Let's Talk Food

Okay, so Better Half and I are doing Whole30.  

In a nutshell, Whole30 isn't a diet or even a lifestyle change.  It doesn't cost any money, or involve any crazy supplements or replacements that say they're "natural," but were processed in a plant and come in a jar and are wicked expensive.  It's basically eating lean meat proteins, lots of veggies, some fruit, and some healthy fats and oils for 30 days to rewire and repair your digestive system and the hormones that control it.  To "undo" all of the damage that's been done by the way a typical American eats.

Casey's top recommended read from 2013?  It Starts with Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig.  Not even kidding.  

This was the first book to explain to me why I can and will eat an entire box of Oreos in one sitting and that the fact that I can and will isn't a character defect.

Anyway, we've been talking about doing this together for a couple of months.  And we landed on January.  We figured..."After the holidays."  "After traveling."  

So we set a date to start--Monday, Jan. 6.

Now the program recommends that you PLAN to start this.  You know...clear ALL of the tempting, bad for you, junk out of your cupboards, and get rid of it.  Plan meals, grocery shop, stock a pantry...

Yeah, right.

Problem #1--I have three teenaged children.  No breakfast cereal in the cabinets for 30 days will equal rebellion and mutiny.  Ditto to no milk in the fridge.

Problem #2--Over break, I bought two bags of FairTrade certified chocolate chips at a college classmate's fair trade store.  With Christmas money.  It's stinking hard to find FairTrade chocolate and it's NOT cheap.  There's NO WAY those were going in the trash.  Or even to the neighbor's house.  I"m not that nice.

Problem #3--Try as I might, preparing for things ahead of time just isn't in my nature.  I do my best work in the 11th hour.  I've been rewarded for procrastination too many times to change my ways now.

This brought us to the morning of Day 1.  

Bleary-eyed, I headed downstairs to see what could possibly be put together for breakfast.  (It is important to note that we returned home from a 15 day vacation on Saturday.  This was the following Monday.  And no one had been to the grocery store.)  

Day 1 Breakfast was not promising.  

Fried eggs and a microwaved bag of frozen mixed veggies.  Not even kidding.  It looked something like this:

Actually, it looked exactly like this, minus the vegetables.  Sadly, the vegetables were even less photogenic than the eggs.

It's no wonder Better Half left for work feeling dubious that we would last a DAY, let alone 30.

Enter my new sister-in-law, Susan.  The state of New York declared her legally part of our family when she and my brother got married this past August.  I claimed her long before that.  Anyhoo...

She and Nathan ALSO decided to Whole30 during the month of January.  But she was rocking it a little bit differently that I was.

Like this:

And this:

And this:

And, well, I'm just a teensy bit competitive.  So after that horrible breakfast, and Susan's Facebook posts, I decided to step up my game. 

I rid my house of anything that was going to tempt me to cheat, (breakfast cereal and boxed macaroni and cheese just aren't a temptation for me, so Better Half and I get to maintain the illusion with our kids that we're in charge for a little bit longer) EXCEPT for those chocolate chips, which I stashed in my deep-freeze.  I have plans for them the MINUTE we're done with our 30 days.  :)

And I made a menu, and a grocery list, and went to the store.  

Mealtimes improved.  

Here's what I learned/noticed from this whole business:

1.  Healthy food won't kill you.  

2.  It tastes really good.  

3.  Even kids will eat it. (A note on feeding kids:  I don't have picky children.  I honestly don't know if this is because we've always had an  "A little or a lot?"... "No worries.  If you don't like the dinner option, perhaps you'll like the breakfast one in the morning," approach to mealtimes, or if I just got lucky.)  But our kids have eaten absolutely everything I've made and declared it "make again" or "Hella good."  (Fun Fact:  "Hella" is some sort of Bay Area expression that means "very" or "a lot." Somehow, it has worked its way into my Southern California son's vocabulary. Which I am "hella" excited about.  Not even.)

4.  There is a reason most of these healthy food epiphanies come out of places like California, Texas, and Florida.  Healthy, fresh, food is CHEAP here.  And accessible.  I can buy two pounds of fresh green beans for $0.99.  A bag of frozen is over $1.00.  My sister-in-law had to do a lot more legwork to find stuff in the winter in Brooklyn.  So unless you live in a place of perpetual spring and summer, know that attempting something like this will be dicey in the winter and much easier in spring and summer.

5.  It's nice to have a partner in crime.  Or several.  If for no other reason than conversations like this:

or so you can send "You SUCK" texts to your brother when he drinks a beer and eats a cheeseburger in front of his wife (Solidarity, Sister!), or so you have someone to call up and say, "Do you think I can substitute toasted almond flour for breadcrumbs and omit the Parmesan in my copycat recipe for Unforked's amazing "Hail the Kale" salad? (Thanks, Amanda!!)

We stayed strong.  All of us.  Or most of us. :o)  Which brings me to...

6.  One of the purposes of this whole things is to "Slay the Sugar Demon"--reset how your body craves those over-the-top, factory-produced, sweets.  Yeah.  This particular part of the program hasn't worked on me.  At. All.  I am certain that I need to hire an Exorcist for my sugar demon.  I would happily eat a plate of brownies right now if my sheer competitiveness and legalism wasn't kicking in to get me to the finish line.

7.  Eating out sucks when doing something like this.  Eating socially at all is dicey.  Better Half and I have been SO lucky.  We've had three house guests during the past 24 days and they have all been FANTASTIC sports about Whole30.  They've eaten everything and even told us it was good (see #1).  I've made more meals at home in one continuous streak than I think I have in my entire. married. life.  I'm kind of proud of that.  And really tired of it.  :)

8.  Except for the Sugar Demon thing (and some things are just bigger than home fixes and require professionals), we have experienced all of the health benefits that were promised.  We sleep better. We have less aches and pains. Our workouts are better.  Slowly, we are starting to crave healthy, good food.  

9.  There is something to this "gluten is really bad for you" thing.  The only intentional "cheating" I've done was to take Communion at church on Sunday.  A communion wafer tinier than the size of my fingernail.  Three hours later, I had an unbelievable headache and felt like I was going to be sick.  Not even kidding.  When I add foods back in to my diet, foods with gluten will not be on the list.

10.  My jeans have more room.  Better Half's jeans have more room.  And our recycling bin has more room.  This is largely due to the fact that egg cartons, (which we now buy in massive numbers) take up way less room than wine bottles.  

Complete honesty here?  Super looking forward to a wine bottle or two in the recycle bin, and a dark chocolate wrapper or two in the trash can come February!

In other and completely unrelated news--

I got my hair trimmed and colored on Tuesday.  Conversation after school.

J:  Wow, Mom!  Your hair looks really good!

Corb:  Oh. You got your hair cut?  I just figured you fixed it differently today.

Me:  Didn't you notice the color difference?

Corb:  Well, yeah.  But I just figured you washed it or something.

Sigh.

Dear J,

 First of all, please let me say that you have the most amazing brothers.  Before you roll your eyes, hear me out.  I know they pick on you, make fun of you, and push your buttons.  I know they frustrate you.  But they have some good qualities, too.  They're smart, funny, and loyal.  And they love you fiercely.  If they ever thought you were hurt or in danger, they'd mobilize quickly.  I already feel sorry for the boy who breaks your heart someday.  I hope he never comes in contact with your brothers.

Having said all of that, your dad and I owe you an apology.  You can save this and take it to your therapist some day as proof that we take full blame for any long-term damage our error in judgment has caused.

I am so sorry that when making our list of "must" and "like to have" things for this house, "pool," and "two living spaces" and "good schools" made the list, but "J having her own bathroom so she doesn't have to share with two teenaged boys" didn't even come up.

That was a grievous error on our part--brought to my attention when I cleaned said bathroom for the first time probably since we moved in four months ago.

Okay--to the reader(s) of this blog who are now feeling a tightening in their throats and are heading toward their nearest bathrooms--calm down.  Take deep breaths.  The bathroom has been cleaned since we've been here.  Many times.  Just not by me.  I don't use it and I have three children whose ages are in the double-digits.  They are more than capable of cleaning a bathroom.

J--I know that you clean it mostly.  You are now one of my heroes.  Occasionally, one of your siblings will.  Most recently, one of your brothers got the job. Last Monday, in fact.  A "reward" for leaving his Starbucks cup next to the sink in there for a week.

But yesterday, I decided to clean it.  I figured, it was just cleaned last Monday.  How bad could it be?

The Universe--or possibly my sons--anticipated that thought and took it as a personal challenge.

I walked in and IMMEDIATELY had to open a window to air out the smell of--well, "feet" would be the nicest body part with which to compare the odor to.

Remember...this thing was cleaned a week ago.  A WEEK.  And I inspected it after it was cleaned.  This travesty occurred in less than seven days' time.

Laundry and dirty towels littered the floor.  The counter was covered with toothpaste tubes, bottles, lotions, hairbrushes, empty toilet paper tubes (still shaking my head over that one, since a trash can sits in PLAIN SIGHT) and stuff I can't  and don't want to identify.

I felt the need for a Silkwood decontamination shower (I know that you are too young to understand the Silkwood reference, dear daughter, but that's one of the beautiful things about the Internet.  Just Google it.  :o) ) after scrubbing out the tub.

And don't even get me STARTED on the toilet.  I'll spare you except to say that I have used Port-a-Potties that were cleaner.  No one should have to say that about a toilet in their own home, let alone use one.  Ever.

Anyway, again. My profound apologies.  I cannot believe that you shower and get ready for school in there every single day.  And I now understand why you ask to use my bathroom on a regular basis.  And the ongoing answer is yes.  Feel free.

If it makes you feel any better, I have two future daughters-in-law who, at this rate, are going to hate me with a seething, red-hot passion.

And the bathroom will be yours, and yours alone in four years.  Which probably seems like a terribly long time to you, but will go by very quickly.

In the meantime, I'll put your dad on the task of keeping better tabs on what it looks like in there.  :o)

I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me,

XOXO,

Mom

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I stole this idea from my cousin, Jill.

I had every intention of posting here on a regular basis.

Now that we've moved.  Now that I'm not working.  I thought that it would be easy.  But it hasn't been.

I've sat down at this computer lots of times and looked at the blank screen with absolutely no inspiration.

None.

I thought I'd want to blog about the house.  The transition.  I thought I'd want to complain about the loneliness.  The frustrations.  The homesickness.  But I haven't.  Not that I haven't felt all of those things.  I have.

But mostly I've just been taking my kids to school, running errands, doing laundry, picking my kids up from school and running them to activities, fixing meals, helping with homework.  Wash. Rinse. Repeat.  It's been a great gig.  And a lovely respite from the last six years.  But it hasn't felt blog-worthy.  Any of it.

But stuff has happened here.  My life is different than it was in August or even October (when I posted last), yet I haven't been able to muster up the creative juices to blog on any of it.

So here's a quick low-down on what's been going on with us.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.

On Moving to Southern California:
The Good--Better half really likes his job.  The entire family likes living near the mountains and the ocean.  The weather is unbelievable.  Baseball can be played year-round.  Kids have found friends and activities.
The Bad--We miss our friends back in Kansas.  It's REALLY far and REALLY expensive to get back there.  Baseball can be played year-round.  :o)  I've loved baseball ever since my boys have been old enough to play it AND know which direction to run the bases.  But I wonder if I like it better when I get to miss it for a few months.
The Ugly--The loneliness.  And I feel loneliest in crowds.  At church.  At meetings.  At baseball games.  Where there are lots of people around and they all know each other, but they don't know me and I don't know them.  My children tell me I am WAY too interested in the personal lives of the morning talk show hosts on our local radio station, and I've got my computer set on the San Diego Zoo Pandacam for company.

On Our New House:
The Good--It's a great house.  Really.  I love that the bedrooms are all upstairs and the kids have their own bathroom.  I love that there is plenty of space for people to come visit (so come visit!).  It's beautifully landscaped.
The Bad--It could use a kitchen remodel.  Corb got a splinter in his foot from the horrible wood floor.  Not even kidding.
The Ugly--Utilities.  I about croaked.  I called the electric company and the water people thinking they'd made a huge mistake.  They laughed at me.

On Public Schools Here:
The Good--THEY. TEACH. WRITING!!!  As in, J just wrote a 3 page argumentative paper on the advantages of school uniforms in public school.  In sixth grade.  N is doing a HUGE paper on a problem in an African country and how to help solve it.  Since this is the first year that they are switching to Common Core, California is not administering most state assessment tests this year.  The teachers.  My kids have really good teachers.  I pretty much like them all.
The Bad--No money.  These schools constantly tell everyone that they have no money.  This is very likely true, as the state of California has no money.  Every school here thinks that you only have one child and that one child goes to their school.  So the Middle School thinks nothing of having an early morning practice that will render it impossible to get your High Schooler to school on time without Hermione Granger's Time Turner.
The Ugly--"donations."  Every extra-curricular activity and many curricular ones require "donations."  I know.  Those two words--require and donation--don't really go together.  But they do here.  I just love seeing on mass email reminders that "donations" for band ($150 for a year) or baseball ($175) for 5 games are "past due."  Cracks me up.  When it doesn't make me see red.  Entitlement is another "ugly" here.  The things that kids think they need, or worse, that their parents think they need.  I think that will be a constant battle to fight.

On Being a Stay at Home Mom:
The Good--I love feeling like I have time for my kids.  I'm not rushing to get them/take them/watch them so that I can cross something off of my list and move on to the next thing.
The Bad--I'm sure I'm not getting as much done around the house as I should be. I waste lots of time.
The Ugly--Most things are a lot more expensive here.

On Company:
The Good--People actually come visit us!  Our good friends two hours north have come several times.  They EVEN spent Thanksgiving with us.  Mik has been out.  Julie and Soph came.  My sister was here just last week, and we're supposed to have some visitors this weekend.  I love having people here.
The Bad--They leave.  And it always seems like the time they're here goes by way too fast!
The Ugly--Me, with tears pouring down my face in the airport parking lot after they leave.

On Marathon Training:
The Good--You couldn't ask for a better place to run.  The weather is almost always perfect.  It's got great hills.
The Bad--Surprisingly, it's been kind of hard to find time to fit it in.  That, plus minor injuries.
The Ugly--I'm worried that I'm severely behind and March 9 is either going to be the worst day of my life or my last or possibly both.

On Doing Whole30 With Better Half:
The Good--The food.  The food is normally really good.  Everything I've made, the kids and Better Half have requested I make again.  I feel better.  I don't have headaches in the morning.  I'm sleeping better.  And we're over half-way done! :o)
The Bad--Except for three times, I have cooked Every. Single. Meal. we've eaten since the morning of Jan. 6.  I'm not sure when the last time was that I've cooked so regularly.  Maybe never.  I've discovered that I don't like to cook all that much.  And I despise clean up.  So I've resorted to eating bizarre things.  My post-workout "meal" today was tuna fish out of a can and pumpkin out of a can.
The Ugly--The jar of no-bake cookies sitting on the counter that J made yesterday.

So that's it.  What we've been up to over the last few months.  Hopefully we will have something super-interesting or highly entertaining to write about very soon!

ARggh!

Okay.

 So I have a child who doesn't hate to read, but she's not as addicted to the printed word as I am.

She is, however, REALLY PICKY about what she wants to read.

Enter the AR (Accelerated Reader) program.

If you aren't familiar with the AR program, here's a brief synopsis off of their EIGHT PAGE parent guide that pretty much says it all--
AR is a computer program that helps teachers and librarians manage and monitor children’s independent reading practice. 

So the way this works is, my kid took some test to determine the AR level of books she is capable of reading. She has to choose books at that level, and then take tests over them.  The longer or harder the book, the more points the kid gets for passing the tests.

Let me interject here.  Teachers and schools LOVE AR.  Hey.  I'm a teacher.  I can understand why.  The computer and the child does all of the work.  All a teacher has to do is assign a certain number of AR points to be earned by a certain date and make it part of the kid's grade.  Easy.  Peasy.  Kids are reading. At their level.  Reading comprehension is getting checked (sort of).  Teacher is free to do other things.  Like teach Common Core (don't EVEN get me started).

Back to my very picky reader.

We were in Costco yesterday.  (This always means a trip down the book aisle.  Even if I was just there the day before.)  And my daughter found a book she wanted to read.

I'm not proud of what happened next.

Instead of telling her how excited I was that she found a book she was looking forward to enjoying, I pulled out my phone and plugged the title into the AR bookfinder.  Yep.  I suck.

Well, so does AR, because apparently the book she was so interested in reading isn't AR approved.

And it gets worse.  I hesitated.  Hesitated, Dear Reader.  Apparently she needs 23 or something AR points by Halloween.  She has 10.  I considered not buying her a book she wants to read, because there are books that she NEEDS to read so she can get points for her GRADE.

She's eleven.  Eleven.

I totally get a book list in Jr. High.  Or High School.  We should not graduate students who haven't been exposed to Shakespeare, or Mark Twain, or Ancient Greek epic poetry.

I even understand book lists for "Accelerated Readers."

My older son LOVED AR, by the way.  But he was a voracious reader anyway.  He tests well.  And there was a contest at school.  He's a wee bit competitive.  AND his teacher gave him two-liters of Mountain Dew for getting AR points.  (Yeah.  Don't get me started on that one, either.)

My daughter is an average reader right now.  This is okay with me. She reads on grade level.  She occasionally picks up a book and reads for pleasure.  But right now, it's not her #1 favorite thing to do.  I firmly believe that if we continue to encourage reading and find ways to be delighted by books, she will eventually catch the reading bug.

Luckily, I got my head back in the game.  I put the book in the cart.  I put my worry about my daughter's grade in Language Arts aside.  And I reminded myself that my approach is going to go much further toward creating a lifelong love of reading than AR EVER can.

Stupid AR.

Author's note:  BOTH of my kids told me point blank that they regularly take tests over books they read years ago, or that we listened to on tape, or that I read to them.

Fabulous.

I guess I need to ramp up the lessons on honesty and integrity while promoting a lifetime love of reading.





 

On Removing Band-Aids

I've never understood the expression, "Rip it off like a Band-Aid."

Well, that's not really true. I understand the theory behind it. Supposedly it hurts your skin less if you just grab one side of that thing and yank hard and fast.

But that's not how I roll. I have never. ever. ripped off Band-Aids.

My process for removing a Band-Aid involves thinking about it for awhile. Deciding if the grayish-black adhesive that always builds up around the edge is now so disgusting that people are going to start looking at me funny. When I decide it is indeed time, I wedge my fingernail underneath the edge of it and S-L-O-W-L-Y pull. And by slowly, I mean that this process can take ten minutes or more for a normal-sized bandage. Ten minutes of pain...followed by relief...followed by pain...followed by relief...wash. rinse. repeat.


Yep. Same thing with pools and the like. I always get in inch by tiny inch. One toe at a time. It's one of the many reasons I never attempted swim team. I was never gonna be able to dive off of those blocks into the water. I just can't do it. Drives my kids crazy. By the time I'm completely wet, they're long done and ready to do something else.

I approach all difficult things in my life this way.

People think I'm crazy. They're not wrong.

So it's a little bit understandable that I would approach a life-changing move the selfsame way.

~Find out about it in November.

~Feel the need to let kids finish the school year. Buys time until May.

~Decide the kids need one last summer with their friends to finish baseball. Buys time until July.

~Take advantage of brother getting married and not having people in a new place to watch kids. Buy some more time until the end of August.

~Leave all of our stuff in our house in the Midwest until we can close on a house in our new place. Buys a flight back to the home I love for one more visit.

And just like pulling off a Band-Aid, all of these stages have had great pain, followed by relief and ease, joy and laughter, followed by pain and tears and breaking hearts.

So as I sit here in this airport, ready to board a flight that will take me the last leg of this very long moving journey, I realize that I have finally done it. I no longer have any type of residence in Kansas. Our belongings are on a huge truck, en route to a new, permanent home. The band-aid is off. I'm completely immersed in the water, from toe to head.

The emotional exhaustion is huge.

So huge that I feel numb.

And I am sure that my friends and family were looking on during this whole process and thinking, "Oh, For.The.Love!! Just do it already!! Move! Like ripping off a Band-Aid."

Exactly. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid.

Things I Love About Living Here

I have this friend, Renee. Renee and I met through the virtual school where I worked. Renee's daughter is one of my former students.

Several things about Renee~
1. She's amazing. Truly. Amazing.

2. She's living a semi-parallel life to mine.
When I say "semi-parallel," I mean she's also relocating to California after living in the Midwest for a number of years. But she's in the major league where this is concerned and I'm still on a farm team. Because...

Renee is also living apart from her husband. She has three kids. But her OLDEST is the same age as my YOUNGEST. Whereas I am a veteran home schooling mom (meaning I've served in that war. A long time ago.), Renee is active-duty. She is also packing up her own house, trying to get it sold, and is mommy and daddy for three young children--all while teaching three kids full-time.

3. Renee is not a complainer. She's one of the most positive people I know.

Renee does things like make "Top 10 Great Things About Moving to California" lists.

4. When I grow up, I want to be like Renee.

True Confession time--

I. Hate. It. Here. With a white-hot passion.

Everything is complicated here. Absolutely everything.

From taking the kids to school in the morning, to ridding the apartment of roaches, to trying to get C in the correct math class. It's all complicated. Oh, and expensive.

But none of that stuff is as complicated as trying to purchase real-estate in Southern California. Remember how I said that I had hopefully gotten the last You Have So Got To Be Kidding Me With This correspondence about the house we're trying to buy?

Yeah. I jinxed it. We hadn't. We probably still haven't.

At this point, I hope we own this home by the time J starts high school.

I have absolutely no idea why so many people want to live here. This place gets 55 electoral votes. 55! How is that even possible?

It can't be the weather. It was 103 here today.

But I digress.

I've been thinking a lot about my friend, Renee's list.

And I decided that I should start a list of my own. Things I love about living here that I wouldn't have back in Kansas.

Maybe it will help if I can focus on the positive.

And I'm going to put a reminder on my calendar to come back to this list every so often to add to it. If there's anything to add.

So here goes:

Things I Love About Living Here

1. Trader Joe's.
I love that there is a Trader Joe's here. Two minutes from where we live. And there's always a parking spot available.

That's it. That's seriously all I've got. But at least it's a start.



Author's Note:
Yes. I am also glad that our family is "sort of" together again. (We miss you, Mik!) But let's be honest here. Really. If I had dug in my heels and decided I wasn't leaving Kansas, we'd still be living there. All of us.

The best line in the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is

"The man may be the head of the family, but the woman is the neck."

Perfectly Paleo

~Disclaimer~

I'm kind of grumpy today. So if this is more acrid than normal, I apologize.

So I thought this move to California would be a good time to turn over a new leaf. I decided I would give organization and forethought and planning ahead a try-on for size and see how I like the way they fit.

So far, they look great on the rack and on other people. On me...not so much.

I did things like pre-emptively get athletic clearances filled out on my kids in Kansas with our doctors. Somewhere between having it in the apartment and getting it to the ASB (I have no idea what in the world ASB is or what it stands for, but that's where it has to go) office at N's school, the form has disappeared. This form has to be in a coach's hot little hands Saturday morning for baseball tryouts. Baseball is what this kid is putting all of his hope on for a successful life here.

This brings us to this thing called Urgent Care. Where I pay $40, wait over 2 hours, and sign my name, give my address, and my date of birth on no less than 8 pieces of paper. Including the paper that I had to sign to say that I had paid my balance in full. Seriously??? Because the signed credit card statement wasn't enough?? So that my son can spend five minutes back in a room with heaven knows who walking in a straight line, touching his toes, getting asked if he has headaches or heart problems, and then gets told to "have a good season and don't get hurt." Oh. And they won't bill insurance.

And then there was the other evening. :o)

I attempted a lovely, Paleo dinner of meatloaf and bacon-n-brussels sprouts.

Cooking is something that I am also trying to do on a regular basis. I've found that the smell of dinner decreases the chance of Better Half glancing pointedly around the apartment and saying casually, "So...what did you do all day today?" And really. It's only fair. I'm not working. You'd think I could at least handle dinner.

So dinner is nicely cooking. There are about 15 minutes left on the timer, and I have to go pick J up from dance.

So I tell Better Half:

"Dinner will be ready in 15. I know that you guys have to leave. Just stick it back in the oven after you eat. J and I will be right home and we'll eat then." We have no microwave to reheat food.

I pick up J. And as I'm pulling up to the apartment, I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach. The one you get when you realize things are gonna go terribly wrong. I had given C my apartment key earlier in the afternoon and forgot to get it back.

Better half is with the boys on his way to C's baseball practice--20 minutes away. I'm locked out of my apartment and dinner is still in the oven. Which is still set at 350 degress.

See why organization doesn't look so hot on me?? If I hadn't come up with a dinner plan, we could've just had In-N-Out Burger. Better Half wouldn't have had to race home. J and I wouldn't have been shaking the living room window screens to see if we could remove them when the neighbors walked by. They wouldn't have had to say, "I sure hope you guys live in that place." And we wouldn't have worried that every beep we heard was the smoke detector in our apartment.

Oh, and it was 100 different kinds of hot and humid outside.

So better half finally gets home. He lets us into the apartment and I pull out dinner. The meatloaf is just a little bit crispy on the outside. Not bad.

But the bacon and Brussels sprouts, well...

J took one look at it and said, "Ugh! It looks like dead roaches!! Is THAT what you've been doing with all of the roaches, Mom??"

I really don't see the problem. I'm gonna guess roaches are Paleo.

Maybe we'll try "eating local" on for size as well.:o)

In other news--My friend Jaime (who, incidentally, I met on my VERY FIRST DAY of KINDERGARTEN) is a GENIUS!!!  It's not exactly Princess Kate, but it certainly isn't Peg Bundy, either:

And my friend, Jennifer, is also a genius.  Because the first kid to open a fresh, sassy mouth or who says something hateful to a sibling on a school morning is getting me...walking the offender up to the school building with my head full of these: