Project 365, week 21

Week in pictures May 22-28

Time to start running on the rubberized track

Hidey hole

200 flexi straws. 99 cents.

My hydrangea bush is going to bloom very soon!

His new favorite napping spot

Reliving some good memories

Old and tattered. Makes me sad

Totally Inflexible

We are currently in the midst of the Great Flexi Straw Disaster of 2010.

I ran out of flexi straws three days ago.

You see, way back when (a year ago), when my teeth almost got knocked out in my car crash I had to live off a liquid diet for about a month. So someone (Andy? Mother? Mother-in-law?) bought a bag of flexi straws for me.

Even after my diet progressed to soft foods that could be eaten with utensils (baby spoons) I still used my flexi straws for any liquid I consumed.

My teeth were temperature sensitive before they met my steering wheel and ever since then it's worse. So for the last year I've been using a flexi straw to keep cold beverages off my teeth.

The original bag of flexis ran out a long time ago and I asked Andy to buy me a new bag. He made fun of me and I kind of felt silly for always drinking out of a straw, but he bought them anyway.

Then, three days ago, I ran out again. As a result I've been drinking a lot less liquid. Usually I keep a cup of water with me all day as I'm doing things around the apartment. I still don't drink nearly as much as I should, but I do have a constant intake of water. I even put a cup in the fridge before I go to bed at night so it will be nice and cold when I wake up in the morning.

But my flexi straws are gone and I'm a big sissy because even room temperature water is too cold for my teeth. I saw a giant bag when we were at the store for $.99, but I remembered how Andy made fun of me and I thought maybe I was being a little silly so I didn't add them to our pile. I just walked on by.

So yesterday I went for a run at the rubberized track to give my joints a little break from the hard asphalt at the park. It was really hot up here yesterday and there aren't any shade trees around the track. Because it's an actual running track.

I got dehydrated.

I felt sick and ended up with a monster headache that I couldn't get rid of all night. It sucked.

I don't know who to blame for this. Andy because he made fun of me? Or myself for not just telling him where he could stick it and buying the $.99 bag of straws?

Probably myself.

Anyway, I'm going back to the store today and buying some more straws.

Crisis averted.

Project 365, week 20

Week in pictures May 15-21

Spring cleaning

Furry little paper weight

There is a sailboat on our door. On our door to the mountains.

We love grilling. Anything and everything edible

This is not diet food

Busy little bee

Discard pile

Progress

It's been well over a month since I wrote this post about my body and how I didn't like it anymore.

As far as "living French" goes, well...

I can't say I've followed every single idea the book suggests.

After all, I'm not in France. There are so many things she talks about that would only be possible if you were living there or in a very large city in the US. I don't live either of those places, so unfortunately I don't have the huge variety of fresh produce available to me at all times. It is much better in the spring and summer and I've been working hard to try and get a new variety of fruits and veggies into our diets.

I have always been good about making sure when I make a meal I get the vegetables in there too. If it were up to Andy he would only eat meat, potatoes, corn and cheese. The man loves cheese more any anyone I've ever known and he eats a lot of it. So it's up to me to make sure his digestive system doesn't revolt and I've spent the better part of our nearly four year marriage tying to pump fruits and vegetables and beans into him to try and balance everything out.

So not much has changed there except that I'm trying to branch out from the comfortable norm we've been in. We find a favorite veggie and we stick to it for way too long. Now when I go to the grocery store I try to buy at least one new thing. Lately I've been trying to talk Andy into brussel sprouts. Apparently he had a bad experience in daycare when he was little and he hasn't touched them since. If you  have a recipe that will knock his socks off (or just get him to put one in his mouth) I'd be much obliged.

I do still bake. Not nearly as much as I had been. I stopped for a long time, and broke down this last week. Baking is something I enjoy so much. I missed spending time in the kitchen making things that looks so pretty and taste so good. Sure I cook dinner, but I don't get the same kind of high with that as I do with baking. It's a stress reliever for me, so I can't just cut it out of my life entirely. Also, I don't believe in low fat dessert, so if you came here looking for recipes I'm afraid you're in the wrong place. I work hard exercising and eating a certain way to make myself healthier and if I want to indulge myself with a full fat chocolate pecan pie from time to time then that's exactly what I'm going to do. I don't believe in changing who you are in order to change how you look. 

But I do love fruit. That's another thing I've been encouraging Andy to eat more of. I've always loved fruit, and all I have to do is keep some in the kitchen and I'm guaranteed to eat it. Andy isn't quite as enthusiastic, but if it's the difference between eating a full dinner and only eating part of one he'll eat the fruit. As the best fruit months are upon us I've been offering a fruit more and more in place of a vegetable for our meals. In fact, we're grilling chicken tonight and some grilled pineapple kabobs sound mighty good right about now.

Also, when I've been exercising consistently I crave the water and acid that so many fruits offer.

Which brings me to my next point: People, I'm living proof that you don't need a gym membership to get in shape and lose weight.

I've been running and I also started the 30 day shred at the beginning of May.

Running is something I was doing before. I had just gotten out of the habit with the onset of winter. I'm back up to where I was when I quit last year. It feels good to be running again. I enjoy doing it alone and though some days I feel like I'd rather die than take another step, the end of the workout is always so gratifying.

The shred is something that I had heard a lot about and one day when Andy and I were in town I found it for only $9 so I conned him into buying it and doing it with me. He did the first two days and then quit. I think he assumed I would do the same so it made me feel pretty good today when he told me he was proud of me for sticking with it.

We both notice a change in my body. He's started making comments about how my waist is smaller and how he can see some definition in my arms that wasn't there before. It's one thing to notice it yourself, but it's so much better when other people start to notice all the hard work you've put in, especially your husband.

I still don't own a scale and have no intention of buying one. So I can't tell you how much weight I've lost. I can see it and feel it in how my clothes fit. Every day I feel stronger and I have so much more energy. All those things together is worth it. I feel like people put too much emphasis on the number, so I'm just cutting that out of the equation.

I do have a goal though. Andy's grandmother's birthday is in the middle of June. She will be 90 years old and we're having a party. I have an outfit picked out. The shirt and shoes are new, but the pants are some that I've owned for a couple of years. The pants have snap buttons and when I first started this they would pop right back open as soon as I closed them. I tried them on last week and they stay closed now, but only with a tremendous "suck it in" effort on my part. I have a little less than a month to get in those pants. I'll let you know if it happens.

Do you know what is really annoying?

I'll tell you.

When you're looking for a shirt. A specific shirt that you know you own and you've seen it several times recently but you can't find it now.

And you feel bad. Plus you've worked hard and cleaned all stinkin' weekend and you're exhausted and all you want to do is put on your most comfortable clothes and this one stupid shirt is part of that equation, but you can't find it.

So now the only thing you can find that is remotely similar is leftover from your size 0 days, when you were way to skinny, and it somehow managed to hide itself in the back of the drawer and not get discarded. So you put it on and you look like a stuffed sausage and it completely eradicates the good feeling you've had about yourself for working out hard and losing a couple inches from  your waist. 

All that is really annoying.

Also, I have a cold sore.

Project 365, week 19

Week in pictures, May 8-14. The food edition.

Oh Yum

A very lovable breakfast

The best way to make pizza at home

Clogging your arteries 101

How do you like your bagel?

Homemade bbq plate

Bunny chow

Absentee

Andy and I have company coming at the end of the week. He's a new (old) coworker of Andy's and since he's relocating to the area (and housing can be kind of difficult to find from afar) he's going to be staying with us for at least two weeks in the hope that he can find a lease beginning June 1.

It's one thing to have someone stay for the weekend, but we aren't quite prepared for a short term roommate, so we're spending some time this week getting the apartment ready.

I'll post my photos on Friday, but otherwise I probably won't be doing much blogging before next week.

See you soon!

Project 365, week 18

Week in pictures May 1-7

Day 1

I live here

Off

Open door policy

The infamous flip flops

Just the right amount

To catch a thief

Man status

If you are a woman and have been in a relationship with a man for any length of time you know what it is for your significant other to ask you for a certain object that they can't find only for you to find it in the first place you look.

The point of that last run on sentence? Men don't LOOK for things.

They walk into a room, stand in the middle and scan the area around them. They don't pick anything up and look under it. They don't get down on the floor and look under furniture. They don't take a moment to think about the last time they saw whatever it is they are trying to find. They give up after about 30 seconds of "searching" and then come ask you where it is.

I have experienced this to some degree with Andy. He's pretty good about keeping up with his stuff and to be honest we spend more time looking for my cell phone than anything else.

Until today.

This morning Andy got up and got ready for work. I was still in bed (like always) and he came in to kiss me and tell me goodbye.

Maybe five minutes later he came back in the bedroom and asked me if I'd seen his flip flops. No, I hadn't, but I suggested he look under the sofa.

He left and I didn't know if he found them or not. I didn't really care, they're his shoes after all.

Fast forward to lunch time.

He came home and I said, "Hey! How are you?" He said, "My toe hurts."

I laughed. A lot. What a silly complaint.

But I took the bait and asked him why his toe hurt. He told me he had stubbed it this morning when he went out to his truck, barefoot, to look for his flip flops.

My brain skipped right over the part about his skinned toe and to the part about looking for this flip flops because he had asked me about them earlier. I asked if he found them, though it was clear he hadn't because he was wearing his sneakers.

So I started to ask him questions about the flip flops.

Where did you last see them? I don't know!

Do you remember taking them off anywhere? No! I don't know!

When was the last time you wore them? I don't remember!

Well, Andy, they have to be around here somewhere. What could have happened to them?! They're missing! What did you do with my flip flops?! (I'm not exaggerating, he really did say that)

So I started to look for them. I started by looking under the sofa like I told him that morning. I suspected he hadn't actually looked there. Alas, the flip flops weren't there.

Then I took a second to ask myself where I usually see Andy's shoes. He likes to wear the flip flops around the apartment at night and often doesn't take them off until he gets in the shower or right before bed. So usually the flip flops are in the bathroom or next to our bed somewhere.

I knew they weren't in the bathroom so I went into the bedroom.

I walked around to his side of the bed. Every night Andy throws one of his pillows off onto the floor and last night was no exception. I looked by the bed and there was the pillow. I picked it up, and guess what?

His flip flops were there where he left them last night when he got in bed.

I laughed and then yelled to him:

Congratulations honey! You have reached full fledged man status! We should throw you a party tonight to celebrate!

At which point I walked into the kitchen and laid his precious flip flops at his feet.

He proceeded to spend the next thirty minutes telling me about how he hurt his hurt toe, showing me the injury, pointing out the small blood stain on his sock and emphasizing how much it hurt.

I had to restrain myself from pulling down my pants and showing him my bruise so we could compare war stories.

Next time I'll listen to my instincts...

Yesterday I decided I wanted to go for a hike, but we had too much to do so we put it off until today.

Then this afternoon Andy drove me to a new (to me) hiking spot that has a water fall.

Pretty isn't it?

Some people like to jump off the rocks into the pool below. And when I say "some people" I mean crazy college students.

We spent a little time admiring the falls because they are at the beginning of the trail and then we started to walk.

It was nice. The trees offered a lot of shade and we've had a substantial wind up here all weekend, so though it was hot it wasn't unbearable.

I took a few pictures along the trail.

Right after I took this picture...

we came to a fork in the trail. One part of it went up and was clearly the path that was traveled more often. The other went down towards the river at the bottom of the falls. Andy wanted to go down to the river and in the spirit of "taking the road less traveled" I went with him. Though I expressed some concerns about going that way. It was very steep and there were a lot of dead leaves on the bath. Plenty of opportunities to fall down. I like to hike and be active but I tend to be slow and very cautious because of how I broke my ankle once and I DON'T WANT TO DO IT AGAIN!

But Andy wanted to go to the river and I wanted to oblige him.

We had just gotten down the really steep part and were walking on the dead leaves and I said, "This just looks like an accident waiting to happen."

Five more steps and I slipped and fell onto a tree root. It hurt and I wanted to cry. I sucked it up and didn't, but I was done hiking.

We spent a few more minutes at the top of the falls and then came back home.

Now I have a lovely GIGANTIC bruise on my posterior.

How was your weekend?

May Day

2000 was a big year for myself and my family. Especially the spring time. I turned 18 that year and graduated from high school. My oldest nephew was born.

And on May 1st my daddy died.

I still have a lot of conflicting feelings about my daddy and our relationship. We both had big personalities and they clashed often. But he was my daddy and I loved him.

I've thought about this day, the tenth anniversary of his death, since the beginning of the year. I have so much I could say, but I'm just not sure I'm ready to say it all yet. I just couldn't let it go buy unacknowledged.

Maybe someday I'll be able to share more of his story, but for now I just have a few thoughts about how I feel today.

He has missed so much these last ten years. He missed the births of four grandchildren. He wasn't there for my high school or college graduations. He didn't walk me down the aisle. He never even met Andy. He wasn't there after my accident. I thought about him a lot that day though.

And there is so much more in the future that he won't be present for. That makes me sad and angry. I've always been angry at him for dying. I felt like he could have fought a little harder.

I've always wondered what our relationship would have become if he were still alive. If I knew then what I know now would I have done something to change it those last six months? I like to think so. I certainly would have told him how I felt.

But I can't go back. I can't change it.

There are so many men in my life that have been and still are like a father to me. I know when I have my own children they'll step in again and be the grandfather my kids need because one is missing. While I love those men dearly, it's just not the same.

I will spend the rest of my life wishing my daddy was still around.

If you still have your daddy go give him a hug. And then give him another one for me. Because I can't hug mine.

There is no time like the present.