A new low, a new leaf

I got really down on myself this weekend after eating a handful of mini peanut butter cups. Oh yeah, and 2 chocolate chip cookies. I have ZERO self control there. So I had a long talk with the dajadaddy about all the things I hate in my life, and we decided to have a daily pow-wow to help me determine my to-do list, and I purged the house of almost all things chocolate or candy-related. I wanted to lock the TV in the closet too, but I can only turn over so many new leaves in a day.

Turns out most of the things I'm struggling with have to do with escaping. I spend too much time online, too much time watching TV, too much time reading, too much time snacking while doing all of the above. Plus I think I'm sugar sensitive (or at least I have low blood sugar issues), so the chocolate has been the exact WRONG thing to use for a pick-me-up.

And what, you say, am I trying to escape? Who the hell knows? The housework, the parenting work, the gardening work, the loneliness, the uncertainty that I'm where/what/who I should be, the yearning (still!) for my old (perhaps codependent) life in Portland? Take your pick.

So I'm trying to let the dajadaddy help me get and stay more organized, and I'm trying the "Potatoes Not Prozac" book to get a handle on my body chemistry, and I'm trying to not melt because Jesus God, the weather went from the 50's to the 80's with not a hell of a lot of notice.

That? That was random. And it was typical. My brain jumps around more than a flea in a dog pound these days. I went upstairs this morning to get the dajamou's clothes, and between the decision to go upstairs the reaching the top of the stairs, I totally blanked on what I was doing. I wandered into nearly every room on the second floor before I finally woke up and remembered my purpose up there.

This damn blood sugar diet better work. The dajamama needs some bloody focus.

Books, covers, and judging.

I've always kind of had this vague impression of him as a rather stuck-up priggish fellow, but I have to say that after reading this article* in National Geographic last month, Prince Charles is my new hero.

Also the guy at the dog food store, but that's for totally different reasons.



*Sorry, the link's just to a teaser, but the photo gallery has the gist of the article.

Guilty pleasures.

What does it say about me when one of my biggest guilty pleasures is having someone come to visit, and allowing the dajamou to monopolize his time so she doesn't monopolize mine?

There are so many levels of pleasure here, and so many levels of guilt. One, I get entire chunks of moments when she isn't clamoring for my attention, and at the same time isn't watching TV. So, that's plus one pleasure, and even minus one guilt! Good, eh? And then there's the thought that she's actually reaching out to another person besides me, getting mentally stimulated by lots and lots of play that I just don't have the energy to give her. So, another plus one pleasure. So far, so good!

But now we get to the point where the dajamou has pretty much attached herself to our guest like a barnacle to a ship for about four hours, and is nearly as hard to remove as said mollusk. And I start feeling guilty that I haven't rescued him before now. (As if he doesn't know how to extricate himself, doesn't know how to say 'no.' He totally does. But still. The guilt.) So that's a plus one in the guilt column.

I guess that's the thing: we're still way ahead in the pros column. I must be an accountant at heart. Because here I sit, still NOT rescuing our guest, but instead prattling to the Internet world about guilty pleasures.

I think I'll mix another rum & coke before wandering in there.

In lieu of a proper post

The latest in a long line of favorite names in the "From:" line in my Spam box:

Conglomerating M. Vamoose
Windbags M. Restricting
Mangling H. Pursuance
Patriarchy H. Monkeying
Fairylands V. Disbarment
Backslider R. Pointier
Optimists V. Vale
Pentameters F. Adults
Ticced L. Palatable

And my current all-time fave....
Buttock H. Bluejackets

The Art of Storytelling.

The dajamou loves to tell stories. Sing songs, too, but that's for another post. This is about stories. And one of her favorite ways to tell stories is to get one of my books from the bookshelf, leaf through the pages, and make up a story or three to "read" from it. Her favorite ones are those little half-sized paperbacks that you see in the big box bookstores like "A Collection of Garden Poems" or "Meditations on Road Tripping in Arkansas" or whatever. Since she's three and can't read, it matters not to the dajamou. And for the most part, I find it cute and creative. And it keeps her occupied for whole minutes at a time. What's to complain?

My only problem is that, of all the little half-sized paperbacks we have in the house, and granted we only have a few, but of all of them, her favorite one for "reading" is Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

If I were a vegetarian, I'd miss bacon the most.

I had bacon with breakfast today. It's one of my comfort foods. Cooked to near-carbonation, nice and crispy, oh so salty...ahhhh. But it's gotta be crispy. There is little that raises my ire (and turns my stomach) so much as limp, soggy, undercooked bacon.* I have never had a desire to chew on salty rubber, thank you. But! If you get it right, which is to say, cooked so long that it nearly crumbles to dust when you eat it, then--THEN, I am in salty protein heaven.

Years ago, when the dajamou was just a schmoo who was barely crawling, my dad told me about a song he saw in the newspaper. It was the Homer Simpson version of "Do Re Mi." At the time I was delirious with sleep deprivation (I had a 9 month old baby), I'd had one beer (my first in 18 months--see previous parentheses) and I was vulnerable. I laughed so hard I nearly peed.

But it lacked a certain...something. Then, it came to me!** You take the word "beer," and you substitute the word "bacon," and that's it! Pure GOLD, people.





*I've been known to complain and/or send it back at restaurants if it's limp. Me! Confrontation-Phobia Girl! Are you grasping the depth of my need, here?

**Or maybe to the dajadaddy--I don't remember. I had a 9 month old baby, and a beer.