Nina Needs to GO!

Let me explain to you why "Nina Needs To Go", the "short" on Disney Channel and Disney Jr that airs between programs, itself, Needs To Go!

In case you are not in the know, Nina is a little girl who realizes at the last minute that she "HAS TO GO, RIGHT NOW" and therefore needs a family members to help rush to a bathroom RIGHT NOW because she wasn't listening to her body. 

This family member is either her mom, dad, or big brother who all try to help in some normal human way. Then at the last minute her Nana comes to the rescue with jet powered roller skates or a submarine or a Mary Popins style umbrella that allows her to fly just to name a few of her fantastic gadgets.

Nana is a Super Hero GrandMa with all the latests super hero gadgets to get the little girl to the potty in any circumstance from a swim-park to a busy shopping mall to a ski slope, etc. 

Little girls like to emulate the cartoon girls they see on TV. Let's be honest. It's just the way it is. Therefore, the issue I have is that I have a little girl who thinks Nina and Nana are AWESOME. So my little angel-face thinks it's really cool to hold it as long as she can so she can "play" Nina having to go. Or better yet, she just lies and says she has to go RIGHT NOW making everyone around her slip into freak out panic mode so we can get her to a potty.

Disney! THIS. IS. NOT. COOL. 

Especially when she's out with her Grandmother who does not have rocket powered roller skates or a submarine, and who freaks the Hell out when her only granddaughter starts whining that "she doesn't think she can hold it much longer", sending my poor Mother In Law into sound barrier breaking speeding attempts to save her sofa's upholstery, or some other private or public property from the inevitable explosion of pee-water that's about to spew from our Nina-emulating little angel. 

In the Disney "short" Nina always makes it to the bathroom in time and ends each episode with, "That'll NEVER happen again, because now I know, DON'T WAIT TO GO."

Cool. Awesome. It'll never happen again. But it DOES HAPPEN! It happens every damn day Nina! 

Disney, please take his short out of rotation. Or just pick one episode ONLY to air. Because with there being multiple times she says that it'll "never happen again", it becomes very frustrating as a parent trying to teach children not to lie and not to repeat mistakes. 

There are annoying cartoons and kid programs, but this one needs to go because it's not teaching the lesson you think it's teaching. It's a good concept, but it's. It working, and it Needs To Go.

A Shake For Breakfast...

Remember the old add for that diet shake? A shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, a shake for a snack, and a sensible dinner? I did that yesterday with my Shakeology and I really did feel great all day.

I had another shake this morning too, but I just made my daughter mac-n-cheese for her lunch, and I saw the sour cream in the fridge, and I know we still have chips in the pantry, and I SOOOOO BADLY WANT CHIPS AND SOUR CREAM RIGHT NOW!

Ugh!

I have my sugar free pumpkin spice coffee here with me at my desk as I'm typing, but it's not chips and sour cream. It's not crunchy, salty, and creamy like chips and sour cream, that's for damn sure.

I could portion out a small amount, but I'd just go back for more.

And my desk is in the kitchen. Right next to the girl who's blowing on her hot mac-n-cheese and happily munching away. Yes, my back is to her, but I can hear every delightfully delicious mouthful. I can hear the squish of the pasta and the cheese sauce as she chews. I can smell the butter and cheese. 

I'm in agony.

A G O N Y

Ummmmmm... luke-warm coffee. You're so satisfying and such a fair and equal replacement for the fat-filled, salt-filled lunch I really want. I hate you coffee!

No I don't. I'm sorry. I take it back. Please don't believe anything I say when I'm in the throws of a food-craving depravity-stricken state. I'm not myself.

Coffee ... I love you almost as much as wine and vodka.

I thought I was going to be able to do a little organizing today, so I brought down the file cabinet drawers from the master bedroom to the basement only to discover that the "new" file cabinet is a legal sized drawer and our old file cabinet is a letter size. So, I'll need to get legal sized file folders from BJ's the next time I'm there. (Someone remind me please. I'll forget.)

The kids bring home at least one piece of paper a day, and yes, I'm sorry, but I'm that mom that is keeping them all. I am for now. I don't know if I'll continue to do this through middle and high school, but for now, I'm excited about my babies being in school and having a good time and being proud of their drawings and writings. 

I bought 3-ring binders for their work, but they were jammed pack full within the first month of school, so they are now going to get their own drawer in the new family file cabinet. I'm sure the papers will pile up on the kitchen island until I freak out about it being too crowded, then I'll just go jam them all into a folder without sorting. 

OR, I can be a little proactive about it and buy an set of uber cute hanging folders from my girl at Moore Magnets and then wait until they are jammed pack and take them downstairs. Yeah ... that sounds like a good plan. I like that. I get to buy something new and pretty and functional. All of those things make my soul happy.

Speaking of a happy soul, I think I've made it through my clawing screaming chip craving. I'm going to have another Shakeology creation for my lunch, and either find a book to read, or do research on adhesives that will stick the pennies to the back-splash of my kitchen counter and to the floor where I removed the half wall. 

I don't sit still, who are we kidding. I'll research adhesives. And go hunt for pennies.

Choices

Sorry Autumn, I just can't seem to find a way to adhere to your 21-Day Fix rules. Yes, you've made it very easy with the color coded boxes for portioning but I have a hard time with this little thing called hunger.

Hunger and Carter Ann DO. NOT. MIX. 

When I get hungry I make bad choices. It's part of that broken brain I was blessed with at birth. 

Not sure where this fear of hunger comes from, I'm sure a psychologist could enlighten me and I'm sure it's my parents fault, but I'm not interested in blaming others for my feelings and actions. I know! I know! That's so un-American of me isn't it? Someone who wants to take responsibility for her SELF?!? Unheard of! 

The truth is, all parents struggle. And we're all going to screw up our kids. No matter what we do, we're going to mess them up in some way. We're going to over-protect, under-protect. Do too much, or not do enough. We'll let them have too much independence or we'll do everything for them until they're 35. Regardless of our best intentions we're going to screw up. So all we can do is try to make the best choices every day for our little ones.

And my parents did what they felt was right at the time. We didn't have "junk" food in the house as kids. So when my sister and I were old enough to make our own grocery shopping choices we ate our weight in Pringles and PopTarts. If we had these options at home as kids, would we have not craved them and devoured them like a hiker across the Sahara would attack a fresh water spring? I have no idea. My crystal ball is in the shop this week, so I can't look back and see what those choices would have changed in today's time. 

We had family meals, as far as I remember. I mean, I think we did. I don't really remember. I remember holiday meals and specific dishes my mom made, but when I was very young my mom went back to work full time, and I don't remember much of my family time as an adolescent. I remember my friends, my bike, the pool, and my room, but it don't remember much about family time. 

I guess we ate because it was time to eat. Breakfast before school. Lunch at school. Dinner before bed. It was just a thing that happened in the day. Nothing special, no fanfare, no thought as to what was happening other than whether or not it was something I wanted to eat or not. 

And I had very little say in it. Meals were put down in front of me and I ate them or not. Seasonings, ingredients, and taste profiles were never discussed or mentioned. We ate meatloaf or spaghetti or tuna burgers and I don't remember there ever being a choice of things available to individualize them. No red pepper flakes to make it spicy, no extra garlic to make it more garlicky, no A1 sauce or anything other than ketchup for meatloaf. We did have spicy mustard, but that was the extent of the "crazy" side of our pantry. Oh, Daddy had canned sardines. So I guess THOSE are more exotic than spicy mustard, but only because it's a food product that I have yet to find the desire to attempt to try.

So who knows if my attempt to teach my kids about foods will help or not. 

This past Sunday was an awesome day because my football team played at 1:00pm, then Mr. Saucy's team played at 4:00pm, so we planned on junk food for lunch and spaghetti for supper. I went to the store for tortilla chips and ingredients to make queso. I let Conner pick out a snack too. He originally wanted Cheetos, his favorite, but then chose Pringles. 

When we got home, he was so excited to kick off his shoes, open his container of chips and sit on the sofa. Because this is not something we do around here very often. Again, you'll look at pictures of Mr. Saucy and myself and think, "There is no way in hell you aren't eating chips and ice cream all day", but we really don't. We just eat twice as much real food as we should. Again... Back to that hunger issue that started today's rambling.

So... Who knows.  Choices are made. We feel we're doing what's best, but we never really know. We just have to do what our hearts and souls tell us is right and hopefully when the kids are in therapy in their 20's they'll find a way to forgive us for wanting only the best for out little parasites. 

21-Day Fix, Day 3

Potty blogging day 2.

Last nights supper was leftover quinoa and black beans. It was taco night here, but I didn't want them because in order to make a delicious taco to my taste buds I need to like it high with sour cream, cheese, fresh shredded lettuce and diced cold tomatoes. We had only one of the afore mentioned ingredients, so just taco meat, cheese, and sauce wasn't a calorie laden dish I wanted.

At dinner time I had used up my blue and orange allotment anyway, so no room for added fats or dairy.

Today I've had a red which is my shake. I added the peanut powder to it and I'm not sure which container that is. Probably the orange, but I'll have to research it. I'm out of lettuce so no salad for lunch today. It's kinda gloomy and cool and cloudy today so I'm debating a pot of chili. Mr. Saucy is working late tonight so it's just the kids and I for supper. I might just do a leftovers night and let them eat whenever they want to instead of having the standard family supper at the table. We'll still eat at the table, but without My Honey home for supper, it's easier to nuke leftovers for the kids instead of making a whole meal.

GAWHHH... Speaking of which, we cleaned out the fridge the other day and threw away a TON of food. We had leftovers hidden in the back that may have been there since the Clinton administration and it was out of control. I hate throwing away food.

Speaking of throwing things away, I'm doing a good bit of decluttering around the house. I came across a large collection of kids shoes WAY too small for my children. This was followed by a collection of maternity clothes and other things that had been put aside to be donated and then forgotten. So, I'm pulling things out and getting things put in order.

I need order. I need organization, pattern, routine, and cleanliness. When my house, office, desk, kitchen is a cluttered mess, so is my brain. When my brain is a mess, everything is a wreck. It's all connected. 

I'm genetically programmed to save everything. I might need it. I store things, keep things, have 9 versions of the same thing with slight variations because I might need them. I hold on to way too much garbage. I love going through it and clearing it out. It's so cathartic to lighten the fog that surrounds my world. And with my ADD, I become overwhelmed very quickly. A single shirt on the cedar chest will quickly turn into an entire load of laundry, then it all just gets piled up, lost, confused, forgotten, and adds to more and more chaos.

My closet is one of the spots that needs to be wiped clean of 90% of it's contents! but I can't bring myself to ditch it all yet. I'm sure I'm going to be able to fit into everything again. Of course, since my oldest child just turned 6, this means I haven't worn 90% of the contents of my closet in over 6 years. The joy of losing weight would also include the joy of buying new clothes, so I SHOULD go ahead and donate everything I can't wear, but since we're cash-poor, I want to hang on to what's in there so I don't have to buy all new clothes.

None of this is an issue at the moment, so no need to bother right now.

Well, there are many more rooms to declutter and sections of my brain to defog.

But first, I hear a Diet Coke calling my name from the kitchen.

21-Day Fix, Day 2

Rainy crappy day here today. Plus, a friend of mine lost her battle with cancer last night, so that sadness adds to the gloom of the day.

I want to curl into a ball and hide in my room. And eat cheeseburgers and fries.

But I really don't. I don't want cheeseburgers and fries. I want to live. I want to be strong and healthy and vibrant and bouncy, and I can't do that 100 pounds overweight. Just can't happen. 

As sad as I am today, I'm not going to let the daemons in my head win. 

Today would be the perfect example of a day when I could tell Mr. Saucy that I'm not going to make dinner, and I want takeout Chinese. Then I'd order the bobo tray, which is the appetizer sampler platter which is grease, fat, sugar, gluten FILLED and saturated with MSG and total crap, and I may even order a main dish as well. And this is usually when I figure that since I'm going to get zapped by the gluten in the bobo tray, I may as well have my favorite lomein, or fried rice, or sweet and sour pork. The starchier the better! Pile on the soy sauce, the sweet sauces, and give me something crunchy to dip into the zero food value product that is slightly gelatinous but neither a solid nor a liquid and is bright orange. 

But nope. That's not happening tonight. 

I'm still coming out of my last gluten zap, and I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that it's just not worth it. The love I have for McDonalds is going to kill me. Just that one bute of PB sandwich crust from the kids lunch box is going to put me into a psychological tailspin that will take anywhere from a day to a few weeks to come out of. In fact, I was just blogging from the potty just now. My poor system is still trying to get these poisons out of me. And I can't remember the last thing I ate that got me so badly this time. See. Clearly. Not. Worth. It. 

I dropped GG off at school this morning and my tummy was already rumbling. I came home to check on the weather because we're having a fierce line of storms coming at us today. And this was when I found out about the passing of my dear friend. I stopped thinking about my hungry tummy and the weather and instantly contacted her sister to give my condolences. Then the tears started and Facebook started popping with thoughts and prayers for my friend and her family. Soon it was time to go pick GG back up, and I still hadn't eaten, but that's ok because I knew G was going to want lunch as soon as we got home. 

Sure enough, she requested mac-n-cheese (shocker!) so I began making her favorite food in the whole wide world. And I had been thinking of a steak salad with blue cheese, and luckily, I had all the makings of such. So I cooked my steak and chopped my lettuce while hers cooked. And yes... I portioned my lettuce (2 greens) and my steak (1 red). However, I did do a little artistic licensing on the dressing and I counted it as my blue and my orange. 

Tonight will be Tacos because I completely forgot that yesterday was Tuesday. Monday was a holiday, so I thought yesterday was Monday all day long. 

However, I don't want tacos tonight. My family loves them and I love that it's something the whole family eats without bitching, but I don't want it tonight. I guess I need to figure out what I want so I can defrost it. I have all of my yellows and 3 more greens and 3 more reds, so that's a huge supper! I also have all of my purples, but I'm still so afraid of fruits. After losing 50 pounds in my 20's using Atkins, I'm so trained to think of fruits as pure sugar. Again... I'm so not an expert in any of these dieting and weightloss things, and I really doubt anyone truely is an expert because so many experts contradict one another. It's infuriating.

Anywho... Day 2 and I'm still here. Still have my color containers out. Still paying attention to what I'm eating. Still freaked out when I see my reflection in the mirror. How/when did I let myself get so big? My goodness.

21-Day Fix, Day 1

Pretty typical for me. I start all "diets" the same way. I am TERRIFIED that I'm going to over eat. And why shouldn't I be?!? This is what got me here to begin with, right?

I look at the daily allotment, be it "calories", "points", "servings", "meals", "snacks", etc. it's all a collection of rules that I need to follow in order to be thin again. And this daily allotment turns into what I can't eat instead of what I can eat.

I hoard my points or calories so I can save them for later. I'm so afraid I'll use up everything before lunch, then I'm stuck either over eating at night because I need to soothe, or I'm stuck staring at my family eating pizza while I enjoy a "free food" of a refreshing glass of ice water with lemon.

This sucks.

Plain and simple.

So today is exactly like every other day 1 I've ever experienced. I have had 2 hard boiled eggs, 2 clementines, and 2 mugs of coffee with sugar free pumpkin spice non-dairy creamer. I am a white woman in my 40's after all, and yes, I was wearing my yoga pants while drinking it.

Now I'm on glass #2 of my favorite boxed Chardonnay and I'm planning on pork chops and veggies for supper. Because I'm allowed to exchange a glass of wine for a yellow container in my 21-Day Fix plan, I'm going to trade them all for my wine, so dinner will be meat (red container) and veggies (green containers). I won't have any yellows left over for a glass of almond milk later, so I'll have to decide what's more important in my yellow rationing.

All in all today has been a good day though! Conner got caught up on his homework, Genna and I both got haircuts, and there are several loads of laundry in staggered stages of doneness. I have a lot of "containers" left in my daily allotment, so it's almost lik a puzzle to see what I can and want to eat for the rest of the evening.

I haven't had any exercise today yet. Yet! HA! I'm SO NOT going to exercise this late. Let's be real. If I'm going to move my body for the sake of exercise, it's going to happen first thing in the morning before I know what else I could be doing. All day I wanted to bring my exercise bike downstairs to the living room, but I didn't do it myself. This will be a discussion I'll have with my Honey tonight, as I really want it down here. Instead of camping out on the sofa, I can sit on the bike while writing, blogging, reading, facebooking, and tweeting.

The buzz of the dryer has just summoned me. I must go rescue the wearables from the threat of wrinkles!

Emotional Eating

Stupid broken brain. I'm an emotional eater and a food addict. 

I'm constantly fighting something in my head.

I'm either fighting my ADD, or my anxiety, or my monthly hormonal highs and lows, or a gluten zap, or if we're all really lucky, it's a combination of one, two, three, or all of the above.

So I'm officially the heaviest I've ever been. I can lose 100 pounds at this point and be happy as a pig in shit.

I'm still obsessed with quick fixes. I want liposuction, I want my stomach stapled, I want to accidentally slip into a non life threatening coma for the next 9 months and wake up skinny. But none of these are logical, healthy, or going to fix the problem.

The problem is ME. it's not the burgers and fries. That's like blaming the bullets and the gun for a death. The problem isn't the food, the problem is the reason WHY I put those foods into my mouth.

So... Let's see about how I can figure this out. 

I have the support and the love and the means to make it happen. I just have to search for, find, and accept that switch that needs to take place inside ME. No one can do this for me. There isn't a quick fix for this. It's a daily process of making choices that are different from the choices I've been making.

Twitter newbie

I've just discovered twitter. 

I'm slow.

But it's kinda become like a third child. Well, maybe a 4th pet rather than a 3rd child. Ps, don't tell my pets they aren't human. Oh hell, go ahead, they won't believe you if you say it, so rock on.

Tomorrow is Conner's 6th birthday, so my life this week has been all about Lego's, party planning, party re-planning due to the weather forecast, and hashtagging. 

Yesterday I dropped my daughter off at preschool then headed out to buy supplies. To Target first for marshmallows for the marshmallow Lego dude head pops and cake mix and icing for his birthday cake and graham crackers and M&M's for the edible Lego bricks. The Lego head pops and bricks will be the party favors too. I hate goody bags. Hate that kids expect them these days, and I hate that they're full of crap that I have to pick up off the floor every day for a week until I finally throw it all away and the kids never notice the crap is missing.

Then I went to BJ's for the foods I couldn't find at Target. The GF pizzas, a flat do Diet Come, flat of Coke, flat of water, juice boxes, and 2 mommy juice boxes. AKA boxed Chardonnay. 

Then I went to the candy store for the candy that looks like Lego bricks.

Then I went to the amazing lady's house who sold me her sons ENTIRE Lego collection.

Then I went to the dollar store for the paper party goods.

Then I came home to hide toys and put away the foods.

Then I went back out to get my daughter from school. 

Then I desperatly wanted a nap, but nope, got a burr up my butt that I needed to go to Lowes to find tile to fix the entry way floor where the bare spots are STILL THERE from the removal of the knee walls early this summer.

The tile didn't match, so I flopped on the couch to pout, and tweet, but then it was time to get the boy from the bus stop, so off we went to the bus stop. Then we waited almost 30 minutes because the bus was late and we weren't notified, so after calling the school to find out where my kid was and the slight panic of the lady telling me it was late and they sent out a blast notice... I'm sorry... WHAT ANOUT A BLAST? Don't say the word BLAST to a parent who has just called looking for her missing child you crazy woman! She reworded herself and said they sent out an email, but none of us at the bus stop received any word from the school, and when I called Mr. Saucy he had not received a notice either.

So, the bus showed up, Conner was very confused because it wasn't his regular bus, wasn't his regular driver, and she made a wrong turn and came the wrong way down the street. My poor angel who does not like his routine to be monkeyed with almost didn't get off the bus because he was so turned around.

Then he went to a friends house to play and GG went to, so I was left at home alone with 2 days worth of dirty dishes in the sink and the very first time I had a chance to sit or breathe all day. And I did a little more twittering.

So I organized the party things and began the dishes. Called Mr. Saucy to see what he wanted for dinner and neither of us were terribly hungry, so nothing sounded interesting.

Yesterday was the only day this week that we didn't and don't have to run around all day, so when the kids came back home from playing, I poured a glass of wine and went out front with them to play sidewalk chalk. Then Daddy came home, we all started talking with the neighbors, and soon it was dark and I still hadn't done diddly about supper.

We ordered Chinese. I made bad choices. I felt terrible within 30-45 minutes, and still feel cruddy.

Gluten effects my brain as much as it does my tummy, so today I'm short-tempered, lethargic, and in and out of the potty a lot. 

Wait... I started this blog post talking about twitter. I promise I took my Concerta today, but like I just said, my brain is not under my control when I've been glutened. 

I even gained 2 pounds from yesterday morning to this morning!

Squirrel. 

Ahem... Focus Carter Ann. You got this.

Back to twitter.

A friend shared some things she learned with me, and my eyes were suddenly opened to what twitter could be. I thought it was a famous persons Facebook. Celebrities talk about their lattes and we wish we were them. Or celeb BFF's suddenly have a falling out and there's a twitter-war that shows up on the evening entertainment news. But if you do it right, you can use it as an advertising venue to attract readers to your blog. 

So, if you've just found me through twitter, I'm super excited you're here! Thank you for reading my post today and take a few minutes to poke around to see what other things I write about. Mostly home, garden, food, kids type stuff. I split atoms on my days off. So I guess it's best that I don't get days off, so most atoms here are safe and sound and whole.

Time to tweet and hashtag to attract more brilliant folk, such as yourself, who will enjoy spending some time with me and my saucy family and friends.

Stay Saucy, y'all!