decided to undertake a juice fast to help combat the RA and my not so great report from the rheumatologist this week (liver enzymes elevated, drugs killing me slowly, and they aren’t even the fun kind that get happy stoned)… So far so good! I even resisted getting food at a restaurant on Sat after HOURS of shopping at Jungle Jim’s (OK, not really, it just felt that way because my ankle hurt so bad and it was so packed).

When we got home from the grocery G Jr. had his dinner:

See delicious selection of solid food… Except the spinach. Spinach, it has been decided, shall only be consumed covered in cream and curry.

And I had mine:

What’s that you say, looks nasty squared? You’re right.

The color of my juice put in mind of something. A childhood memory, maybe…

Yep that’s it! Tasted about like that water, too…

You’re brave, Mama, I’ll give you that! Not for drinking that nasty juice, but for swimming in that green water!

I Am the Boring September 9, 2009

and also, a broken record.

 

I keep pissing and moaning about the same old shit over and over. Like what, I thought the facts were going to change. Well, yes, I guess I did. I actually was quite certain they were going to change. So, shame on me. I should have long since figured out that hope is a whore and she’d let me down.

 

My point is, in an effort to stop being a boring broken record who only dwells on the negative broken-ness of her fucked up body and how much better everything would be had she just not been born at all, I’m going to dwell on change. I’m the Obama of infertility. I need a change, good, bad or indifferent just something different. Also, I need other things to obsess about while I’m not obsessing over my fertility (or lack thereof).

 

So, my new focus: diet. Right, because I can cure myself with the right food, right? (please just say yes, I’ve already deluded myself into thinking that this is the answer, so even if it isn’t, and it isn’t, I’m going to stick with it).

 

What do we know about diet and insulin resistance? Carbs = evil, protein = good.

What do we know about Minta? She thinks meat is yucky. Except bacon. She loves bacon.

 

I’m debating between a couple of different plans here. (Mind you, as I type this, I’m eating a doughnut, because fuck it)

GSA: A very regimented plan that is really for food addicts, but works for PCOS because it’s mostly raw veggies. It is very strict, and precise, though. We’re talking a scale to measure all portions, and specific portions alloted to specific meals. I have been successful on this plan short term in the past.

 

Raw: As in, just going raw. Supposed to be lots and lots of benefits to this one.

 

????

 

I feel a decision chart coming on.

 

Will post if I can find a way to add an Excel chart to the blog.