Seriously?

Late last night Mr F smells my hair and says "mmm your hair smells good"
"That's because I'm using shampoo for women of color"
Mr F lets out a short guffaw and asks "Seriously?"
After this many years together you'd think he'd know by now that of course I am completely serious.
"Yeah... the shampoo is so thick it is like conditioner! And the conditioner is like conditioner conditioner!"

You see I take after this man....
and our abundant fine yet frizzy hair requires serious conditioning.

Mr F chuckles and says "Just like you and the Mahogany cards..."

Oh you know it!
I hate buying Mr F anniversary cards because you have to choose between two equally inaccurate messages... either some ridiculously over the top frilly card that says some asinine shit like "we are two breathing as one" or some ridiculous card with a cartoon man wearing a beer helmet holding a remote with some kind of cheesy message like "turn off the tv big guy we're gonna do it tonight".
I love the Mahogany cards from Hallmark because they are more like "this was not one of our better years but I guess I still love you."
These are great for every anniversary after your first... when what you really want to say is "At least we aren't divorced... oh yeah happy anniversary..."

Caught Cha

Look what I found this morning...

As it turns out I'm not the only one sneaking the Halloween candy.
Mr F I'm on to you!

Hey What's That Smell?!?

I'll give you a hint... it is not poop... it is worse. Much, much, worse.
In fact it may be the most vile smell ever known.
It is the smell of rotten egg... literally.
Gag. Retch.
It is the kind of nasty nastiness that you can't clear from the air and makes you want to roll around on the ground moaning and crying... and... retching.
My favorite pan...
is now tainted with smelly green partially developed chicken egg disgust!

And although I love this pan (and the fact that it can't slowly poison my family with toxic fumes) you can't clean it with soap! If you've ever wondered why Martha Stewart cracks eggs into a cup before... I don't know... cracking them into a searing hot pan (or banana bread batter.. that happened to me too... but did I learn....NO!) this is why. Because now part of my cast iron pan's "seasoning" is chicken death.... and there is nothing I can do about it!

Judge For Yourself

I know a lot of you have never seen me as anything but someone who posts photos looking like this...

And since I only started my blog 3 months ago it may be hard to believe that I am not this thin by nature. I fear that the lower my weight is the more credibility I may be losing in your eyes.
So I wanted to post this photo.. of course I only have a hard copy so bear with me...

I call this photo "Fat Mom".
If I didn't work hard to lose my postpartum weight this IS what I would look like. In fact after gaining as much as I did this pregnancy who knows I may have been even heavier. Because although I have never had a "weight problem" I have always liked to eat and not liked to exercise. And no matter how you put your weight on you still have to lose it by doing the same kind of work. Some women are blessed and they lose all their "baby weight" without doing anything. They can wear their *regular* jeans as soon as they give birth. Some of us will not lose our baby weight...period... unless we kick our own asses. This is my proof. Two pregnancies... two different postpartum weight loss approaches.

My "Fat Mom" picture was taken in the spring of 2003 when Kid was 7 months old and I weighed around 137 pounds. I had lost 30 pounds naturally within the first month postpartum... and then.. not another pound.
Baby is now 8 months old and I weigh 112 pounds. I am 5' 3". From day one I have been on a mission and I have lost 66 pounds (14 under my pre-pregnancy weight).

Hey Kid!

"Today is the first day of swimming lessons... you are only going to swimming lessons if you are being a good listener. So far today you are not being a good listener. That is going to change right now. Okay? Okay."


moments later....

"No. NO. NO! Are you listening?!?!"

My Day in Pictures

I thought I'd ease everyone out of the *heaviness* of my last post with a little photo documentation of my day thus far...

If you have been following my weekly plan you know I have a LOT to get done in order to ensure a quality birthday experience for Kid's party this Sunday. Because I am an idiot I decided to have this be a costume party.. which of course means that on top of all the party planning I also need to make Kid's Medusa costume. Any sane person would have put the kabash on that and allowed themselves the whole weekend to finish that up in time for actual Halloween. Live and learn. Of course what isn't on my list are all the normal things I have to get done everyday... like grocery shopping, food prep, driving to and from school, yada yada yada. Okay so this morning I actually got the baby to take a nap so I thought I could be extra efficient and pound out my remaining party/costume errands and grocery shop. This meant I had to partake of one of these little babies...That would be a Mc Donald's double hamburger. FYI these babies are only 330 calories, and are actually "The Zone Diet" approved for their protein to carb ratio. Added bonus... they are a special order so they are always fresh. So fresh that if you are taking pictures of yourself eating in the car you might end up with a little "fresh from the griddle" burger grease juice on your favorite fucking sweatshirt...Oops!

Okay on to project Medusa....
Yesterday I obtained some used clothes to make into the body. I did not get them at a higher end used clothes retailer..no... I went to the place where homeless people get their clothes. Why? Well because they are really cheap and then I don't have to feel badly about destroying them (although I do feel bad about buying them when I clearly have enough money to go somewhere else and should leave these for the people who really need them!). Also they hang everything by color so if you need some kind of greenish monster flesh toned sweatsuit it is easy to find. Unfortunately everything in the store smells... well.... terrible...Today I had to enter into the third ring of Hell ...
...in order to obtain black feather wings. I'm not kidding this place is absolutely terrifying. It should be rated X for horror and children should not be permitted inside. I kid you not, I was shocked at the horror level in this place. Adding to the creepiness is that fact that these stores are temporary and kind of thrown together out of peg board. They note that they have a large "weapons" section... and when you are in there you have a terrible feeling that some kind of shit might be about to go down. The "realistic" severed limbs don't help. Baby was of course transfixed... and is probably going to suffer some kind of repressed subconscious trauma from that place.
Luckily she fell asleep on the way home so I was able to spray paint those bad ass wings bronze. Cause you know Medusa was a lot more than just a woman with snakes for hair people.. a LOT more!

After achieving all that , and grocery shopping, what was waiting for me when I got home?... a little reward for all my hard work? NO! What I got was... some.... dog shit on my Oriental rug and these babies in the mail...
"But Mrs F coupons are good things... right?"
Wrong! They are only good when you get them before you go shopping! I just went to mother fucking Old Navy two freaking days ago! So thanks for nothing Old Navy... oh and thanks for rubbing my face in it!
And I think I mentioned that I just went grocery shopping... without this goddamn coupon!

Dear Kid

I'm gonna write you a love letter because I need to, because I'm grieving.
You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. When you were born you filled a hole in my heart and completed me. You have changed me and healed me and made me a better person. I love you so much that my heart is breaking. You are strong and resilient and courageous, far more than I am or ever will be. You are funny and quick witted and absolutely beautiful. Stunningly beautiful really, with big eyes the color of deep lake water, and long golden hair like a undulating field of wheat , your skin is flawless like a pool of spilled milk. I watch you in the morning and my eyes well up with pride and awe and also the deep sorrow of this past year. I am sorry, so very sorry for all you have gone through. For someone so little you have such strength and confidence. You don't know the depth of my fears and my sadness and my worries... and I hope you never do. There is no time away from you that I am not thinking of you. But I do need you to know that I am not sad that you are not perfect, I am just sad... that this never ends... that you need another surgery... and that it just never seems to get any easier. I hope that this is just a bad couple of years and that before we all know it this will seem so far behind us. I hope that in the scope of your life this will be such a small part. And secretly in the deepest part of me I hope that I can love you enough to make that all true. I want for you to have a better life than your little body has allowed for you to have. But more than anything else I just don't ever want you to leave me. I love you.

This Week The Plan

This week is going fast and I'm kind of freaking out. The more I think about it the more stressed I am ... so hopefully this will be short and to the point. Kid's birthday party is this Sunday and I have a LOT to do before then, including finishing her Medusa costume... I mean starting it!
Review shmew... you all know that last week wasn't great and I stopped working out. Moving on to this week...


Menu:
I'm cutting myself some serious slack with this week's menu, I know I'll be way to stressed by the end of the week to make dinner especially when I start baking for the party!

Monday- Chicken and Pasta with mushrooms, carrots and peas (this was good I'll try and post the recipe this week)

Tuesday- Meatball Subs and Salad

Wednesday- Kid F & Mr F date night

Thursday- Brown Sugar and Ginger Salmon w/ rice and sesame snap peas

Friday- pizza night

Saturday (aka night before party freak out) take out of some kind

Sunday- Salmon Noodle Casserole (or something else pantry related)



Party Planning:

Tuesday - hit thrift store for green or grey sweatsuit for Medusa body, and stretchy gloves

Wednesday- go to bank for 3 rolls of pennies for treasure hunt

Thursday - Joanne Fabrics for safety pins, brass colored spray paint (for wings), felt for talons and feathers... possible fake creepy fingernails, and elastic

Friday - bake and ice cookies for goodie bags

Saturday- order balloons, bake and ice cupcakes, and get pumpkins

Sunday - clean, have party, cry that my baby is turning five :(


Exercise:

Seriously I think I'm going to have a reasonably hard time fitting it in. I did workout today and I'm going to shoot for 2 more days of cardio on Tuesday and Sunday and then I'll just call it a week. Most nights I'm going to be busting my ass making brass wings and claws.


Cleaning:

Ummmm... what do you think?!?
At least I already did all of laundry today and vacuumed the entire house. I need to clean the bathroom and the kitchen before the weekend.... hopefully on Friday. And obviously I'll need to vacuum again. This would be the bare minimum!

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Guess what I had for lunch?
800 freaking calories!
Wish I had looked that up before we went out for lunch!
Or at the very least looked it up before I made Spaghetti and Meatballs for dinner.... D'oh!

Oh Please

My eyes could not be rolling any further back into my head right now. I just finished reading THIS. I'll have you know that although I believe he is suffering from a similar pain... my first thought is NOT oh poor you Mr F... no, my first thought is are you fucking kidding me?!? Seriously?! I've been dealing with this for days and have I been swearing under my breath and using my arm like a "club arm"(Mr F's words)? NO! Oh. My. God... as soon as it happened he was acting like he had been struck by lightening... and constantly trying to describe the pain to which I kept cutting him off with "YEAH.... I KNOW!! I mean he can't shut up about it or stop using his damn arm all tight fisted like a goddamn freaking club! Give me a break! If there is a God I am clearly being punished. Because not only do I still have the pain, and have had it intermittently for YEARS, but instead of getting a little reprieve, from ALL the household activities that cause a searing pain in my hand, I now have to listen to Mr Puss Baby complain about how crippling his pain is. Oh Please Mr F... a voodoo doll?... I think not.... suffering through your pain is worse than suffering through my own!