The Happy Food Nazi?

So it’s probably been about a month since I started the whole Accountability to the Max stuff with my friend Smiley. I’ve been food tracking, exercising myself into the ground and avoiding temptation to the nth degree. This last week I hit a minor rut. Minor because I know I’ll get over it but still a bit discouraging since I’ve been practically perfect. But yet, somehow, not.

With the whole month of nothing it seemed like I’ve been an extra food stickler on the whole family’s sugar intake. Never getting treats or even making them. Evo-man attended a party with ice cream sundaes and ate himself sick. I know if I withhold too much my kids are bound to do exactly that when they leave the nest. Hoard and consume the bad food because they never got treated to it at home. I did that when I went off on my own.

Then I noticed that since they’ve been off processed foods and sugar for a while when they do have it certain children of mine go off the deep –end, climb walls and essentially act like Hammy the Squirrel from ‘Over The Hedge’. My favorite scene (although not in this clip) from the movie is Hammy on Caffeine. That could so be Evo-man and Princess.

Don't you think the little critters hit the whole food, food, FOOD consumption thing right on the head. 'I Want my Cookie!'

This puts me in a pickle. Give them a little sugar – go a little (I mean a lot) nuts. Be a Food Nazi and they grow-up hoarding the sugar, bingeing and needing therapy. So I’m really trying to find the happy medium.

Yesterday I tried a Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip recipe that I found online and made some cookies with my kids. They were o.k. I think I’m going to keep looking for that perfectly healthy cookie recipe, if it even exsists. The taste of our homemade cookies was good but the grit took a little getting used to. So my princesses helped me in our baking experiment and I discovered yet another reason why I don’t have junk food in the house. If it’s there I’ll consume it.

Three cookies later I headed off to my Accountability Club and weighed in for the week. (Darn that Chocolate) I’m only down ½ lb since last week and I know it’s all those tempting little cookies fault. I have absolutely no will-power if they are in the house. after a long day of them sitting around, I finally pulled them out and made the kids finish them so I no longer have any around to tempt me. I do much better without temptation. UGH!

Once the month of nothing is over I’ve got to make it a point to take my family out for ice cream or a simple dessert and not bring the my hideous addiction back into the house for it to lay assault to my mental stability.

And right now I really want that $100 bucks from Smiley. So this week I’m just going to have to dig in and figure out the whole healthy lifestyle without sending my family members into therapy because of my self imposed, anti-sugar priggish self.

Blah Blog Day

I was going to try to attempt a Blog A Day In May – because it sounds fun but then today happened. And today was anything but interesting. If fact it was downright blah. I didn’t sleep well so I was grouchy and tired and very unproductive all day long. Fortunately for me these days don’t happen too often. Thank goodness.

My only note worthy news was Lea mowed her first lawn. She’s been begging me forever. And no I didn’t make her mow the backyard jungle lawn. She got the front lawn that had been mowed a week ago so it was very manageable. She’s a natural and takes after me. As a child I favored outside chores over the inside ones any day.

Nothing else – except the house fell apart because I sat like a lump on the couch feeling tired. It's amazing the damage a half dozen kids can create when mom is out of action - physically or mentally.

On the mental note, I watched the Twilight Teaser Trailer a gazillion times. I had promised my Y & G counselor that I wouldn't read or listen to the Twilight Book series in the house. And that I'd only listen to them while driving or read while waiting at different functions for my kids to finish up. And I've stuck to it, and actually read some other books. I also limited my computer time. But I didn't include Twilight new's updates in my Not-In-The-House deal. So my whole hour of computers was all dedicated to watching the same clip over and over again. See I was so tired today that I didn't realize how pathetic I was until this evening when I started blogging about it. Sigh!

Anyway. I've got to get some more sleep so I can be my chipper, productive self tomorrow. Yeah right. At least I now think I'd better limit my Twilight surfing to once a week instead of once a day.

Yes, I'm Alive!

No, you don’t need to call to see if I’m still here. I know many of you have been wondering where I’ve been lately. And if you haven’t been wondering that’s o.k. too. Well I’ve been exactly where I’ve always been but going through internet with-drawl. Seems some yokel-local drove their pick-up truck into the town’s fiber optic cable line that supplies high speed internet to many in our small community. And it seems the cable company could only work on the line at night since it meant closing down a certain road. So two nights later (slow pokes), repairs completed, we finally have internet again. Wahoo!

Being without my cyber friends and family has sent me into major grumpy mode. I found myself checking the computer 10 to 15 times a day hoping they had fixed the problem; all this while knowing that the only time they would be working on it was overnight. Pathetic! A full grown lady sitting staring at a blank computer screen is not a good thing. And I found myself spacing off several times willing the computer to suddenly fix itself.

I have a hard time remembering how anyone survived before the internet, emails and blogs came along. Oh yes, there was the phone, backyard fence, clothesline or parking lot of the local post office where people would meet to discuss the latest gossip. And I guess they got their news from the radio or newspaper. But still, most of that would require actually getting up off a chair and moving.

So I guess this was my wake-up to how dependant I’ve been lately about spending time in front of the interactive box. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to actually pick up the phone, or send a real letter every now and then. But the computer is so much faster and faster is good when you are busy with a large family.

Still was a nice wake up call on my dependence on computers. I guess now I just need to add email, and the internet to my growing list of addictions.

B.A.B. Accountability Contest Winner & More

And the Winner is....... Susan!

Which means because Susan was feeling extra generous that she passed her win onto Sassy, who really doesn't want it for her munckins but is passing it on the her Friends Family who's daughter was just diagnosed with brain cancer.

I swear I was totally honest in how I had Hope pull out the winning name and I was secretly rooting for Sassy's to win because now I know that by giving up my addiction to her; I can also benefit this sweet little girl and her family. Susan, you can tell you kids what great and wonderful kiddo's they are for giving this B.A.B. win to a family that really needs any pick-me-up they can get right now. From what Sassy told me things really don't look to good for this little 5 year old right now. So keep her and her family in your prayers.

I would have taken pictures of the name drawing but Hope had banana in her scary hair and she had also stripped down to get ready for bed, and you could see the markers she had decided to paint her body with from earlier today evident all over. But you lucked out - I couldn't find the camera. Hum, I wonder if Abner and T-rev are secretly filming yet another stop-motion movie with it?

I'm proud to announce that for the first time in two weeks I haven't picked up any of the Twilight books for the past 26 hours. Of course it's because I had Prince Erik take them to his work and hide them from me. I wasn't strong enough to resist when they were in the house. But darn it if the author didn't post a chapter from the vampire's point of view on her website that I've read three times already. Ugh, with myself. I've never had a problem with Soaps, or romance novels of any kind whatsoever. I don't know why this series has sucked me up like it has.

In an effort to get my mind off it my sweet husband took me to see the movie Penelope last night. Cute, clean girly show. but then again it doesn't take much to impress me. If it's clean then I'm usually satisfied. We don't usually go out on dates that much. We'd love to, but it totally depends on the mood of our O.D.D. child. If he is feeling o.k. and happy then we might try. But before we have had to cancel at the last minute several dates because we didn't want the other kids to have to deal with his bad mood.

I'm not looking forward to trying to start getting my kids up an hour earlier tomorrow. It won't be fun. Thankfully our church doesn't start until in the afternoon. Whoever, suggested all this time change nonsense didn't have children like mine, or they wouldn't have dreamed of the whole spring forward idea. I think it's Ironic that they call it Spring Forward; it's more of a lathargic, drag yourself out of bed, after you've hit the snooze alarm for the 10th time.

I think my middle name is ramble, so anyway -- Congrates again to Susan and Sassy and Sassy's Friend.

Brain Vacations

I have a love/hate relationship with my imagination. I’ve been relying a little bit too heavily on it for the past couple of weeks and even had to bring it up with my young and gorgeous counselor when I last saw her. See the problem is that not only does my imagination supply me with a fairly consistent creative list of things to do and try, but it also, I think is the source of some of my biggest addictions.

I know, you are probably sick and tired of hearing about all the weird things I’m addicted too, Food, chocolate, de-cluttering, B.A.B, and most recently reading. How in the blazing’ bowling balls is imagination related to those you might be wondering? Well I finally figured that out with my Y & G Counselor’s help. It was one of those Ah-Ha, Wow, Bulls-eye, Light-Bulb, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding moments for me.

We figured out that I rely on my imaginary comforts when things get a bit stressful at home or with certain people. And when you’ve got a house of eight active and loud human beings, who wouldn’t want some inner peace and quiet every now and again? I have also never been a conflict/confronter type of a person. When things headed south for me as a kid, which was rarely, seeing as I came from a very functional family; I would escape to the world of my imagination. Heading south meant someone in the house was arguing or I would see neighbor’s go off to play with their friends but not me. I was, I think, a quiet kid and I never had a best friend until I met my husband. I had friends but not the close let’s-share-clothes and talk-on-the-phone-all-night-long type of friends. Let me clarify something; no I don’t share clothes and talk on the phone with my husband all night long. He’s better than that type of friend. So anyway, as a child, I made up some imaginary friends. Now most of these friends were created by someone else I just let my imagination borrow them for playtime. Like swinging through the huge willow tree with Tarzan or building a tree-house out back by the chicken coop with Fritz from Swiss Family Robinson, or creating a cardboard cockpit in my bedroom with Apollo from the original Battlestar Galactica, my friends all kept me company when I was a kid if it got lonely. And if they couldn’t play then I would pick up a Black Stallion book and forget everything and get lost in that world.

Fast Forward twenty plus a bit more years and I’m a much larger version of myself but something’s just don't change. I still don’t like conflict or confrontation. As a mom I can’t really walk away when things go south with my kid’s. I get to be the referee, the decoy, the lawyer, judge and jury, counselor and sometimes jailer. There isn’t really the opt-out option when the kids brawl. But when the crisis has passed and things calm down I really don’t want to think about what happened and that’s when I turn to my comfort zone. My problem is once I turn on my imagination world it’s really hard to turn off.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life, my family, my husband and even the rainy Northwest weather. But sometimes it’s great to focus on something that has nothing to do with any of the above. I call it my brain vacation. In the last month my brain has taken an extended vacation to a delicious place called Chocolateville, Build-A-Bear and most recently to the Twilight Zone. Well not the actual Twilight Zone but to the Twilight book series by Stephanie Meyers. I got sucked in after it was recommended by some family members, (THANK YOU VERY MUCH with a load of sarcasm). Darn-it if I didn’t read all three books within four days and if that wasn’t enough I enjoyed them (Very GUILTILY, I might add) so much, I did what? Insanely I re-read them all again. Now come-on!!!, there is something definitely wrong with a sleep-deprived, do-it-all, mom of a crazy half dozen, who would rather stay up until 2 a.m. to re-read something she just read less than a week ago rather than re-charge. Not only was I reading the series but I was taking mental notes of trying to take a field-trip to my backyard of Forks, WA, and La Push’s First Beach to visit locations mentioned in the book. So label me hopeless and pathetic with a Capital P.

Thank goodness I held onto my Young & Gorgeous counselor even after my 20/20 weight loss program had ended. She always makes me feel great about myself. After I tell her about my O.D.D. child and everything going on in my life she thinks I could definitely benefit from some needed brain vacations. Wa-hoo! However she is making me schedule them so they don’t get in the way of self-care: sleep, exercise, you know the basics and of course, eating right (Sigh, I guess that means no more visit’s to tremor inducing Chocolateville).

I’m doing a lot better with avoiding Chocolate and I haven’t been to B.A.B. in almost two weeks and if you haven’t entered my B.A.B contest please scroll down and help me avoid that place. I think I might make my husband take the Twilight books to work and get me the Book on CD so that I can only take a brain vacation while driving my kids to and fro. My, doesn’t that sound safe? Hopefully it won’t encourage me to drive more because I can’t afford too many trips to the gas station when it costs me $146 to fill up my Tank-mobile’s tank. Ugh!

Now I just need to figure out how to get my brain to stop advertising those appealing and welcome brain vacations while I’m on the job.

Hey and thanks for reading about Me and my insufferably long brain vacations.

B.A.B. Accountability Contest

Want to help me overcome one of my addictions. PLEASE! Then enter for your chance to win $70 worth of Free Build-A-Bear Stuff. I have a $60 Gift Certificate and a $10 off coupon that I'm willing to give away in order to keep me honest. I really have no more room in my girls room for more clothes or pets, and I'd be too tempted to use them if I even venture within 10 miles of the B.A.B. store. So if you're Trenadoll, who is disgusted by the cost - Think of taking your Twiggy, Girly-Girl and Little Man there just for the experiance and it's all free. They would worship you for life. Or if your Arrow's Wife on a tight college budget this would be a great way for fun kids birthday presents. And DaringMom, aren't you all about overcoming consumer motivation - can I tempt you with a store I don't think Magoo will slobber on everything. Am I mean or what - trying to give away my addiction by tempting others with the experiance?

Anyway, leave a comment on this post and on Saturday March 8th I'll let one of my munchkins pick a random winner, out of this finely decorated B.A.B house.

See how creative my kids got with their time last month. It will be this house's last hurrah, before being sent to the recycling retirement home for B.A.B. Houses. Please, please help me so I don't tempt myself again. Your odd's of winning are pretty good since I'm not an ubber famous blogger with a gazillion hits a day - Yet.

Addicted Too...

The funny thing about me is that I get over one addiction and just happen to pick up another. I guess I should ask my Young and Gorgeous Counselor about this next time I bend her ear. So I mostly have overcome my addiction with food (except for chocolate) which keeps pulling me off the wagon. But I’m still o.k. with getting right back on.

My addiction to clutter is still a struggle but I know I’m going in the right direction.

So I’ll let you know what another of my, bring tears to my eyes it gives me such a rush, addictions is. But please keep in mind that admitting to having an addiction is the first step to overcoming it. So, that said, it's...

B.A.B (BUILD-A-BEAR)

Darn if I haven’t been there twice already this week. The first time I cashed in a bunch of saved coupons and got the cutest little White with Green Shamrock’s Bear with a nifty little St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun outfit.

Step 1. Stuff It! (which is probably what my husband wants to do to me every time he hears that I've been to B.A.B.)

Step 2: Wash It!

Step 3: Dress It!

Step 4: Name It!

After cashing in the coupons I had racked up I only paid a total of a $1 and something change. The girls and I named him Lucky. Two days later we were back to get a matching White and Green girl bear named Wish with the little girl Leprechaun matching outfit. The girls are planning a little Bear Leprechaun wedding for St. Patrick’s Day next month. See how cute they are sitting on our front room couch. By-the-way, Lea is doing school work not playing games.

Then we will probably send Wish and Lucky off on their honeymoon which will happen to be the St. Patrick’s Day Decoration Storage Box. I don’t have room for them in the house. Most of the toys are under the house with the decorations anyway. We only rotate and pull out a couple of boxes at a time now. I just hate sorting tons of different toys.

The other thing B.A.B is nasty about is always coming out with cute new outfits. Remember this Christmas picture. Every blasted furry friend had to have an outfit for Christmas.

But this Build-A-Bear thing has me going. Lea was the first to get a friend from Build-A-Bear, and it wasn’t so bad. Something that was fun but not addicting in the least. Then Princess went and got a Monkey named Boots.

I got hooked right along with her. Boots needed clothes, and the time I had to take Princess to the hospital for testing we made sure that we went to Build-A-Bear first and got Boots a Dr.’s outfit. That way, no matter what, Dr. Boots would be there to make her feel better. Remember this from when Princess got sick?

Oh, happy day when Boots got a monkey girlfriend named Chilly. - in the patient outfit.

Here is where the company is clever. They make you want something and if you aren’t fast enough – Too Bad, So Sad! Princess noticed little tiny Build-A-Bear monkeys in a flyer they sent us for Father's Day last year and she had to have them. She carried the flyer around for two weeks because she was convinced that Boots and Chilly wanted kids. I went a week after the ad first said they were available but they were out. I didn’t know this was part of their ploy. And I couldn’t find them anywhere, not even at their online store; I don’t count the arm and a leg people were asking on E-bay for them. Princess was devastated. We keep hoping that they will bring them back. There is something about wanting an item that you can’t have that makes it more appealing, or makes you want it more.

Then there was the time I took the girls to Disneyland. See their friends hitching a ride in the window.

I made sure they each brought their B.A.B friends and B.A.B passports so that we could stop at all the different stores on the way down the coast and get them stamped. That’s a ploy too, see you can’t go into a store and just get a passport stamped; you’ll have to get a souvenir too.

And there are certain Disney (another addiction) outfits that you can buy for your furry friends that you can’t find anywhere else, but Disney's Main Street U.S.A., Mega Whomper Two Story B.A.B. Store. How pathetic is that, for me anyway.

But that’s not the real kicker. Me, Myself, and I had to have my very own B.A.B friend. So right before Christmas when they had Rudolf and Clarice; I made sure I got Clarice.

Of course I named her Fawndear. But with my girls around me supporting me while I kissed the heart, (whole gimmick thingy supposedly making your stuffed friend more real) well, I couldn’t help but get a little choked up. Seriously, a hormonal wreak. Didn't outright cry, but did have a couple of pesky tears leak out I was so excited. I know Super – Pathetic. The stuffed Fawndear is one of the girl’s favorites. I let them take turns taking her to bed with them – depending on who needs mom’s love the most.

I think it’s the whole experience that is addicting and not the stuffed animals.

So here are our furry family friends.

Lea has Princess Unicorn (A purple horse), Snowy (White dog with baby), and Princess Patty (a bunny from years ago.) She keeps wanting more but she plays with hers the least so I don’t think that will happen.

Princess has Boot’s and Chilly (monkeys). All three are inseperable, and the monkeys have had several life saving surgeries (darn voice boxes) and trips to the spa (washer).

Hope has Mo Mo (softest ever bunny).

I have Fawndear (Clarice). The family favorite, of course.

And even Evo-man is in on the action with a Black Bear named Smasher, who even has the growly voice. (Kind of Fit’s him) Of all the kids he has been carrying Smasher around the most this week because I finally got him the little Black fake leather Harley jacket he’s been drooling over for more than a year.

Abner had a Brown Bear dressed as his obsession (Pirate) but he gave it away when he broke up with the girl that gave it to him.
That only leaves Prince Erik and T-Rev who don’t have a furry friend. Hummmmm I wonder.
I got home today and what was in the mail? Another $10 off coupon from anything at Build-A-Bear. I’d better wait before I make another trip though, or Prince Erik, well he won’t be too happy.

How do you know you have an addiction? When you spend more on clothes for a stuffed animal than you do on clothes for yourself and kids, that’s how. Ugh!

Chocolate vs. Fawndear. Score 2-2

I’m convinced that Satan created chocolate because he knew he could never get me to try his vices of alcohol, smoking, coffee, and Diet Coke, etc. After I had successfully conquered my some-a-day Chocolate addiction of a little over a year ago, I thought I was home free. But the Tempter caught me at a weak moment of sickness, stress, and that Blasted Valentine’s Day. So I had two glorious and horrible days of chocolate splurging last week. One of those days I even probably consumed my daily allotment of calories just with those beastly delicacies.

I paid the price of course, and then some. You would think the payment extracted of my indulgence would be a couple pounds of added lard to my body. Yup, that’s right but it succeeded in also doing something I had no idea it could do. Well maybe I had inkling, but I had no idea how severe this encounter would be. They warned me that I shouldn’t have caffeine with my tremors because the additive could cause them to flare. Well, how bad could it get? Apparently bad enough to throw off my entire chemical balance. I’ve been shaking like a leaf for 3-4 days. I assumed that I would go through withdrawals for a couple of days but I had no idea that it could last this long. I’ve been super good at meal tracking and eating healthy since Friday, but the cravings are horrendous. My Young & Gorgeous former 20/20 counselor told me that it would take some time to feel normal again. Stupid Chocolate.

Round 1 goes to Chocolate.

So anyway I went into some Pharmacy store the other day to get some batteries and there they were sitting on the shelf beaconing to me. Large Valentine's Package's of Leftover
Green, The New Color of Love M&M's. See if they don't talk to you too.

‘Hey, look at us! We are 75% off. Can’t beat that deal,’ they basically hollered at my subconscious.

‘Wow, look at you. And look at that color. You would be perfect for the little household leprechauns to put in my kids St. Patrick’s Day treasure boxes (future blog, I promise)’.

‘I know we are pretty big bags, but darn you have a lot of kids so you might as well pick up a couple of us. They will love us.’

‘Oh, your right I’m so excited that I found you.’ I thought as I quickly picked up a couple of bags.

However, somewhere off in the far distance thought process of my brain a little temptation imp started calmly adding these thoughts. I don’t think I actually heard him talking because that would make me a paranoid schizophrenic but I understood full well what he meant.

‘You know that you’ll probably want to eat some of those yummy morsels. Why, didn’t you just shove down a bag of them last week? To be safe you better get three bags so that when you give into the chocolate temptation you’ll still have some for your kids.’

I quickly ignored him, picked up a third bag and purchased them, sat them on the front passenger seat of the car and quickly drove off to meet with my Young & Gorgeous friend.

Round 2 goes to Chocolate.

I promptly admitted to Young & Gorgeous the whole Wonder Woman experience of last week and slowly but surely she got around to asking how my shopping was.

I couldn’t lie so I told her about those three big tempters sitting down in the car and I told exactly what thoughts had been going on in my head in my head when I bought them.

I finally saw them for what they were.

Little addicting balls of fat, pro-tremor medication cleverly disguised in a bag called Love. Nasties.

So I sent them off to try some fire and brimstone (hopefully an incinerator somewhere melted them to nothing). See there was this huge, lid as heavy as a car, garbage container in back of her building. They tried to smooze their way out of being tossed but I was stronger. In I plopped them right on top of someone else’s baby’s dirty wraps. There’s no way I’d crawl in to get them back.

Round Three and Four goes to Fawndear. I figure that was worth two points because I wasn’t subjecting my kids to the sugar-high monsters as well.

So I’ve been clean and sober of those pesky guys since last Friday and I mean to stay that way. There's too much on my plate to feel this yucky, and I’ve already committed to a couple of races coming up in the next couple of months, that will help get me going on the exercise stuff again. So here’s to the withdrawals ending soon. Good-bye Chocolate you foul, fair-weather friend!