Whooo.

I finally had people over socially. I've popped the cherry so to speak, and we've only been here what? A year? Geez. We've had like Navy guys over, but never females. I don't know, I am just socially awkward. But, I figured if we're going to BUY this house, we're going to have to start having people over soon.

Anyway, I invited my playgroup and we had a great time, even a new girl showed up with her teeny, tiny 2 month old. He slept the whole time snuggled up against his mommy's bosom. SHe had more patience than me because she held that baby for like four hours.

It was a lot of fun, and we all sat and talked, the kids had a blast. Jonny was so sweaty by the time they all left having two other boys and a girl here to play with. I couldn't believe how nervous I was at first. Like I was on my first date.

Whatsa happenin'?

I never have anything exciting going on in my life. Hmm excitement? Erm, yeah... hmm. Well, Ummmm. Oh! We broke the ten cache mark. We officially have found TWELVE caches. I thought this was pretty sweet, until I found out another lady on my message board is at 213. We started at pretty much the same time too.

What else? What else? Oh! We got a new lawn mower and a new rug. That's pretty freakin' sweet right? We had chinese buffet on Saturday? Come on guys, I'm trying.

No, seriously our weekend was good when you think of it from an old fogey got two kids kind of way. We kind of hung out on Saturday for the first half of the day so Aislinn could run amok in the hood with her friends. A church was holding a little "community day" at the park down the street complete with SKETCHES.

I went down there to make sure they weren't like those weirdo christians who think breathing air is a sin, but, all the ladies were wearing pants so I took that as a good sign. Some even wore makeup! One older guy had a ponytail! They were rebel christians. Even their skits didn't outright mention God. I admit I was scornful and giving Aislinn this whole speech about how you don't get nothing for free and was expecting them to start baptizing people in the creek at any moment, or passing out some mysterious Kool-aid.

Nope, they were just there to put their name out there for anyone who was looking for a home church. Very nice, very normal, not overly pushy. One guy was even kind of a dick, and that for some reason felt right to me. Like he was only there because the court ordered him to be, or worse yet, his wife made him go. Then on top of not wanting to waste his Saturday doing that crap, he had the added indignity of having to man the bounce house and he just couldn't hold his 'tude in check. I liked that. I am always leery of those Christians that are so in love with God they seem void of any other emotion other than blind happiness. Life is REAL and just cuz you love the Lord, doesn't mean you can't feel pissiness. That's why God gave us emotions.

After that we went to Mount Trashmore and did four caches and the Tony and Aislinn flew kites for a few hours after that. Those two are nutso for kites. It was the perfect day for kite flying. Aislinn's kite never fell out of the sky. Tony's did only because he had to go and get some fancy plane kite. We've had these kites for like a year and just now got around to flying them. I always feel weird when flying a kite like I'm going to let it go at any moment. It's unnerving and makes tummy twist and turn like I'm on a rollercoaster. You're basically holding onto a wildly flying piece of plastic by a tiny string.

And of course I has pictures... not cheezeburgers... pictures.



Tony digging for a cache that was stuck in a hole in a wall. I always say I love caching, and I do, but Tony usually ends up finding them only because he's not a spaz-o-tron like me who runs around like a puppy with ADD. Then I usually get pissy that he finds them. Out of four he found three.

Aislinn of course HAD to chase the geese, and Jonny does what she does. She wanted to "pet a goose with my stick" we informed her that was called "hitting a goose" She didn't agree.
Running up Mt. Trashmore, which yes is a big hill of solid waste with grass on it then dubbed a "park". Whatever, it's still a Mountain O' trash. I only took this picture for a chance to stop and catch my breath.
Getting the kites ready. What you didn't see is right after this shot, Jonny sniffed those fingers by his butt. This has become a gross habit of his.
Aislinn's Pokemon kite. Speaking of Pokemon, I officially started my Christmas shopping. I got Aisy those two characters that are on her kite. Palkia and Dialga. Last year we saw them in HUGE form, and have been unable to find them since. I found them yesterday at Toys R Us and snapped them up!
Aislinn flying her kite. She had so much fun. Later she met a little girl that was JUST like her. They spent many hours avoiding their brothers and flying their kites while lying on the grass and talking.
Tony flying his kite.
A shot of the big seal at Mt. Trashmore. Not a great picture, but I thought interesting.
Tony's fancy bi-plane kite that spent most of it's time crashing into the ground. I think it was made to give you that true WWI experience. They stood still for a second to let me take a pic. I love those shitheads. Notice Jonny and his Sears Catalog posing again.

It's so quiet here this morning. Jonny has been grounded from the Wii, so the television is off, and he's out in the backyard wearing a winter coat over his Spongebob pj's.

Got good news on the house. Everything us a go. We do need to close a few days earlier, so that's awesome. Today so far I have been looking at pictures for my walls. My walls are pretty bare. I found that I want! WANT!!11! as they would say in LOLspeak. Always my champagne tastes never fit my beer budget. For two prints framed... $250. Yeah. But, they are PERFECT for what I have in mind for my living room.

In case anyone is curious they're here. In a perfect world, I would get the two canvas stretched (I just like those better) for $339. I'm going to talk it over with Tony. I just can not stress enough how much I like these. It is VERY rare when I see something and go "Bam those are it" you know?

I also found a stretched canvas oil reproduction of Klimt's The Kiss on Ebay for under a hundred bucks. We're not talking print, this is an actual oil painting. I have always wanted one of those, not necessarily the oil painting version, but the print. I just love it and I think it would go well in my dining room, and the color scheme I am thinking about in there.

So, yeah that's my boring little house update. I'm very excited, but scared as well as we have fallen on hard times in this country. The VA has said we're good to go, well we're good to go as soon as a railing upstairs is fixed, which will be no big deal. The mortgage has passed the underwriters approval, just waiting around for the day to sign those papers. We decided as a celebration when we sign, we're going to take the kids to a local teppanyaki place where they cook the food right at your table. I think they will enjoy that.

Speaking of kids, this whole ADD thing is kind of driving me nuts. People are either really supportive or very vocal about the over medicating of our country's children. I guess that is to be expected right? I've been trying to provide Aislinn more protein for breakfast and you would think I'm trying to get her to eat baby kittens. Actually, at this point if she wanted to eat baby kittens, I'd probably let her just so she'd get more protein. I have to really think about what I'm going to do. Aislinn has two control issues in her life. Her clothes, which is getting better and her food. Aislinn used to be a good eater, but as she has gotten older her acceptable food list is about as long as her acceptable article of clothing list. She will eat chips, McDonalds, chicken wings, chicken fingers, cucumbers, cereal, toast, spaghetti, doughnuts, certain granola bars, cereal bars, ice cream. Dinner is hit or miss. If it has charring on the meat, she will sit there for an hour and wittle the pork chop down to nothing to get every single piece of burn off there. The other day she refused to eat her meatloaf because and I quote "It's in like a big chunk". Chunk was said in total disgust. Yesterday, I made a nice little breakfast shake for the kids. It was milk, carnation instant breakfast (chocolate, sugar free) frozen strawberries, whole milk yogurt. I was tempted to put in flax seed but I didn't. Trying to keep it simple. (off topic real fast. Can I just say I hate it when people refer to KISS as Keep it simple SWEETIE, instead of Keep it simple STUPID. Come on, everyone knows it's supposed to be STUPID not SWEETIE. I want to punch people when I hear sweetie. Anyhoo) They HATED it. I thought it was delicious! I drank both their shakes and had such a tummy ache from the milk, but I didn't care. It was amazing! They both suck.

I've had people suggest that maybe she should eat something non breakfast food types, and I was encouraged to "Think outside of the box" to which I responded "Aislinn is so far IN the box, she IS the box." I love how people assume I'm the problem. Hello? Low carber here? I mean, I have to think outside of the friggin' box on a daily basis. I had a shake yesterday made from eggs and raw spinach and people were like "Uh uh, no freaking way." Trust me I think outside of the food box. But, it would blow her little control freak mind if she were to eat say... a ham sandwhich for breakfast. Her world would spin off it's axis and float away into oblivion.

Another thing I'm trying to avoid with her is artificial coloring. Seriously people, it's in EVERYTHING. Like, she can drink water and have bread, but she can't have bread because she needs more protein and AAAAAAHHHHHH. You see what I'm dealing with here?

Today, I may go ahead and run to Trader Joe's and see if I can get any ideas from there. Sigh.

I found out that TriCare the military insurance covers gastric bypass. Not that I'm thinking about it or anything, I just found it kind of... well... weird. I mean, it kinda goes against the whole military thing with being fit. But, after being home alone with two kids for just a little over a week I TOTALLY get it now. I mean, I've done more eating off program here at home than ever (I ate off plan for vacation but vacation carbs don't count). It's all totally emotional eating too because honestly, I've not been THAT hungry.

Yesterday, it was granola bars, those super crunchy ones by Nature Valley? We went to Sam's and as you can imagine this was the least favorite sample spot. So much so, the lady was giving away full size samples if you picked up her little cup o'sample just to make her quota or whatever. The kids were all "Oooh granola bars" then they took a nibble, then stood there awkwardly holding these things and it was like I could totally see what they were thinking "I took it, it's healthy, I SHOULD eat it, but this is NOT what I expected. Oooh are those cream puffs over there? Maybe when mom isn't looking we can just discreetly dump these in the trash. It's going to be tough, because for some reason she keeps staring at them and drooling." This sample spot was my most favorite, as I LOVE those crunchy bars. Needless to say,I took their samples and then ate the other two packages later on in the day.

Then today, it's been Sun Chips. Oh.My.God. Those were always my favorite before and now they're off limits and I was ok until I caugh a whiff, and it's been several trips to the bag today for a handful here and there.

I worry about when Tony is gone for six months. Hopefully, not having him here will become routine and it won't affect me as much then. It is nice actually having a group of friends to hang out with a few times a week. That has made it much easier on me.

Wanna see inside a low carb fridge?

One of the biggest things that annoy me about people who do not understand the low carb lifestyle is the assumption that I live on meat, cheese and bacon and not much else. Oh God. If they only knew. Although, yes I DO eat those things, there can be days or weeks I can go without bacon, and cheese? I laugh. Cheese isn't something I eat a lot of unless it's cream cheese, and again, days or a week can go by without indulging in that.

Another thing I hear is "I can't believe in a diet that doesn't allow fruit." I eat fruit. I have strawberries, grapes, apples and pears. Granted I do not eat those a lot as they can cause my blood sugar to get wonky since I am diabetic. But, there are a lot of people out there that follow a low carb lifestyle that do. The trick is to not eat too much. There are lots of people who only eat fruit thinking it's "healthy". The fact of the matter is fruit is full of sugar, so if you eat 5 servings of fruit, you're not doing your body much good, then you add in other things you might have eaten that day, bread, low fat yogurt, milk, cereal, and well you got a recipe for disaster right there, and I can guarantee you will be much hungrier than I will have been eating my way. Also, if I eat fruit I eat it with protein and fat. Never just an apple, it's apple and peanut butter, grapes and cheese, strawberries and heavy cream. Helps stabilize the blood sugar, and keeps you feel satifsfied.

So without further ado.. here is my fridge:

As you can see, I have 39 eggs. Eggs are the perfect food. The whole bottom half of my fridge? Vegetables. I have green beans, broccoli, peppers, zucchini, squash, cabbage, spinach, iceberg lettuce, celery. Some apples for Aisy's lunch, oranges for snacks. Milk for the kids, heavy whipping cream, real mayo, butter, cream cheese, green goddess dressing, ranch. In the little lunch meat drawere we have some REAL american cheese, ham for Aisy's lunch, a package of bacon, some sausage. There are also some non low carb things, but those are mainly for the kids, or remnants that I am loathe to pitch. Like the Miracle Whip (I really missed that when I first started) and Aislinn's BBQ sauce. Regular ketchup, syrup, and the Yoplait yogurt.

Speaking of yogurt, you can see the big tub of Stoneyfields whole milk plain yogurt. I add some Splenda sweetened flavored syrups and add some flax seeds if I want to eat this for breakfast and I use it for my lunch shakes. It's got a luscious cream on the top. Heavenly. Here is something interesting I want to point out. My kids wanted "regular" yogurt. So I got them a few cartons of Yoplait original 99% fat free yogurt. I was shocked when I compared the labels:

Stoneyfield yogurt.... I serving size 8 oz Yoplait..... 1 serving size 6 oz

Calories per serving 170 for both yogurts.

S. Fat... 9g Y. Fat... 1.5g

S. Carbs 13g Y. Carbs 33g

S. Sugars 13g Y.Sugars 27g

S. Protein 9g Y. Protein 5g

Ok, I know you low fatters are like THE FAT! AHHH THE FAT! First of all, do you see the difference in serving sizes? You get MORE bang for your buck with the whole milk. You get half the sugar as well. Caloric intake? Same. You could eat 6 oz of the full fat, and feel more satisfied than with 6 oz of the "healthy" yogurt because of what? FAT!! It helps you feel full!

Let's look at ingredients. I have the yogurts RIGHT here and I'm typing from the cartons:

Yoplait.... cultured pasteurized grade a low fat milk, sugar (SUGAR is the second ingredient!) strawberries, modified corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, non fat milk, kosher gelatin, citric acid, tricalcium phosphate, natural flavor, pectin, colored with camine, vitamin A acetate, vitamin D3.

Stoneyfield Whole milk plain yogurt.... cultured pasteraurized organic whole milk, inulin, pectin, live cultures.

Granted, my yogurt is plain, but I have eaten it right of the carton with nothing, and it's so good. I can have whatever flavor I want using my sugar free syrups. I can add a scoop of cocoa for chocolate flavored. The point I'm trying to make is this though, it's best to eat it as close to it's natural form as you can. You go diddling with things, that's where you get in trouble. People are so scared of fat, but if it's good natural fats, you will feel satisfied and in turn eat less, I think overall.

But, this will only work if you eat low carb as well. If you are unable to give up things like bread and pasta, then by all means stick to low fat. High fat and high carbs is NOT good. You WILL gain weight.

Never in a million years would I think my fridge would have so many vegetables, things I WILL eat. Not just put in there for show. That big bottle of hot sauce was a joke for Tony. But, he makes me the most delicious wings with that.

Cream cheese. I make great things with it, like low carb muffins, or oopsie rolls. It's a staple for sure. The thing is, I have to buy a lot because the recipes I make call for a block, but I don't eat it all at once. You know? I am just looking at this pic and realized I have the low fat Philly in there! SEriously, I did not notice that when I bought it. Ugh.

Another plus to low carbing. Heavy whipping cream for my coffee. Kind of hard to get used to at first, now I can drink nothing else.

Ok, now here is where it gets ugly. My cabinets. This was right after a grocery shopping day. A MAJOR one as you can see. I have ramen noodles, Chef Boyardee chips, chocolate and natural granola bars. All that is for the kids or remnants from days gone by. I do have some protein powder, the chocolate is mine, I have a square or two on occasion. It's dark chocolate. Those granola bars are less in sugar than regular ones. Some Splenda is in there, fiber powder, tuna, peanut butter. Jonny asked for some Sun chips. They're still in the cabinet unopened. I have a can of something called Caffe D'vitta. Sugar free instant mocha cappucino that I don't really like, but will come in handy if I want something different. The kids LOVE mandarin oranges. HEre's a tip. Buy them in the asian/hispanic foolds aisle. About half the price!
Then YIKES.

Big ole tub of cheese balls. Those have been there for about a month now. I'm getting ready to pitch them. An old bag of tortilla chips that need to be pitched. Some old coffee I don't drink anymore, a box of cake mix that will be donated, doughnuts that are for the kids, two bags of chicharonnes,pretzels, and mini rice cakes for the kids. Under that is all the stuff I moved over there that I will donate later. This again was right after a grocery shopping excursion, so the cabinets are fuller than usual. I will say this though, I shopped on Wednesday, and those snacks? STill unopened. I take that as a good sign that my kids are slowly coming around. They still love their Chef Boyardee though.

So there you have it. For myself, I am doing well, and working toward getting my kids there. I am proud of the changes I have made for us all.

I'm wearing a pair of jorts (jean shorts) and usually I do not wear them in the house. Usually when I have to wear jeans or jorts, the kids get all excited because that means we're leaving the house. Then, when we come home, I usually take them right off and put on comfy pants. I actually have a "comfy pants" song that I sing as I take off the jorts/jeans and put the comfy pants on. Why do I have a song? Because I'm borderline window licker. My point of all this is that the aforementioned jorts are too big, so they fall below my fat line, which pushes all my fat up, and makes me feel like super fat, and that is not a good feeling. Yes, all that just to say hey I have a huge ass muffin top.

I took Aisy to her appointment for ADD which was very anti climatic. I was all prepared and nervous and we get there, we're handed a questionaire that I have to fill out and the teachers have to fill out. Then we make an appointment with a psychiatrist. So, here I was all like totally freaked out and ready for whatever may come our way, only to have more waiting and paperwork. That's fine. I ended up getting a good recomendation from my friend Veronica on a place to go near our house. This place does thorough testing, and has therapies as well. It's not like they just throw medicine at the problem.

I am trying to make some changes at home. I heard that food coloring can cause ADD like symptoms. Trying to cut out the high sugary carb filled breakfasts. This morning I made Aislinn a couple of eggs and she acted like I was trying to feed her boogers on toast.

Aislinn is really worried about if she has to take medicine. She says that God made her this way and we should accept that and not change it. I agree with her! Yet, I don't want her to have to suffer through school and slowly fall behind. As it is she's borderline. She doesn't suck enough to get extra help or be held back, so she just skates by and that's even worse. So each year she slowly falls more and more behind. I'm trying to do right by her, but she thinks I'm doing wrong by her and it's a tough position to be in.

What IS the answer? Is it ok to let my child be mediocre becuase that is the way she is, even though I know with all my heart she could be so much more? Or do I do whatever it takes to get her to be more than what she is now? Will she resent me for it later if I never get her the help? Will she resent me later for medicating her if it comes to that?

What do I do?

Every day I wait patiently (ok well, not so much) for the kids to go to bed, and I SWEAR I'm going to be in bed by 10:30, then I swear I'm going to be in bed by 11, then 12. Usually, by 1am I'm crawling into bed after loading the dishwasher.

For the last two nights I've had something weird happen. Usually, I'm a drop off to sleep right away kind of person. But, these last two nights I've laid there and not been able to fall asleep, despite the fact I'm really tired. Then, I feel the need to get up and check out my pimples and scar my face, and when I do get up, my heart pounds very hard, but not fast or anything. Almost as if it gets tight. Not painful. But, it just gives me that weird heart in throat kinda feeling. I feel borderline stressed? I don't know if that is the right word. Worried? Not panicked or freaked. I don't know. It's an odd feeling, especially since I wasn't thinking of anything stressful in particular. I know the need to get up and check my face is something I do when feeling stressed.

Money. I just wish I had a lot of it. Don't we all? Everything is so damn expensive. I try to keep the cost of groceries low, but it's not working as well as I'd like it to. Especially since I'm trying to go the whole foods route for us all. I used to go and get things like Hamburger Helper and mac and cheese when things got tight, but hell that's what got me like this in the first place. Even simple things are so expensive. The kids love spaghetti and I usually make them a small batch once a week, and I eat something else. A box of spaghetti noodles used to be like forty nine cents. Now it's a deal if I can get them for a buck. Eggs used to be under a dollar, now they're two dollars. The thing is, I'm lucky since I get to shop at the commisary. So you other non military peoples, I feel for you!

The shame of it all is yesterday I got coupons for Hardees, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Wendy's, Arby's, Old Country Buffet, and Dominoes. The hard times must be hitting the fast food places too. I don't think I've ever gotten so many coupons at once.

Well, I just had a snuggle break. Jonny came down, with his touseled hair and sleep swollen face and demanded I snuggle with him. As much as I love to do it, I hate it too because I always just want to lay there and sleep. I pretty much avoid my bedroom at all costs during the day so I won't lay down and sleep. It feels so good in there.

I am actually going to check out a Moms Day Out Program at a church near me. It's not so academically based, more play based which is what I prefer. I can't help but think he has the rest of his whole life to go to school. I know some might disagree with me. As much as I love having him home with me, I can not deny he's pretty bored. When I brought up school though, he freaked but not as much as before. He'll get over it.