Owning Your Own S%$#

One of the hardest things I find as a parent is letting my only child learn to take care of herself. As a mostly non-working mother of one child I have some guilt about not doing things like cooking dinner or doing laundry since I feel like that should come before doing needlepoint or playing Mah Jongg. I don’t have any guilt about not making dinner because I am trying to get my steps –what is torturing me should not also add guilt to my life, but what is giving me pleasure is allowed to.

I don’t know why I have this guilt. I grew up with a mother who trained me to get up, make my own breakfast, pack my school lunch, make her coffee and bring it to her in bed before I went to the school bus, and that was in elementary school. Guilt was not a mother’s job back in the sixties, unless you had a mother who was making you feel guilty.

About the time that Carter got her driver’s license and started getting herself to school and off to work at her barn I noticed I was getting better at letting her figure out her own stuff. What was she going to have for lunch? Who knows, she can figure it out. Does she have money? I guess if she needed money she would ask. Does she have diesel in her car? Finding a gas station that sells diesel is what Siri is for.

Today I really feel like I turned a corner of letting go as Carter was turning a corner of owning her own S$%#. Russ and I were going to Raleigh to have dinner with one of his work friends. Carter had made an appointment with someone she wanted to see to help her with something. She did not run it by me if she should do that, she just did it herself. I told her we were going to be out and she needed to figure everything out. She did. We got home and all was good in the world. I had no guilt about not doing the mother thing, she laid no guilt that I was not helping, but was happy to own her future.

I know that the process of growing up is not a straight line upwards, but it is a great feeling when I can see progress that has nothing to do with me. It makes me a little sad to think the day is coming fast when she won’t be here to ask me to help, but seeing how much she can handle on her own is what I have been working towards all these years. Now if I can just get her to bring me my iced tea in bed before she leaves for school.

You’re Only As Old As….

The day the new Microsoft age guesstimater program came out Russ, being the early adaptor nerd that he is sent me a furious text that the program had guessed him to be 50 years old. “What are you so upset about?” I asked. “You are 50.”

I was not going to tempt a bad mood and ask some program probably written by people who are young enough to be my child how old it thought I was. Then tonight Carter put her picture in and came up with 27. For sure I was not going to ask. I was not happy that my teenage daughter could pass for someone who should have graduated from college. Then just to get me, Carter put the picture of me we took at dinner last night.

“Oh, No!” I thought. A really recent picture with hardly any makeup. 37 was the age it thought I was! What? What !!!! I love this program. This was not making the rest of my family happy. Russ took a new picture and tried again. 49. Hey, at least he got a year back. I was not about to try again. I was holding on to that 37, but then again…

I don’t think I would trade my age for anything. The 17 years that I have on my picture represent the whole time Carter has been alive. If I were 37 again I would not have discovered the joy volunteering for the Food Bank has brought me, or all the friends I have met in the last 17 years, the thousands of hands of Mah Jongg played, the hundreds of needlepoint Christmas ornaments made (and that is just the last three years) as well as the friendship of the Stitching Advisors.

If I were 37 again I would weigh a hundred pounds more, would not have joined Westminster yet, or volunteered one day at Durham Academy, or snuggled with sweet Shay Shay. I would not have been published since Durham Magazine did not exist 37 years ago and all my darling colleagues I work with at the Magazine were probably still in junior high school. I would not have found my voice in a comedy diet blog since the idea that someone would write a public diary everyday for the whole world to read sounds absolutely crazy.

I would not know all the exciting work Russ would do and see him grow his little company with his one partner Rich into a big company with lots of people all over the country. Mostly I would not have been through my life as a mother, I would not know those moments when your child comes in your room in the middle of the night and asks if she can sleep with you because she had a scary dream, be it with a three or sixteen year old.

So thanks Microsoft for miss guessing my age, but I am really happy with my 54 years. I don’t mind that I can see them on my face, even if you can’t. Those wrinkles around my eyes represent a lot of great laughs with friends, squints looking for my girl riding a horse in the sunshine, and a few tears when I’ve lost a friend or loved one. You just can’t program a life.

Russ’ Pressure Filled Weekend

This is the time of the year Russ dreads. Our Anniversary was yesterday, my birthday today and Mother’s day is next Sunday. The pressure to impress, surprise, delight and satisfy me is all concentrated into an eight-day window. He worries, studies, researches, quizzes, plans, connives, and sometimes just asks me what I want for months in advance. If he gets it right he can coast along for a whole year basking in the joy he created, but if he gets it wrong it hangs over him like a dark Charlie Brown like rain cloud, much more worried about it than I ever was.

This year he thought he had it all locked down early. He woke up at 2:30 in the morning on April 10, the day the Apple Watch was being launched so he could order it at exactly 3:01 hoping he could get one in time for my birthday. Quickly he was notified that the combination of size, style and band he wanted was not going to be available for weeks and weeks. DRATS! Plot foiled and he lost a good night’s sleep.

To help him off the hook I told him that he did not have to do a thing for our anniversary since we were invited to a party. Now going to a party is not always Russ’ number one choice, but after the Apple Watch debacle he accepted the help.

Russ came home from a business trip Friday night sick as a dog. He says he caught it from the sick people in his DC office, but I think the stress of our anniversary and my birthday happening on a weekend added to his illness. I got up yesterday and went off to do a volunteer job I could not get out of and came home to find him feverish. Sad, sad I told him we were postponing celebrating our anniversary and I was canceling my birthday. As he lay delirious he had no choice but to agree.

I sent an e-mail of regret to the hosts of our “After the Derby” Party who don’t live far from our house. That night as I was taking Shay out while I was in my nightgown and fuzzy slippers I could hear the fun sounds coming from the party across the golf course. Sad, sad, come to find out today it was the most fun party to happen around here in years.

Carter feeling the weight of celebrating my birthday falling squarely on her shoulders woke up early for a teenager on a Sunday morning and brought me breakfast in bed—my regular Special K with the number “54” spelled out in dried cherries. There it was, my big weekend reduced to fiber and calcium, as it should be.

Now Russ is going to have a whole year of sorrow and regret that what is the two days of Dana did not live up to his well thought out plans. All I can say is thank goodness for Facebook and all the birthday well-wishers; otherwise this could have been a really horrible weekend. I really have no place to whine, I have a great family, a happy life, and everything anyone could ever wish for, especially a loving husband who worries much to much about these eight days, when all I need is for him to be well.

Twenty-Three Great Years Is A Good Start

Before I even paid any attention to Russ Lange we went to Hawaii together. Well, not actually together. I was there for a sales meeting and he had been flown in last minute to fix a new product he had invented that the company was introducing to us. See, the owner of the company did not think through how hard it would be to air ship a big new prototype of a machine to Hawaii and make sure that it would work perfectly right out of the box.

The owner of the company knew that when he introduced a new product to the sales force if it did not work we would not try and sell it. A day before the meeting when he went to plug it in and it did not work his answer was to call Russ who told him what to do. The owner did not like that idea that he would have to touch a circuit so instead told Russ, who was in the middle of studying for his Master’s exams for electrical engineering, to get on a plane and fly to Hawaii. It took Russ all of five minutes to push the circuits back in the mother board, or some other easy thing and it worked perfectly.

The sales force loved the new product and as a reward to Russ for not just flying out to fix it, but for inventing it in the first place, we gave him a snorkeling trip. I just happen to be on that same snorkeling adventure. Underwater I had no idea that Russ was following me around, but I should have caught on. It was just the beginning of our travels around the world together.

Twenty-three years ago today I did the smartest thing I ever did and married Russ Lange. I don’t know if he had any idea what he had gotten himself into but every time I turn around he is there to make sure all my circuits are working so I can go off and shine.

Russ is not one to want any glory, but he deserves it all. His thoughtfulness, foresight, kindness and wickedly brilliant mind are just a few of the traits I love about him. I count my lucky stars that the owner of our company we both worked for was lazy enough not to bother pushing the circuits into the mother board himself. I don’t know if Russ would have been brave enough to chase me if he could not do it underwater. Thank goodness I eventually turned around and noticed the hero who was right behind me.

Does This Clean Drawer Make Me Look Thinner?

Recently I saw that Peter Walsh, the organization guru, had a new book out, Cut the Clutter, Drop the Pounds. The premise of the book is that if you are disorganized you are gaining weight, but being clutter free helps you lose weight. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that if you write a book and tie the title to losing weight you are more likely to sell the book. Peter has obviously had luck with this before because two of his previous books are Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat, and, Lighten Up – That one does not even sound like an organization book, just a diet one.

I love Peter Walsh and all his organizing tips, but I can’t imagine that his books vary that much from one to the next. Don’t keep too much crap, only keep crap you actually use, keep like-crap together and keep your crap organized in a way that you can see how much crap you have. But now that he says that if you are organized you will lose weight I took as a sign to finally organize my bedside table drawer.

Actually I’ve had it on my list of crap to do for a long time so I just wanted to get something other than needlepoint actually done today. I have a one small drawer in my bedside table that had not been cleaned out in at least ten years.

I opened it as much as I could, which was only three inches and started pulling out the few things I use all the time, glasses, nail scissors, Emory board, needle and thread, then I remembered that last year I had bought a bunch of bamboo boxes to use to as drawer organization holders. Luckily they were right where I had left them the day I purchased them.

I started grouping things together in the little boxes, dental floss and lip balm in one box, scissors in another, nail clippers and files in another. Once I had freed a few things from the drawer I was able to open it a little further, spare buttons from clothes I had long since given away, foreign coins from countries I have not been to in fifteen years, a life times amount of safety pins, pens from motel chains that have gone bankrupt. I started throwing things away and eventually filled half a trash bag and eight little organizational boxes.

I cleaned the drawer and placed the boxes, which amazingly happened to fit perfectly. The drawer closed easily and I looked at the giant amount of trash. How did it all fit in that one little drawer? I went and got on the scale. I weighed exactly the same amount I did in the morning. How many days of cleaning and how many closets and drawers is it going to take for me to weigh less? Well at least I got to cross my oldest “to do” item off, only 985 more things to go.

Puppy Therapy

Today was the first day we have gone to the Durham Bull’s game this season. The cold and rainy weather has not made baseball the first thing I want to do, despite my love of going to the game. I could care less about baseball on TV. For the most part I find it to be a slow and arduous thing to watch, but live and with friends at the ballpark I love it.

Today we filled our seats with my cousins Leigh and Sarah and their families and our friends Richard and Michelle. Carter also brought a friend. It was a full house in our seats, which helped keep me a little warmer in the cold wet weather.

This was the first time I had seen my cousins since their father passed away. We had so much to catch up on about the last weeks of his life and his funeral, which I missed since we were in Rome. Having a serious family talk between cheering for a good hit, or screaming about a bad call or giving kids money to go buy peanuts or discussing if it were better to eat a soft pretzel or cotton candy was almost surreal.

The one thing I learned that I was most happy to hear was how important my father was to my cousins through his brother’s whole illness and death. I just don’t think we always know if we are being helpful as family on the periphery, but hearing how much my cousins appreciated my father made my heart happy.

It was a double header today since yesterday’s game was rained out. We stayed for the first winning game, but then we needed to leave because we had driven Michelle and Richard and they had a new puppy we needed to spend time with. Hartley, the perfectly darling eight-week old little Jack Russell Terrier with the little white heart on her forehead was thrilled to see us and get to go out.

She is still such a tiny baby that she needs to snuggle to stay warm and nap every few minutes. I happily volunteered my cushy lap as the best place for her to do both. I think that holding a puppy is the best remedy for anything that is ailing you. It was great to spend time with my Cousins, but the sad reality that their father is gone really hit me today. Hartley was the perfect medicine for a sad heart.

Thanks to Michelle and Richard for being such kind hosts and letting us crash with Hartley and drink coffee and catch up. Too long between visits means we never really fully get through everything. Thanks for the puppy therapy. Now if we could just take them to the baseball game everything would be perfect.

The Feeding The Baby Diet

This morning I went over to my friend Beth’s house to meet her new granddaughter. Beth is a great cook and always has something yummy out to eat at her house. To combat my urge to eat something cheesy or chocolaty I did the best defense against eating and made my hands busy so they were not available to put food in my mouth.

I was lucky to walk in right as the baby was in need of being fed a bottle so I quickly volunteered to take the baby from a younger person and feed her. There is nothing better than the smell of a newborn and Beth’s sweet granddaughter was the perfect defense against fattening food. Not only did I need both my arms to hold, support and feed her, but also the sweet smell of that tiny bundle was much better than any baked good.

Now I am looking for other babies to feed. Bri, do you need me to come over and hold your new son at lunchtime? Any others out there? The important thing is they have to be tiny babies who have not learned about stranger anxiety and are perfectly happy to have me holding them. I am a long way off, I hope, from being a grandmother myself and so I am going to have to line up other friend’s grandchildren if I am going to use this as a real diet technique.

At least it worked today. Thanks Beth for letting me come and snuggle that sweet baby.

Smoothie Train

I have tended to be a person who preferred to eat my calories rather than drink them. Somehow if I have chewed food my brain feels more satisfied than if I just drank it, or so I thought.

A couple of weeks ago Carter started requesting smoothies for breakfast since they were something she could consume through out the morning as she actually got hungry, rather than forgoing breakfast all together. After spending twenty minutes each morning trying to pulverize various frozen fruit with my stick blender my tired arm finally revolted and begged for a Vitamix.

Since these smoothies were going over so big with Carter I decided after coming home from a party tonight where I refrained from eating most of the party food to try one myself. Rather than making the sweet yoghurt kind that Carter gets I opted for a fruit veggie combo with a kick of ginger. Not only did I love it, but Shay Shay tried to lick my glass clean. Apparently I might have stumbled upon a new market for Vitamix – smoothies for dogs.

I’ll report later if drinking my calories is good or bad in the weight loss department. I still think that if I use a machine to grind up all the nutrients I might be aiding my body in being able to absorb calories rather than spending energy breaking down whole food. But I don’t think that I could obtain the same flavor if I tried to eat these ingredients whole so in the name a tasty mixture I might have a smoothie every once in a while.

1 whole granny Smith apple

1 whole Carrot

½ c. frozen Mango chunks

½ inch of grated ginger

1 c. crushed ice

1/3-cup water

Let the Vitamix do the work and share with your dog.

My Mother’s Small World

This morning my mom and I got up at the lovely Lodge at Buckberry Creek, probably the nicest thing in Gatlinburg. No, not probably, definitely! We had felt like fish out of water yesterday when we walked through town because we had all our own teeth, no tattoos, no undergarments proudly displayed, could carry our own weight with our own two feet, had no obscenities written on our clothes, actually had no writing on our clothes at all, were not drunk at four in the afternoon and kept all our saliva in our own mouths.

How the rest of the people all honed in on Gatlinburg at the same time I do not know, but there is some kind of tacky magnet there. What we really could not get over is how every store we walked by sold anything at all because it was so full of crap. The only good thing is that we got a really good fast walk in as we tried to dodge the families who were swearing at their small children or hitting their adolescent son with the 9-inch Mohawk.

The whole reason we were there was for my mother to see her old summer spot and to try and find the mountain she and her sister’s inherited, which is now for sale if you are interested. I must say that outside the town the mountains are beautiful with the streams and rivers babbling down the hills full of rhododendron.

Thankfully I was able to find the one nice place to stay and we had a beautiful suite with a porch over looking the Great Smokey Mountains Park. We went to have breakfast in the main lodge this morning and one of the owners overheard my Mother talking about a childhood friend and asked where we were from. One bit of Knoxville led to another and it turns out he had gone to high school with my Aunt Edie and knew all the same people my mother did.

This just cemented my mother’s theory that everyone nice in Tennessee knows each other. I was just glad that he was such a nice man and did not have any tattoos, had all his own teeth, clothes with no writing on them and was clearly sober at nine in the morning. I am forever thankful that he was the one person my mother knew in Gatlinburg.

Another Fun Auction

Tonight was the Durham Academy Auction. Russ and I started going to these Auctions before Carter even went to DA. I remember buying a cooking trip to the Greenbrier with Julia Child when Carter was two because I was about the only person who could bid on it since it was during the school week and all the real school parents had to stay home so their kids could go to school. I got that trip for a steal and at the time I thought it was criminal to get something in the live auction that was so under value. Maybe that is why I feel it is my duty to be the auctioneer and do the best job I can.

I have lost count how many times I have served at the Auctioneer, something like six of seven times for DA, but I will say it is my favorite volunteer job. People ask me if I am nervous about doing it but I honestly have to say no. There is nothing I love doing more.

Tonight I had Assistant Headmaster Lee Hark as my “Carol Merrill.” I know that I am officially old because when I said that to a number of people who work on the Auction they all said, “Who?” Carol Merrill was the original game show prize model from ‘Let’s Make a Deal.” Long before Janet Dickinson was on the Price is Right or Vanna White turned letters on Wheel of fortune there was Carol Merrill who was standing in front of 300 square feet of Z Brick waving her arm back and forth as if that is how we were trained to look at fake brick paneling.

Lee, always the best sport, was up for modeling props that advertised each live auction item. It is a hard job, but nothing is more helpful than a school administrator in a Taylor Swift wig shaking it off as I am trying to sell concert tickets. I am sorry I did not get the best picture of that, but I am sure others did and they will surface on Facebook soon.

Thanks to all the bidders at the auction tonight. Every item brought in a lot of cash and that does not happen unless there is some competitive bidding. Congratulations to all the people who work so hard to make this thing happen every year. I know I only have two years until Carter graduates, but I hope I get to keep being the auctioneer because it is fun for me. And fun for me is my goal in life; it’s nice if it also raises some money.

What Kind of a Witch Am I?

My favorite job of the year is coming up, that of the Auctioneer at the Durham Academy Auction. There is nothing I like better than getting up in front of a group of friends and helping them part with their money for a very good cause. The theme this year is “Emerald City – There’s no place like home.”

One issue I always have is what to wear as the auctioneer. I try and stay with the theme, yet be covered up enough that I am not a distraction to the audience. A couple of years ago, when Russ was out of town, my zipper broke on my very tight dress and I had to call a neighbor to come sew me into it. The whole night I was nervous about popping out of the dress and causing mass nausea.

This morning we had an auction meeting and my friend Kristen had her Dorothy shoes, be it hooker Dorothy models and her little Toto and basket ready. I asked her who I should dress as and since she is a nice person she first answered, “Glinda.” Now really, do you think I am a good witch? I am probably more like the Wicked Witch of the North, save the green face.

My sidekick for a second year in a row is the ever-popular Lee Hark. If I go as Glinda he will have to be a munchkin, maybe even a lollypop boy, but if I am the Wicked Witch then he will have to be a flying monkey. Please weigh in and vote to let me know who you like best. I guess I should ask Lee, but he is usually game for any crazy scheme I hatch up.

There are some great auction items in the live auction this year, a beautiful house at Figure 8 Island over fall break, a cocktail party at Six Plates for 20, Four Tickets to Taylor Swift – 2 on the front row, A big golf package at the Wells Fargo Tourney, a Big Boss Beer Dinner for 10 and a Luxury box in the Blue Zone at the UNC-Duke Football game – whichever color blue you are this is the bomb. To read more about the items please visit DA.org/auction.

You don’t have to attend the auction to bid or donate, but I would love to have you come and spend a fun night with me there. Please let me know if you need a table. I still have spots at mine. They have changed my stage from one in the round to a cat walk type situation so I can get even closer to you when you are bidding. Chances are I might fall off more easily and that is always good to get the bidding up. It will definitely give Lee a good stage to model all the items from. Trust me you won’t want to miss the show.

Has Variety Made Us Fatter?

When we were in Italy I actually began to get sick of Italian food. Seems unthinkable since if I were able to eat anything I wanted without any caloric consequences Italian food might be at the top of my list. One reason I think I started to get sick of it is Italian cuisine is very regional and since we spent most of our time in Roman we were basically just eating Roman food, not food from all over Italy.

When I was a kid lots of my friend’s mothers made the same menu every week, baked chicken on Monday, hamburgers on Tuesday, spaghetti on Wednesday, meatloaf on Thursday and fish on Fridays. Not only were the foods the same every week, but also they were prepared exactly the same way week after week, year after year. Hardly anybody was fat. Was it because they were just sick to death of eating the same foods?

I can remember going to my friend Gayle’s house. Her family was from Minnesota of Norwegian decent. Her mother made some kind of meatballs with sour cream that I thought was fabulous, but Gayle and her two brothers could hardly look at it since it was a weekly staple.

I know that if I taste a new food and I like it I eat much more of it than I probably need. And the exact opposite is true. I eat the same thing for breakfast 99 days out of 100; a bowl of High Protein Special K with a few berries and skim milk. It is a small bowl and I am perfectly happy just having that since my mouth is not dancing with excitement for a new taste.

Maybe I have ruined my family by trying lots of exotic cuisines. Can we blame Food Network for introducing Americans to the idea that you never have to eat the same thing twice in your whole life? Yes, there might be a few foods you try and want to eat again, but chances are they are really fattening and that makes them taste yummy.

I think repetitive eating is the secret behind those horrible diets like the cabbage soup diet. If you are forced to eat the same thing over and over you eventually just don’t want to eat much of it. I think the cow is out of the barn at our house, there is no chance to have a repeating one-week menu unless I am looking for a divorce. What about at your house?

The Never Ending Life Lessons

Carter has been working on a photo project for her class where she had to take pictures from the perspective of her very much younger self. For a six foot person getting down on the eye level of her four year old self is a feet. Since she is an only child I have figured more prominently in her pictures than I might want, but some of them are literally of the bottom of my legs, or my hand holding the steering wheel.

Today she asked me if we could go to the Food Bank. I was thrilled that it made the list in places that made a difference to her life. Yes, she did not have much say in spending time there when she was three, but it did not have to make the list in her photo project.

Sadly, for the sake of her photos, the old Durham Food Bank branch has closed and moved to a much nicer building. The old, rotten dark building with food pilled three pallets high on racks would make a better picture. Now we have a brighter and cleaner looking building with much more open space and more room for volunteers to work.

After she got a shot of me pretending to sort food in the food drive area we went to leave and she said she wanted one more picture before we went out the door. Turns out she wanted to take a picture of me in front of the “Dana Lange Volunteer Project Area” plaque. She did not use her real camera, just her phone, but she said it was nice just the same and I think posted it on one of her many social media sites I am excluded from.

She has no idea how much it meant to me that she wanted to include my work in her childhood memories. Now I am not so crazy to ask if they are good memories or bad memories — I don’t want to push my luck, but as a parent I just hope that over time some of the good things sink in to our kids and end up making a difference.

I know she gets sick of hearing me tell her things. “Is this conversation going to turn into a lesson?” is probably her most repeated thing she says to me. She always gets back the same answer, “It’s my job, as your mother, to teach you lessons.” I am sorry for Carter that she is an only child so I only have one person to constantly annoy with the “lessons”. If she had siblings she might not have to hear them as often, but then again if she had siblings she would not get to go on as many fun trips because we would be paying for another kid. The trade-offs in life. For today I am just going to think positive thoughts about “the Food Bank photos.”

Too Old or Too Young for a Bib

Today I came home from lunch with my Friend Kelly at the new place downtown, Dashi and noticed that I had quite a few stains on my shirt from my delicious soup. Try as I might I obviously enjoyed my meal with too much vigor because I had evidence of it all over me.   How I wish that I had worn a bib, but I hardly ever see any adults who have all their faculties wearing them in public.

When we were in Italy I did notice that one restaurant in Positano, Chez Black, had giant cloth adult bibs, not just to use, but for sale. How wonderful it is when an establishment makes it fashionable to keep your fashions pristine while still enjoying your meal.

In Russ’ family there is great lore about what a messy eater his great Aunt Jo was. I can attest that she never met a meal she could not help wearing. When Russ’ Dad and his brother Richard were little boys, Aunt Jo lived with them. She was the breadwinner in the family since their father had been injured in an accident.

The boys, when they were young, would tease her about how she always spilled something on her crisp white work blouse. Considering her importance to their existence it seems like they should have cut her some slack.

Story goes that one night when their mother had made spaghetti with red sauce the boys bet Aunt Jo that she could not eat her entire meal without getting any sauce on her shirt. She accepted her young nephews challenge and then got up from the table and got a big white towel, which she draped over herself. The boys squealed in protest that she was cheating and she said they needed to be more precise in the language they used to challenge her.

The family ate the whole dinner and Aunt Jo did not even get a dot of tomato sauce on the towel. The boys were astonished. After putting her fork down on her empty plate, she pulled the towel off with a great flourish and “ta-da” and the boys broke into great hysterics. There, right in the center of her white blouse was a huge blob of tomato sauce. How it got there, no one is quite sure, but it sealed the lore of her always spilling on herself forever and ever.

I may not actually be a blood relative of Aunt Jo, but I think I married into the right family based on the amount of food I have on me today.

Trader Joes – My Shallot Hero

Tonight I am having a church supper club at my house for dinner. It is about time. My friend Sara and I volunteered to do this ages ago and it took us forever to find a date. As the host house I am cooking the main course. I opted for a dried fruit stuffed pork loin because it is easy, very inexpensive and fairly healthy.

Since pork producers have started raising very skinny, almost waif like, model hogs, pork can be dry, that is as long as you are not cooking a shoulder. To help counter act my potentially dry bland roast I decided I wanted to make a shallot grainy mustard sauce to go along side the meat. The only problem is that shallots, that light purple- but look like small onions, are fifty times more expensive pound for pound at my regular grocery store than the meat.

I’m not sure if my grocery thinks that a mainly French food ingredient can hold ransom over cooks with certain taste and training, but it make me crazy. There is no reason the small onion like plant is so out priced. It is no harder to grow than onions or garlic, which are in the same family, but are not exactly substitutable in flavor.

Yesterday while I was at Trader Joes stocking up on my wild arugula bags, I turned and saw a small display with bags of four shallots each priced at .99¢! Sacra Blu! That is at least 500% less than my regular market. They were not a special, nothing at Trader Joes really is. They were just the fair price of the fine flavored ingredient.

I bought three bags dreaming of the omelets and dressings I could make with the tiny purple sweet darling. So hooray for Trader Joes. You are so much more than a store full of already prepared fine frozen tika masala and hundreds of trail mix combinations. I know you got a bad wrap this week for arsenic in your wine, but shallots at a fair price redeem you and are going to save the day in my dry meat department.

What A Difference A Week Makes

Last Saturday we flew back from Rome on Alitalia and apparently we were lucky because today 200 flights out of Rome’s Fiumicino airport were cancelled due to a transport workers strike. 80 Alitalia flights were canceled and more delayed because pilots and flight attendants staged an eight hour walk-out.

I have no idea what the particulars are for this disruption, but it seemed obvious to me from the lack of service on our flight that the flight attendants could have already been starting early with a clear slow down in work activities and lack of care for customers. Based on our experience last week I had already vowed never to fly on Alitalia as long as I had a choice, and usually there are choices now.

I hate that workers think that striking of slowing down customers seems to be their only vehicle of protest. Disrupting travelers has a much longer term affect to their job because it makes the people who are buying tickets think not just twice, but forever if they will ever patronize their business again.

I am not saying that workers are all at fault here. Management also has a role in this and they too pay the price when customers get screwed because Labor and management can’t get their acts together to negotiate issues in a timely manner.

Tourism is clearly a very important segment in the Italian economy. The strong dollar makes travel to EU countries very appealing to Americans and I highly suggest taking advantage of this situation sooner rather than later. My only recommendation is make sure you are patronizing US airlines and read the actual carriers that are serving your route so that you are not caught in a code share situation with a foreign airline. It makes a lot of difference who you buy your ticket from when things go wrong. You want to make sure you are flying on the same airline you bought your ticket from originally in case there is a situation that requires you changing flights.

Of course the idea of staying longer in Italy sounds good, unless you are spending all that extra time sitting in the airport. Don’t be afraid to travel, just do it with the best companies you can find.

Stuck On The Toilet Exercises

I go to see a trainer twice a week to have her basically work on all the muscles that I don’t use walking. I know that it is not enough time to really counteract my walking muscles, but it is about all I can afford with time and money. Walking nine miles a day just takes a boatload of time, not my first choice of words to describe it.

Tiffani, my trainer, yes she is young, is constantly trying to get me to strengthen my glutes to counter act the “walking group.” I thought I was using my butt when I walk, but apparently it is just along for the ride. This week Tiffani had me do some exercises to strengthen my IT bands. I have no idea what those are, but what I do know is that the inside of my thighs hurt like a “Rhymes with witch.”

I know that I need to work on all my muscles, so doing one exercise to extreme can have bad consequences, but whatever I am doing to help that is causing me to almost not be able to walk at all. How can this be good?

Actually these IT bands have practically disabled me from getting on and off the toilet. I am sure you agree with me that is extreme. If walking too much is bad for me and doing exercises to counteract that bad thing hurts me so badly that I can’t walk I guess it is working to keep me from walking too much.

I am wondering if there is some exercise where I lie on the bed and move my fingers and toes and nothing else, that actually burns some calories? I have lived a long time without actually knowing the names of all my muscles and tendons and been just fine with that. Knowing what something is because it is killing me is not something I need to do.

From years of working out with trainers I have learned that exercising the muscle that hurts often helps relieve the pain, kind of like a hair of the dog thing, but I have not found an exercise I can do for these IT bands while I am stuck on the toilet. So all you experts out there let me know if you have the answer. I am sure that toilet-sitting exercises could be the next big thing. I just don’t want to be the person that demonstrates them. Oh yeah, remember to add the problem of having your pants around your ankles, for demonstration purposes you could use a band around the ankles if you don’t want to demonstrate pant less.

No Stand Up Eating

Tonight as I was pulling food out of the fridge to figure out what to serve for dinner I came upon some leftover Chinese green beans. I put the container on the counter while I assembled the fish to put in the oven and got a pot of water to cook the broccoli. One by one I popped a green bean in my mouth, mindlessly eating them standing up as I salted the fish, popped a green bean, turned on the oven, popped another green bean, talked to Carter, two or three more beans.

Before I even got everything that needed to be cooked started I had finished all the green beans. No one else was going to have beans for dinner — kale salad for Russ. They were leftovers and not enough for all of us, but I did not offer anyone the first right of refusal. It was too late. They needed to be standing in the kitchen to get a chance at them. I had turned those green beans in to snack food.

Now green beans are a better snack food than say, chips, but the bad part about the whole thing is that since I ate them with my fingers standing up I don’t think my brain registered I was eating at all. Maybe it is the straight line that food takes to the stomach when you eat standing, or perhaps the lack of using a utensil means something to my brain.

Whatever the reason I know eating standing up is not good for my general health.

If I were to have to stand up from a seated position between every bite that might be the only way it would be OK to eat standing up because at least I would be doing squats between bites. Mostly I think that standing just promotes eating too quickly. Like I am on way to do something else and am just grabbing something to eat and don’t even have time to sit.

That is crazy talk since I always have time to sit, so there is no reason for me to ever eat standing up. I don’t go to saloons and stand at the bar with my foot on the brass rail downing a shot, nor do I eat at hotdog carts. Now a really good food truck might be someplace I want to get a meal from, but if it is something that good to eat I would want to at least find a rock to perch on to enjoy the food.

So new rule for me – no eating standing up. I need to enjoy the little bit of food I should be eating and give my brain a chance to catch up on what my stomach is taking in. This also means no eating walking around. I know I ate some yummy gelato in Rome that I ate walking back to the hotel after dinner. I can only imagine how good it would have been if I had waited and enjoyed it sitting down. I’m sure my brain had to spend some capital thinking about walking and finding my way and not on how perfect almond gelato goes with dark chocolate gelato, but then again, it is probably better my brain not think too hard about that.

Roman Undergarments?

Right before I am about to go to Rome the Spanx catalog arrived. Since I am giving myself permission to eat like a normal human while I am in the country that elevated eating to it’s highest level it makes me wonder if I should have bought more Spanx for this trip. I am a little worried that by day three of vacation eating my clothes will not fit.

I have never seen an entire book of garments meant to squeeze and smooth you in so many ways. I had no idea I was supposed to be wearing full leg length sausage casings under my jeans; then again I am not one of those 20-something skinny jean wearing with stilettos types. From what I can tell there are bras, panties, things just for your middle and ones for your back, long line, thigh length, butt lifting, hip squeezing, waist cinching, tunic long spandex.

Since I limit myself to one carry on roll-aboard I see no way to bring so much body smoothing wear unless I just gave up wearing actual clothes on top. Of course the other option is to wear it all on the plane. I can only imagine what kind of hospitalization I would need if I were to wear such confining items on a transatlantic flight.

“Why are you being admitted to the hospital in Rome?’

“Because I squeezed myself too much in anticipation of eating Rome’s finest food.”

I am sure immigration would deny me entry. Thank goodness I know very few people in Rome and the ones I do love me whatever my shape. I am going there without one shape wear item. I am going to just have to let the bulges be where they may and thoroughly enjoy my trip.

I know that the Italians look great naturally without the aid of ace bandage like binding. There is no reason to try and pretend I am anything but a soft American. I’ll save the Spanx for my return when I am going to have to go back into monk like living to pay for my Roman sins.

Snow Day Play Date

It happened. We got the seven or eight inches of snow the weatherman was forecasting. It came in the middle of the night. It was the big wet heavy kind of snow. I woke up in the middle of the night when our power flicked off for a moment, but then miraculously came right back on. I don’t know how we lucked out there since so many of our friends and neighbors lost their power for much longer.

I slept late since I knew before I went to bed that school was at least delayed. I would have slept longer but I got a robo-call from school around 8:30 telling me school was canceled. Since it was already delayed until 10:15 I could have gone a little longer without that wake up call.

Once I was up I decided to go on and get some exercise by shoveling our walkway and doing some work moving snow away from cars. While I was out shoveling I heard a pig pop-pop from the transformer on the corner of our property and saw a big flash of light. I was sure our power had just gone out, but no. it stayed on. Russ came out to help me between work calls but then took the four-wheel drive vehicle into the office. Commerce must go on.

Since my regular day had been canceled I went to work doing two loads of laundry, changing sheets on the guest bed for a friend without power to use tonight, cleaned off the months of mail that had piled up on my desk, ran the dishwasher and got all my steps on my treadmill before 2:00.

That busy beaverness warranted me a play date with my friend Stephanie to catch up and play Bananagrams. With no visible work insight I had no guilt to take a couple of hours to play with my friend. Since she did not have power at her house she deserved a warm place to hang out too.

After we played a few rounds she tried to reach Duke power having been cut off by the automated system on multiple previous attempts to report the outage at her house. Finally she got through and the system voice told her that she could expect her power to return by 11:45 TOMORROW! I told her that her family was welcome to come camp at my house; we still have another unoccupied bed and plenty of comfy sofas the size of twin beds.

A snow day is only fun for one day. When it gets to be snow days without power then it is verging on too much little house on the prairie. I am praying for school tomorrow, not so much for me, but for all my friends with multiple little children. If you need a grown up play date tomorrow, call me. I’ve got lots of games we can play and no laundry left to do.

Don’t Drink From Bottles

This morning was my appointment to get my front teeth fixed and snow be damned I was going to get to the dentist so he could replace my old bonding on my front teeth. This was no emergency, but it was the day I had psychologically prepared for and I was not about to let the dusting of snow we had at 7:30 in the morning stop me. I knew if I did not go today I might have not rescheduled until I had broken off my old repaired teeth.

I have spent my whole life dealing with front teeth problems and I am always thankful for the brilliance of dental chemists who invent new and better ways to repair broken teeth.

It all started when I was five and climbing our chain link fence I chipped a front tooth. It wasn’t that bad, but back in the dark ages of dental care there was not much they could do about it.

Then when I was about 11 a boy on the school bus pushed me and I hit the metal bar on the top of the seat and chipped the same front tooth big time. By then there was some kind of fix our family dentist was able to do to it that at least kept the exposed nerve covered, but it was not a perfect match for my other tooth.

Then on New Years Eve my first year out of college, when I still had not figured out that drinking was not a good idea for me I chipped my other front tooth on a bottle of champagne. Thankfully my fabulous dentist in Washington worked out of his house and was willing to fix my tooth on New Years Day as long as I was willing to act as my own dental assistant and hold all the tools.

Lucky for me a new dental material had been invented called bonding so my Dentist was able to mold a new half tooth on both of my two broken front teeth. Over the years those fixes have had to be replaced this being the third and only voluntary time. The first two times I had to do a replacement it was because the bonding had finally given up and fallen off one of my teeth.

Although it was not pleasant to have to go around with a broken tooth it certainly made putting the new ones on easy since there was nothing to remove. That is why I was nervous about today. Although I was practically a pro having already assisted in my own fabrication of new teeth, I never had two perfectly good bonded teeth removed to make way for new ones.

I was doing it for precautionary reasons because my old ones had out lived their predicted life and they discolor differently than real teeth. What I really did not want to have happen was for my bonded teeth to decide to fall off when I was in a foreign country. Love travel, as much as I do I do not trust my teeth to anyone other than my American dentist.

Thank goodness my wonderful young dentist Andrew as well as his assistant were not deterred from coming into to work in the snow. I was able to lie down in the chair covered by a warm snuggly blanket and go into a Zen mode of mouth breathing while I ignored the machines used to remove the old and put on the new. In an hour I had new beautiful teeth that look so much better than the old. God bless people who invent this stuff and the ones who put it on. I have another fifteen years before have to worry about this again, I hope.

In Praise of Velvet Pockets

Living in North Carolina I don’t have need for lots of winter outer wear. Some winters I don’t even pull out a real cold weather coat. Because of this light demand for heavy coats I have kept my thirty five year old long fur coat to wear only on the coldest days. It does not really matter that it is terribly out of style and much too big because I really only wear it when it is so cold out that I am so bundled up from head to toe that you can’t recognize me.

I know there are plenty of people who are opposed to fur and all I have to say to them is these animals that gave their life for my warmth are being put to the fullest use since I plan on keeping this coat for at least another thirty-five years.

The thing I like best about my old coat is that the pockets are made of velvet and are the coziest and softest part of the coat. It makes me wonder why all coats don’t have velvet pockets; to me it is the biggest selling point.

Now pockets are sometimes an after thought in fashion, but in coats they are practically mandatory. For such a vital feature of a garment I wish that all manufacturers paid them more attention. Yes, it is easiest to fashion a pocket out of the same silky material the lining is made out of, but then you have a flimsy shell of a material that seems to hold the cold rather than velvet, which feels warm to the touch, no matter the temperature.

Yes, velvet is a little bulkier than silk lining, but on a coat that little bit more thickness should not make that much difference. It is not like I am advocating lining thin cotton shorts with velvet pockets that would add bulk to your hips.

The other feature of my old coat’s velvet pockets is that they are very deep. Not so deep that I have to stoop over to reach the keys inside my pocket, but deep enough that I can walk with a bare hand inside the velvet case and never feel one wisp of cold winter wind. This makes my old coat the perfect garment for walking the dog late at night when I can’t find my gloves and the long ago set sun has given way to nighttime low temps.

As long North Carolina is going to get one or two weeks of unseasonably cold weather I am going to cherish my old fur coat with the perfect pockets. I see no need for a new one that I would just wear to walk the dog, but why do away with something that makes me so happy on these ridiculously freezing days and nights. As much as I love my coat and it’s velvet pockets I am read to hang it back up in the hall closet until next year or the year after that and go back to some fifty-degree February days. Just because I have the right coat does not mean I need to use it.

It’s All About the Lighting

This morning at garden club my friend Lynn was trying to get a photo of the hostesses. She had them lined up in front of the beautifully set dining room table with a pair of fabulous flower arrangements made by one of the hostesses. Being the busy body that I am I was looking over her shoulder as she was about to take the picture. The image I saw was as she was about to push the button was just outlines of three bodies since they were posed with a wall of glass doors behind them. I jumped in and turned the group so that the light from the windows was illuminating their faces and the dark of the room was behind them.

Now the ubiquity of cameras on every device we have has made taking pictures a regular occurrence and not the special thing it used to be when we had to pay for film and developing. The problem is that all the same rules for good photos exists with digital as it did with film, but very few people study the finer points of photography now that it is practically free.

Many people assume that photos can be fixed with the likes of Photoshop, which is true to only a point and by someone who is well trained. Great photographers all would prefer to get a well-lit shot from the start.

My interest in getting a good photo is a diet issue. The worst thing about being lit from behind is that the dark shadows on people’s faces renders them unidentifiable except by body shape. I hardly know a woman over forty who would like people to study the outline of her body, no matter how tight it is. When looking at a beautiful picture of someone’s face you tend to overlook imperfections, which we all have, even if it is just that you are not standing up as straight as possible. But looking at a dark outline it is hard to distinguish if that thing sticking out of the middle is a large stomach or just an elbow of a bent arm.

Do yourself, your friends and family a great service and never place them directly in front of a bright light source to be shot straight on. It is wonderful to take someone’s picture in front of a window if you have them stand with their shoulder on the window and you have the light coming across their face, but even that is a little advanced for most I-phone photo takers. The best rule of thumb is always having the photographers back to the light source shooting directly at the subject. A smiling beautifully lit face will always make the person in the picture look better and isn’t that what you want.

Here are two photos I grabbed from a 2001 scrap book to show you examples.  Who knows who those people in the pool are? (I do)  and here is one of Carter taken with the light from the side of the window.

Learning to be a Follower

Growing up as the oldest girl of three I had a natural bossy tendency. I was never good at following an other’s lead and always wanted to be out in front. If I were traveling with a group of cars I needed to be first. As I aged I realized this was not always the most attractive trait, but one I had to fight to overcome.

Today was one of those days that make me happy we live in North Carolina. While the west coast is consumed in rain and the North East is hit with yet another snowstorm, it was seventy degrees and sunny here. I woke up early for a Sunday so I attended early church. Although I really missed the choir I loved having my whole day ahead of my by nine thirty.

Russ and I decided to take Shay on a big hike at the Eno State Park. Even though we arrived before eleven the parking lot was almost full with other lovers of North Carolina winter. With Shay on her pink leash held by Russ we set off to hike up the trail that runs besides the river.

The trail is fairly narrow and a bit muddy from run off from the hills. Shay could be mistaken for a mountain goat in a brown curly coat. She can jump over fallen trees and climb steep trails with no effort. As the three of us negotiated our way up and down the hills of the park one thing became apparent, Shay had to be out in front.

Every once in a while I would try and take the lead where the path got skinny, but I could feel Shay’s breath on my ankles and she pulled against the leash to try and pass me. As soon as I stopped to let her go by me she would relax as long as we let her tell us where to go.

With the fall leaves on the ground it was not always apparent exactly where the trail was, but somehow without ever looking up to see the trail makers on trees Shay was able to keep us right on the path we should be on to stay out of danger never mistakenly ending up on top of a boulder with no place to go.

Shay was clearly a better trail leader than I ever would have been, not that I had a choice. She must have inherited her desire to be a leader from me. But being a follower was highly pleasurable. I was able to enjoy the scenery and the sunlight streaming through the naked winter tree branches.

I guess that it was easy to be a follower when I so thoroughly trusted my leader. I guess that I need to work next of being more trusting. I hope I have a lot of years left because I still have a lot to learn.

A La Carte to the Max

Tonight we went out to dinner to a place where everything was a la carte. For me as a person who wants to control what tempts me it was perfect. Don’t want to eat starch, no problem none is put on the plate unless you order it. Even bread and butter were not automatic. It was easy to withstand the breadbasket when it was advertised as gluten free at $6.

The only problem with this way of selling food is that the portions of what you do order are large. Russ and I got the turf and surf special to split and we still brought half the steak home. I ordered the Brussels sprouts and it really was big enough for three, although I ate most of them myself.

I can see the next wave of food service going even further by being an order by the bite plan. I think I would like six bites of steak, nine of salad and seven of green beans. The real winner in a by the bite plan is that I then might order one bite of rice and one bite of dessert if I was guaranteed to only get that much.

Despite my leaving half a steak uneaten tonight I am normally I’m not good at leaving food on my plate, even if I am full. If you put the food on my plate, I usually am going to eat it. Given the opportunity to order exactly the amount I should have I am much more likely to eat it all and be perfectly happy, even if it was only half as much food as I could have eaten.

Hooray for charging customers for bread. We all know bread and butter are not free, but once it has been put down on a table the leftovers must be thrown away even if the basket was not touched. That’s the food service law of the land, until Thom Tillis gets his hands on it. I like having the option to decide if I want you to tempt me with bread or not.

So go on and a la Carte everything, except for napkins and utensils. I don’t want to get to the point that people are forgoing wiping their hands because it costs fifty cents. This isn’t China after all.

Playing the Villain

In my fourth, fifth and sixth years we lived in a tiny house on Crystal Street in New Canaan. Our house had a back yard that was surrounded with a chain link fence with holes just the right size for me to fit my red Ked tenny pumps into to climb. The fence came with the house and my parents had no need to fence us kids in the yard. We basically ran free in our neighborhood either on bikes or on foot.

My back yard neighbors were the Quinns who had a much larger and grander house than ours with a big corner lot. How I remember their name today when I can’t remember what I went to the Harris Teeter to buy an hour ago is amazing to me. The Quinns had sons, two or three, those details are fuzzy. The two I am most sure they had probably flanked me in ages so we tended to play together.

I often was sticking my toes in the chain link fence to climb over to their yard since they had an exciting and somewhat dangerous zip line that ran from a tree house to a porch, where I only had a standard metal swing set in my yard. Our favorite neighborhood game to play was Batman. The show with the “POW,” and “
“WHAP” graphics was big in the mid sixties.

The older Quinn boys of course assumed the roles of Batman and Robin, since it was their tree house we used as a bat cave. One boy who lived on their street whose name I cannot remember was Alfred the butler. I think he was always bringing snacks from home and that’s how he became the manservant. Needing a bad guy to fight against I was almost always assigned the role of Cat woman. I did not really mind because it required me to slide down the zip line standing on the wooden bar and only holding on with one hand.

When other boys would come along we would have a Joker or a Penguin and if a new girl happened to join in she would get to be Batgirl. I can remember wondering if I could be Batgirl when we had other villains, but I was never allowed to veer from my role as nemesis to Bat Man.

In reality I was a good girl, but it was fun to play the naughty one. I think that was my earliest memory of acting against type. Eventually “playing” the villain was a skill I developed. As an adult whenever there are ever negotiations to be done I always play the bad cop. If someone has to be the heavy I was happy to take on that role and not just because I was heavy. The real trick is not to become a villain just because you play one.

The world is not black and white like in 1960’s TV shows, even the ones in living color. Sometimes you are the bad guy and sometimes you are the good guy. That is just the way non-scripted life works out. I’m glad that now I really get a choice between Cat woman and Batgirl, or even commissioner Gordon, nowadays. There is nothing worse than being pigeon holed as a one-dimensional character.

Is Vegan the Answer?

Proof that Beyoncé is a brilliant marketing machine came out today with the announcement of the Beyoncé Vegan meal delivery service. For just over $600 you can get home delivery of a 21-day vegan meal plan. The unspoken message is “If you want a body like Beyoncé’s go vegan.” Bill Clinton the once chubby president is now also a vegan and a mere shadow of himself.

If I were only interested in being thin I would consider becoming a vegan, but since I am more interested in being happy I must have a life that includes cheese. Also the fact that I am an off the scale extrovert and enjoy the company of other live humans I need to keep my consumption of beans in check or risk not having another friend.

Using beautiful celebrities to sell things is not new, but I doubt that anyone thinks they are going to look like Cindy Crawford or Sofia Vergara if they buy their furniture at Rooms To Go. I am sure there are plenty of bootlicious wanting thick waisted women who will fall for the idea that they can look like Beyoncé if they eat like her. The part of the equation that is missing is her personal trainer, well equipped gym, personal assistant to do all her errands, nanny to care for her child, and well documented work ethic that allow her to spend hours working out as well as her blessed genetic make-up.

So go vegan if that appeals to you, but don’t do it expecting to look like Beyoncé. Plenty of the vegans I know are no thinner than they were when they ate meat. Potato chips are vegan after all.

Almost Made The Whole Season Without a Twisted Ankle, Almost

Carter really get’s her tuition’s worth of tape at basketball. She gets her ankles that have been rolled multiple times taped daily. Her shin splint calves tightly wrapped and her past torn meniscus and patella tendentious knees secured with tape. With all this precautionary taping as well as sonic treatments and ice and heat she has been able to stay relatively injury free during the whole long basketball season.

With Cha’Mia having an accident in a game last week, Nicole still recovering from her major knee blow out, Kenan’s leg still braced to within an inch of her life and Allyssa recovering from a concussion the team was down to six players. Last night they faced a crazy tough opponent and did not fare well. Carter was despondent, but determined for the team to rally and show the coach what they had in them.

With a back-to -back game tonight this was the six-girl team’s chance to prove they had real heart for basketball. Every player was important and was playing at top notch. The team quickly got out to a 13-2 lead in the first quarter. They were communicating, defending big and hit a majority of their baskets. Carter was getting more play time than ever and was rebounding and stopping the ball from going in the opponent’s basket.

The team was hot. The coach was happy. It was 30-10 right before the end of the half and it happened, Carter rolled her ankle and went down. I saw her do it. I knew her pain. The trainer came out with Carter’s coach and eventually she got off the court to the side for ice and a sprained ankle declaration, even with all that tape.

This meant that the last standing five players, Liz, Izzy, Erin, Serena and Imani had to finish out the game without a rest or fouling out. They held on and won the game something like 47 -22. Their heart showed big. Now it’s time for Carter to ice and keep that leg up high so it can heal in time for Friday’s game. At least Grace will play up from JV that game so they can have another player.

Congratulations girls. You fought hard. You are a team, a great one.

1000 Days

Yesterday after I posted my blog I got a message from my blog hosting service congratulating me on my 1,000^th post. It is hard to believe that I have written and posted something everyday for almost three years.

Maybe I should rename my blog the 1,000-day war rather than Less Dana. It certainly has been more Dana than anyone ever thought they needed and I have to say that my weight loss journey is a constant battle, but one that has been much more successful with this blog as my accountability.

That being said, I wonder how long the blog should go on. Have I already told every story I have in me? Have I exhausted the attention of my readers? Have I run out of witty banter and just succumbed to complaining? I’m not sure yet, but what I do know is that I worry if I take my eye off this ball I easily could slip back into bad habits.

My Thanksgiving to Christmas relaxation in both exercise and healthy eating proved that my body easily could return to it’s former self. In my lifetime I have gained and lost hundreds of pounds, usually in 100 pound increments. I know it is not the way I want to go again. So for now I am going to keep at the program that has gotten me here, which I guess means daily written accountability.

I’m sorry if it is tedious. Of course if you are still reading this you can let me know when it is time for me to stop. But as a reminder why I do this I am posting a picture of me with Carter from 13 years ago and a very bad selfie taken just now in my 1950’s pink bathroom full-length mirror. I do wear reading glasses now and my skin is dryer and my daughter towers over me, but I am also about 125 pounds thinner than that picture and I certainly don’t want to go back there and wear reading glasses and have dry skin.

My Two Degrees of Separation From MLK Jr.

You know the game six degrees of Kevin Bacon? It started as a party game to see if you can figure out the shortest distance of one actor in a movie to a movie Kevin Bacon was in. Like if you said Tom Cruise you would get one degree of separation since they both were in a Few Good Men. But if you said Keira Knightly you would get two degrees of separation because she was in the Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch and he was in Black Mass with Kevin Bacon. Basically Linked In works on the same principle. You put the name in of someone you are trying to connect with and Linked In finds who you know who knows him or her too.

In celebration of Martin Luther King’s birthday I am going to make my connection to the great leader. When I lived in Washington DC I had a side business as a caterer. John Lewis, congressman from Atlanta, confident and civil rights marcher with Dr. King was one of my customers. See he liked to serve southern food and I could cook southern before it became main stream, that and I was an inexpensive caterer. Congress Lewis especially liked my pecan bars. Since I know him and he knew Dr. King that is my two degrees.

Three years ago when Carter went on her seventh grade trip to Washington, DC she met John Lewis. She did not exactly know whom he was when she broke away from her group to go over to shake his hand; just that he appeared to be a fairly important person at the Capital. She excitedly told me about meeting him after her teacher filled her in. That’s when I told her my connection. Her response was, “Why don’t you make those pecan bars for us?” I don’t think that at the time she appreciated that she too had a two-degree separation from Dr. King.

Having that connection is not what is important on this day, but thinking about how we can all be more peaceful in our negotiations about living together. I wonder how disappointed Dr. King might be to see how poorly we all are getting along some fifty years after his peace marches. Rights are apparently not something we automatically keep once they are won. We have to keep working at ensuring that all humans have the rights they deserve. I just hope that we can all follow Dr. King’s example of working towards getting and keeping rights peacefully.

If You Missed This Game

It’s not often an entire Upper School gym filled to capacity for a Friday night basket ball game could sit completely silent without any cheering or clapping as our team made basket after basket. Since three starting players were in a serious car accident after leaving last Friday’s winning game the team, the students, the faculty and the parents came together for tonight’s game as a show of love and support to the injured boys. The young man who was most seriously hurt is number 12 and the plan was for a silent game until the team had made 12 points. With the stands filled with supporters all wearing shirts with the word FAMILY with the school DA logo in place of the “A” you could feel the love in the room.

The opposition did not make it easy, but four minutes into the first quarter Sophomore Jorden Davis, one of only two regular starters still able to play made the 12^th point basket. The gym erupted with everyone on his or her feet cheering and clapping. If God had not been paying attention to healing Cam, Alston and Ryan before there was no way he could ignore them now.

Our school community wanted to send all the messages of love and support they could to our boys. You could feel the team on the court willing them to win this game for their brothers. At the half there was still a big question whether they could do it going into the locker room down by seven. But something happened in that locker room and towards the end of the third quarter and all the guys who don’t usually get much playing time as well as the few starters were on fire. The team suddenly pulled forward and not only did they score 28 points in the second half they kept their opponents from adding even one point from the sixth minute of the third all the way until the end. The final score was Cary 39 DA 55.

The students who filled three sections of the big bleachers swarmed the court and surrounded the team. They were doing it not just for the players who were there, but for the three who were not. We are a family. We cherish each individual. We rise to support our community. I hope that each person there felt the love and those who were not will feel it from the stories, photos and video of the night. DA Strong.

Breast Feeding Diet?

While sitting across the table from my friend Christy enjoying a nice meal at a local Whole Foods I knew something interesting was going on behind me from the look on her face. Christy being a very polite person did not say a word, but I could tell from her face that I should not turn around and look, but I so wanted to. Instead I sat patiently yet desperately trying to look at the reflection in her eyes to make out what was going on.

When the appropriate moment came around she told me in hushed tones about the child behind me who had finished eating her cliff bar, getting off her chair and pushing over to her Mom where she was able to get back up the chair and get a drink of breast milk.

Now a mother breast-feeding in a Whole Foods is not an unusual sight. But the idea that a child who is old enough to get up move her own big chair and take care of her own breast feeding is another issue. Christy at first thought the child was four, but we gave the mother the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe she was just a very large three. Whichever, she was old enough that the mother felt no need to hold her hand when they were going to the door.

Our conversation turned quickly to breast feeding, which we both agreed was an ideal way to feed a baby, but not necessarily a child who can do it self service. I told Christy of a friend in Washington who had a neighbor whose son got off the school bus and came in my friend’s house where his mother was visiting and asked for a “snack” and the mother whipped out her snacking breast. That was really where I draw the line.

I know women who loved breast-feeding because it kept their metabolism very high and they either lost tons of weight while doing it or were able to eat copious amounts of calories and not put any weight on. Now I am not suggesting that this mother today was using her three, perhaps four year old as a diet aid, but a mother who can afford to shop at Whole Foods probably does not have to personally produce the milk her child needs for nutrition at this point.

I am just interested in how long a suckling child will feed if allowed to? Based on the Washington experience clearly being able to ride the school bus alone is not too old? I wonder if that boy is still that close to his mother? Since that happened over 25 years ago I wonder if he is still living in her basement?

Breast-feeding as a diet aid is not in my cards anymore so I am happy to cross that off the list as an aid to get off those last holiday pounds.

Je Suis Charlie- And I Don’t Have Anything to Sell You

Russ forwarded me an e-mail he got today from a local store with a headline that read, “Come into (Our store) and enjoy discounts on all of our French Wine and Beer selections.” This was followed up with “To show support for our French colleagues, we are featuring all French wine at 20% off through Monday.”

Somehow I am not sure how my buying French wine at a discount is showing support for France, rather it seems like an excuse for a sale and a way to drive people into their store. No mention was made that the shop was using the profits to do any direct support of France.

As a somewhat outspoken person who has worked at a magazine for the last five years I am all about freedom of the press. I fully support the French people and especially the people who work at Charlie Hebdo. I think that satire and the ability to laugh at politics and leaders of all kinds is important.   Those who take everything much too seriously sometime lose sight of the bigger picture.

I feel like the radicals of the world could benefit greatly from a big shot of humor. If Isis had a comedian in their ranks they might not be so mad all the time.

“Je Suis Charlie” I say. But let’s not use the tragedy in Paris as a vehicle for commerce here. It just seems in bad taste. Better to support France by actually going to France and spending your Euros there. Yes, if we buy some French wine here right now it may eventually lead to restocking and purchase of more French wine down the road, but that seems like a lot of “ifs” and I’m not sure the French people are going to really know you are supporting them.

Buying one of the hard to get copies of the most recent issue of Charlie Hebdo might send a faster and bigger message not just to the French people, but also to the terrorists that we do not lay down to their actions, but stand up and support even more loudly people’s right to free speech.

Check yourself if cartoons are making you so mad that you feel the need to kill someone. A little humor makes life better.

The Ice Storm Crazy

“Why are you buying fish?” came the question from a strange voice behind me as I stood at the seafood counter.

Practically before I could even turn around to see if that question was aimed at me came the follow-up, “Don’t you know we are getting an ice storm?”

There, looking like Helen Thomas, famed white house AP reporter, stood a small elderly woman who was staring right at me. Since no one else was in the vicinity I assumed she was talking to me.

“My daughter wants flounder for dinner,” I told her, even though it wasn’t any of her business.

“Doesn’t she know we are getting an ice storm?”

“Yes,” I said, as if this conversation was going in a rational direction.

I looked at the short, but robust old woman and then to her cart, which had the requisite ice storm groceries of white bread, milk, toilet paper and frozen pizza in it. I assumed she too must be buying fish since based on the contents of her cart she had already made a sweep of the store.

“Are you buying fish?” I asked in my most polite, I am a southerner, even if I don’t give a shit way.

“No, that is crazy. Who buys fish for an ice storm?”

It was all I could do to hold back from saying, “What business is it of yours lady? And why are you even all the back in the corner of the store if you are not buying fish?” But I didn’t. Society would frown on that.

Instead I went the other direction of trying to out crazy the crazy and said, “Haven’t you heard that if you eat fish before an ice storm you won’t lose power at your house?”

As if on cue, the fishmonger handed me my package of flounder and I was able to thank him and make a quick get away before Helen Jr. could pepper me with more questions.

Oh, the joys of impending bad winter weather in the south. It really brings out the ones who are normally locked in.

The Weather Effect

It is really grey today. I looked out my window every hour or so and no matter the actual time of day it looked like it was seven at night. The cold constant drizzle and lack of sun is OK for one day, but I fear that this is the way it is going to be all week.

I know that it is colder and either snowy or icy in places further north, but snow with sun is a mood brightener for me whereas this overcast pall is a real downer. The danger comes in the attempt to uplift my psyche with food during the doldrums spell.

My defense to starve off over eating, (no pun intended) is to stay busy with fun activities and go to bed early. I have found that I am best at not eating when I am asleep. The only problem is that January is my “catch up on work I put off over the holidays” month. Not only is that not fun but I am finding many tasks that I have completely forgotten about that need my attention right away. Maybe just busy is the next best thing, even if it is with dreaded work. What I fear is that I will look for excuses not to work and find food to fill my time.

I think bears have it just right. Stay awake and eat as much as you can during the happy summer months and come the horrible cold time just sleep through the whole thing and lose the weight you gained at the same time. I assume bears wake up much thinner since they, like me are not eating in their sleep.

Who says as a human I have to be productive in equal amounts all year long? What if I am just productive half of the months if I promise to be twice as prolific during those months?

Now if I could schedule meetings with the caveat that it will happen only if it is a nice sunny day, or maybe not. Perhaps I could skip all meeting on beautiful days and just have fun. I don’t know the answer, just that I feel myself being sucked into some downward spiral the longer the grey goes on. Whatever, I have to post this blog because it is almost six at night and I am going to need to get to bed very soon or else I may eat something I’m sorry about.

Thai Slaw

When Carter asks me if we have any of a certain vegetable I previously made I know I have hit the jackpot. Usually she would be happy to have nothing but a hunk of steak for dinner, but tonight she just wanted a stuffed potato and this Thai slaw.

You can add almost any raw vegetable you have on hand.

1 10 oz. package of Angel Hair Cabbage

¼ cup of diced red onions

1 carrot – peeled and cut into matchsticks

Handful of chopped cilantro

Dressing

2 T. Fish Sauce

2 T. limejuice

3 T. rice Vinegar

½ t. sesame oil

4 packets of Splenda

1 T. water

1 dried red chili –crushed

1 clove of garlic – minced

Black Pepper

Mix all the ingredients to make the dressing. Put all the vegetables in a bowl and pour the dressing over it. The slaw is good right away, but also can marinate for a little while, that is if you can resist eating it.

Cold Snap

Apparently tomorrow is going to be the coldest day of at least the last ten months. Really we have been fairly lucky with winter so far and a couple of cold days are to be expected in January or February. I have become a real whus when it comes to cold weather these days. I am cold all the time. I have just screwed up my internal heating system with dieting I think. I keep waiting for hot flashes to start just so I can take the eternal chill off, but that does not seem to be happening.

Today was one of those crazy busy days where I had every moment planned and accounted for. Just so I could get everything done I even got up an hour early to get some steps in before I had to go to the gym and be tortured by my trainer. Thank goodness for the treadmill desk because if I had to do my walking outside in this cold I would have burned my fitbit long ago.

When I first got out of bed I was a little more cold than usual and almost gave up on walking because the house temp was still set at extra-cold-sleeping-temp. Eventually I made it to the treadmill and started the day with a walking bonus.

After they gym I came home and took a long hot shower and turned back around and left the house to go play Mah Jongg. It was freezing cold at the club. My fellow frozen players and I thought the club was just saving money and not running the heat. After that I got in my little car and cranked up the seat heaters and ran to needlepoint to drop off some finishing.

It was nice a toasty warm there with many of my stitching table advisors in residence, but I could not stay there long because I needed to get to Cary for Carter’s basketball game. I stopped at home to walk Shay and noticed a distinct difference in the temperature in the house. Of course I had just come out of my sauna like car, but I still thought for a second I could see my breath.

I went to the thermostat and sure enough it read 59 degrees actual temp, with a heat setting of 69. NOOOOOO! Today was not the day for my HVAC to fail. I went to the furnace room where I did the only thing I knew how to do, turn the unit on and off. No luck, still cold. I texted Carter that I was going to miss her bball game and called the repairman.

In some miracle he arrived in less than half an hour, found the two broken parts, which he had stocked in the truck, replaced them and got the heat working in less than twenty minutes. To really add icing to this most fabulous cake, when he was writing up my ticket he said, “Have you lost a lot of weight?” If I weren’t so happily married I would have kissed him.

I jumped in the sauna mobile and made it to Cary Christian before the tip off. Carter’s team won in a very exciting game. The only bad part was those Christians must have been trying to save money and they did not have the heat on in the gym. Seemed to be the theme of the day.

Don’t Quit

Did you make a New Year’s resolution this year? Apparently something like 60% of American adults report they commit to doing something better in the next year. No matter what your resolution was, whether to try to stop smoking, get more organized or the most common resolution — to lose weight, today is the day when most people break their resolution.

It seems that five or six days is the standard amount of time people can stick to a plan they have made. If you are one of those people don’t worry. Just because you broke your resolution does not mean that you have to wait 359 days to try again, just start again, right now.

Changing any habit, especially a bad one, is work all the time. I know that there is some study that says that a new way of living becomes a habit after about three months, but I just don’t believe that. I think that it takes years of constant attention to do the right thing mindlessly.

Even though I committed to walking 20,000 steps a day twelve months ago, once I took my foot off the peddle I did not come back to actually doing again for over a month. I finally have completed a whole week of over 20,000 steps a day, but it has been hard work. I forgot how much time it actually takes to walk that much. I tried adding some running, but my hips were not happy with me for a few days after those running bursts.

I can say that after ten months of really trying to walk that much everyday it was no habit. So don’t depend on this illusion that you can retrain your brain to do the right thing automatically, instead commit to just keep trying. If you fall off the wagon, just get back on.

Resolutions are just a jumping off point. My suggestion to make you more successful and one that I have used for myself with the best results is to set a goal and share it. Don’t just tell your loved ones, but shout it out to the world and own your resolution. Saving face by just doing what you said you would do is the best way to change your bad habits. I promise keeping your resolution a secret is the fastest way to fail.

Corned Ham- Via Vivian Howard and Bill Smith

In the vein of really planning ahead this blog is for your next New Year’s Day celebration. Sometimes I have to write about things that won’t make anyone mad. No promises, but recipes tend to be less controversial material. I promise I will go back to making someone mad tomorrow.

A few weeks before Christmas I went to a fundraiser for the Food Bank that Bill Smith of Crooks Corner was having with Vivian Howard the star of the PBS series A Chef’s Life. They were showing a preview of the holiday special where Bill Smith taught Vivian how to make a Corned Ham. What? You’ve never heard of Corned Ham? Well neither had I. Actually they served us this corned ham before they told us what it was and there was quite a debate about if it was turkey or ham. This is no honey baked ham, or very salty country ham, don’t let the amount of salt in the recipe make you think so.

It is a 12-13 day process and I suggest you go right to the source by goggling Corned Ham recipe. Bill Smith seems to be the Internet authority on it so it is not hard to find. Vivian’s version is on PBS.org.

I got my fresh ham with the skin on from Cliff’s meat market in Carrboro. The over 20 pound hunk of meat cost only something like $45. That’s like $2.29 a pound. It was a good weight lifting exercise just to work with it. Good thing since it is not exactly diet friendly, but the finished product is so flavorful that you only need a little.

I followed the instructions and stabbed big holes in the Ham around the bone and stuffed it with salt and then rubbed an obscene amount of salt on the outside. I wrapped it up in the largest Tupperware container I had and left it in my garage fridge for eleven days. Then I had to wash all the salt off of it and I put it in a cooler filled with water and ice overnight to soak the rest of the salt out of it.

The cooking took over six hours and I think I overcooked it a little. Next time I will check the internal temp with a thermometer earlier in the baking. It probably did not hurt it though because the meat was still delicious. Poor Shay Shay was beside herself dancing all around me as I carved the ridiculous amount of meat off the bone. I eventually got tired and wrapped up the very meaty ham bone and put it in the freezer to be used for a future black bean soup festival.

This ham is the perfect New Year’s Day meat for those who are superstitious and think that ham and black-eyed peas need to be eaten on the first day of the year if it is going to be a good year. I am not one of those people. As far as I am concerned it is what I am not eating that determines if it is going to be a good year.

What I do think is that this corned ham makes a great addition to many dishes, from egg types, like omelets and quiche to creative sandwiches with hearty cheddar and fig jam. I of course have used it in my arugula salad with pears and blue cheese and the littlest amount of ham goes a long way in the flavor department. If you are dying to try some give me a ring. Russ begged me not to give it all away, but there is no way we can eat this much ham.

Parsnips Not Pasta

Back in the eighties I did that crazy protein drink diet. It worked great while I was doing nothing but drinking four hundred calories of milk shakes a day with one cup of chicken broth thrown in for the salt content. It was during the fat-is-bad-for you time in the dieting world. So as soon I as finished the four month protein shake period I moved right into the eat pasta with fat free marinara sauce phase. The weight came back fast. I had lost weight eating protein so it was no wonder that I gained weight eating pasta.

Eventually I learned what my body likes and does not like. It does not help that my mouth and brain really like sugar and flour, which is exactly the opposite of what my thighs and stomach like.

During the last six weeks when I was eating for my mouth and not my thighs I rediscovered how much I love pasta. Now that I am back to eating what I should I am working on breaking myself of the sugar and flour fix.

I had some of the fabulous marinara sauce leftover so I decided to use roasted parsnips in place of pasta. First I really like parsnips and they are hard to find so when I saw them at Fresh Market I snatched up two bags. Second, Parsnips are white and I think that when I cut them into like sized bites before roasting them they almost looked like gnocchi. If my eyes think I am eating pasta my mouth goes along with it.

A bowl of roasted parsnips with marinara sauce and a little Parmesan cheese was really a satisfying dinner. I tired it two nights ago and the weight on the scale came off.

Today while I was at the grocery I ran into my friend Val who asked me what I would do with a soup recipe that had too much pasta in it. At first I said just leave it out, and then I mentioned the roasted parsnips as a substitution. Val let me know how you like it.

Roasted Parsnips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Peel parsnips and cut into like sized pieces.

Cover a cookie sheet with foil and spray with Pam. Lay the parsnips on the pan in a single layer and cook in the oven about 20 minutes until the parsnips are fork tender. Sprinkle with a little salt.

They are good eaten just like that, but really make excellent fake pasta.

New Year Breakfast Tradition

Russ and I are not New Year’s Eve kind of people. The last thing we want to do is stay up late just to see the clock tick from Midnight to 12:01. We are much more Happy New Year’s day people. For the last seven years we have gotten up early on January 1 and made our annual trek to Saxapahaw to the general store for breakfast.

Breakfast there is not exactly a dieter’s delight, but the tradition is worth keeping up. For the first time Carter was not with us because she spent the night with a friend, so Russ and I brought our friend Logan who is a lover of fine cuisine. We ordered three different dishes that we shared. Thankfully one of them was a fairly light salmon filet on a bed of baby spinach topped with an egg, red onions and capers. Of course there was a butter sauce on it, but thankfully no bread, biscuit or grits.

After our fun outing it was back to the house to undecorate our Christmas house. It is a big job so I am glad to get it behind me before the New Year starts in earnest, but the lack of twinkly lights and sparkle is a little depressing.

To help overcome what I ate for breakfast as well as post Christmas blues I decided to run on my treadmill for the endorphins. I also wanted to get my 20,000 steps in as fast as possible so I could sit down and rest without guilt. The undecorating only gave me 8,000 steps so I still had two thirds of my goal to get on the treadmill. I took the running in 1,000 step increments — running for 7 minutes and resting for three. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. The only problem is that I could not write my blog while I ran.

After getting my 20,000 steps done I have remained at the walking desk to do my work. I figure it is a good idea to bank some extra steps while I can. I know that the day will come very soon when I am not going to have the time to do all my walking.

Today is the national day that diets begin. I know that I am in good company and can feel the collective healthy lifestyle happening all around me. If you made a resolution to be good to your body I hope today was a good start for you. If not don’t give up. Every meal is another chance to do the right thing.

A Look Back at the Year by the Numbers

There is no reason for me to do a retrospective of the big things in my year. My blog serves as the daily diary of big and small things that happened. Instead I decided today to enter all my data from my fit bit into a spread sheet and see how I did no my one big goal of 2014 – to walk 20,000 steps a day. Now in all honesty I did not make that my goal until the end of January, but that hardly makes a difference.

I walked t total of 6,006277 steps that were counted when I wore my fitbit, in 2014. I almost always had it one and only once or twice was it uncharged, so over six million is fairly accurate. My numbers say that I walked a total of 2627 miles.

Sounds like a lot, but it is no even close to reaching my goal. I average 16,455 steps a day so I was just over 80% of the way there. That meant I walked an average of 7.2 miles a day. Only in the month of February did I actually walk an average that was over 20,000 steps a day.

I started the year 22 pounds heavier than I got at my lowest point. If you are reading between the lines you can figure out that I gained weight at the end of the year. I tried a terrible experiment of letting myself eat whatever I wanted between Thanksgiving and Christmas and walking just as much as I wanted to see what would happen. Eight pounds is what happened and an average of only walking 10,000 steps a day.

That experiment is officially over. I started eating like a judge a couple of days ago and today will be the first day I will get my 20,000 steps in, thanks to lots of time doing spread sheets to see how badly things can go when I am not vigilant.

My new goal is to do 20,000 steps a day as an average in each month. That means that if I am going on vacation and know I will be sitting on a plane, unallowed to get up and roam the aisle I am going to have to bank steps in advance. If I am sick one day I will have to make it up in the next couple. If I have an all day meeting I will have to stay on my treadmill later into the night.

I also am going to keep my spreadsheet as I go along and not have one big data dump day. This way I can track in real time. I know that I am not a person who can eat holiday food without consequence. I also know that I need to keep moving if I am to lose even eight pounds. No fun, no fair, tough luck, that’s me.

So Happy New Year to you and yours. I hope that holiday eating and sitting around did not do to you what it did not me. I know that most of the world will be on some sort of diet come tomorrow. Welcome to my life, as I should live it. Not living clean is clearly not an option. Hopefully it won’t take me longer than it took me to put it on to get it off.

Holiday Basketball Invitational

For the last few days Russ and I have been driving to and from Cary to watch Carter’s team play in a basketball tournament. Since we have to pay $8 each to get into every game we think of this tournament as a big revenue generator for the host school. It started the day after Christmas with no break to get away for post Christmas family time, but his was the commitment we took on when Carter made Varsity.

The team is small in number and short on players with lots of years of experience, but long on heart and sticktoittiveness. The coaches are tough, but the lessons learned from just being part of this group are invaluable.

Earlier in the season I was sitting in the stands with my friend David Beischer who is a parent of a boy who plays basketball as well as a basketball playing alum of DA. While watching the girls in a very tough match against a team with a much deeper bench of seasoned players on their way to D-1 basketball scholarships he told me about an old DA Physics professor whose name I can’t remember, who created some theorem that said, once a girls team was down eleven points there was no way they were coming back to win a game.

During that particular game the girls were down by 14 points, came back to being one up and in the final seconds let their defense down and lost the game. It was a miracle that they came back by that much in the first place, but heart breaking. To me the good news was that they had proven the 30-year theorem could be broken.

The Holiday Invitational started out with DA girls winning their first match up handily. The second game was much tougher and they could not pull out the win, but during that game one of the captains of the team, junior Cha’Mia Rothwell made her 1,000^th point as a DA varsity player. The amazing thing about this is basketball is not even her best sport, you should see her run track.

Today was the final game against a tough team from Fayetteville. If you have never been to Fayetteville you have no idea how tough it is. The DA girls were in a shoot out to see which team would take 3^rd in the tournament.

The game started badly and quickly went sideways for our girls. In the third quarter they were down by 21 points. A fellow parent, an ex-professional football player, who I sat with during the whole tournament muttered, “Just get to down 14 and we will be happy.” It seemed like a big ask to me, but we all prayed.

The forth quarter started and all I could think of was whatshisname Physics Professor’s Theorem – down almost double his theory there was no way. But the little team with lots of heart did not know they could not win this game. Slowly they started chipping away at Fayetteville’s lead. Suddenly three’s were being hit and free throws were all being made. With seconds left, Cha’Mia, better known as Cham on the court got us tied up and them closed it down by making a free throw in the very last second. The crowd went wild. My heart was beating so hard it felt as if I had just run a marathon. Fittingly after the game was the planned cake celebration of Cham reaching her 1,000^th point in the previous game.

It was heart breaking for the Fayetteville girls who were sure this was their game when they were up by 21. That old teacher might have been a great Physics Prof, but he did not know this team of girls. Congratulations to the little team with the big heart, their great coaches Krista and Robert and all the friends and family members who came out to support them at each and every game. Watching you come together as a team was worth more than double every dollar and hour spent.

Trying to End the Year Well

In an effort to alleviate any guilt I have about Holiday eating, slouching about and lack of productivity I got back on the horse today. I could have waited until January second like most people who have a resolution they want to fulfill, but I feel like waiting is just an excuse.

Back on the treadmill early in the day I knew was the only way to deal with my lost good habits. While walking I paid all my bills, sorted all my deal-with-it-later mail, entered all new Christmas card alerted addresses in my electronic address book, (boy did a lot of you move this year) and put away all the Christmas wrapping. That only accounted for about a thousand steps.

I tried, but was quite unsuccessful at hand writing my thank you notes while I walked. I figured my handwriting while still was bad enough and I don’t want anyone to think I’m coming down with Parkinson’s when they receive a long over due thank you note.

I turned to my never ending to do list… The biggest thing that has been on it the longest is completing my scrapbooks from our African trip. Now I have scrap books from years back that are not done, I am yet to even consider our past two spring break trips, but those were not actually written on the list, they just remain in my list in my brain. I decided to tackle the more than half finished double volume Africa books.

I have one great excuse why they were not finished. My computer was so full of so many photos that it was not working correctly. Russ fixed that by getting me a new computer for Christmas. No more excuses. I opened the I-photo program and tried to walk and decide which of the 8,000 photos to put where. It was clear that I cold not do this job while walking so I flipped a coin and decided that sitting and finishing the books was a better use of my time.

Amazingly it only took me about five hours to place all the photos and them go back and write all the copy. I had Russ proof read them and then very un-editor like I did not reread them, instead just pressed the “Buy Book” button and sent off one South Africa and one Zambia book. Come the middle of January I am sure to carrying around these books to show anyone who wants to look at them.

Back on the treadmill by seven PM I may still be able to get my 20,000 steps in before tomorrow comes. It feels great to get these big things checked off my list. I think I am going to like starting 2015 without much of a hangover. If only I could drop the Christmas weight I gained. I think it will take me the whole month of January and at least half of February to do that.

Beginning the Weaning Process- Salad

December has been a rich food eatapalooza. Now it’s time to pay the piper. Considering that the house is still full of normally forbidden food I need to begin retraining my mouth, brain and stomach back to non-holiday food. Russ and I started out the day with a big walk for Shay Shay. The walk helped get on the right path although I was not ready to go cold turkey back to arugula salad for lunch and dinner. I decided that a good taboubli like salad might be an easy way to wean my mouth from holiday food. I had quinoa that I used instead of bulgur wheat.

1 C. Quinoa

2 c. Vegetable stock

1-pint cherry tomatoes

1 ½ English Cucumber

2 Handfuls fresh Mint

2 Handfuls Cilantro

1/3 c. minced Red Onion

3 cloves of garlic

Zest and juice of 2 lemons

1 T. sherry Vinegar

2 T. Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Put the quinoa and vegetable stock in a saucepan bring to a boil and cover it and cook on simmer for fifteen minutes. Remove from heat and chill in refrigerator.

Cut the tomatoes in half and put in big mixing bowl. Cut the English Cucumbers in half and scoop out the seeds and discard. Then cut each half a cucumber into six strips and chop into ¼ inch pieces. Add the Cucumber to the big bowl.

Remove mint leaves from steps and chop. Add to bowl. Do the same with the cilantro. Add the red onion then finally mince the garlic and add that.

Add the lemon zest and juice, vinegar and olive oil. Add the cooled quinoa. Salt and Pepper to taste.

I hope this is going to help.

It’s Over

I’m shocked there is no cartoon about the sadness of Christmas night. So much build up – awaiting the birth of Jesus. The shopping and wrapping, the cooking and gathering of family from near and far. The sleepless night on Christmas Eve, no matter your age or anticipation of a filled stocking. The over indulgence, making sure you have all the gifts you bought ready to give, ripping open the paper, and then in a blink it’s over. The days of making grocery lists, buying food and cooking, then gobble, gobble it’s gone.

The baby is born, hooray. Now the real work starts. Jesus did not come into the world a grown man, ready to do great things. He came as a baby, needing to be cared for, raised and taught. Yes, the Christmas story has those wise men traveling from far off lands following the star to bring the savior gifts. But really, it took them a few months to get there and until they arrived Mary and Joseph were there with this little mouth to feed and no pampers were in sight. When those kings arrived I’m not sure how much good that gold and frankincense and myrrh really were. What about a jogging stroller?

Even if you got exactly what you were hoping for this Christmas, the excitement of waiting for it is more fun to me than owning it. Now it’s time to find a place for all the new, to put away the sparkle and get back to regular life. Granted the tree and the lights, ornaments, wreaths and bows aren’t coming down tonight, but I look at them as already spent, used and finished with for at least eleven more months.

There is no more excuse to eat the decedent holiday food, although I was quite happy that my father requested pasta and salad. He asked me today as I was serving the Cannelloni how I knew that was secretly what he was hoping for, but did not want to ask me to make since it is such a complicated dish. That was a minor Christmas miracle that I guessed the right food. Unfortunately, my parents got too worn out to wait for the dessert of Apple Pie Cake I made, at least my sisters and Sophie stayed for that treat.

Tomorrow I will start to pay for Christmas naughtiness. That makes me sad to think of all that I ate in the last few weeks and that it is over until next Christmas. No more cookies, or kringle, candy bacon or pasta. Back to clean eating and the discipline of living like a monk.

If I can keep in mind how hard those first few months of taking care of baby Jesus were for Mary I might be inspired to live a clean and restrained life. Perhaps there is a new diet fad in this, the “I’m raising the son of God with no real help” diet.

I hope you had a Merry Christmas with your loved ones around you. I hope that no fighting and bickering have broken out at your house. I hope that the let down of Christmas being over does not make the long dark days feel darker. Mostly I hope you are not alone and have love and joy in your lives. Merry Christmas.

New Traditions, Just Not so Traditional

I’ve written this blog for 960 days in a row. That means this is my third Christmas Eve. I only ever missed posting myself one day, a year ago tomorrow when I was so sick on Christmas that I slept through the whole day, missing all the celebrating. On that day my family posted for me so that I could keep up my streak of posting something everyday.

I am beginning to fear that I am repeating stories, something I am famous for doing in person. Russ has my most repeatable stories numbered by popularity. What that really means is that the low numbered stories are the ones he is most sick of hearing. To ensure I did not write that same thing this year as I did in the last two I went back in the archives and read what I wrote on Christmas Eve’s past.

Both years were poems about cooking and eating decadent holiday meals that we were going to be enjoying with our Christmas Eve dinner friends. Well, I am in no danger of being repetitive since our standard dinner was canceled because our friends were going to be serving a meal at the shelter.

Replacement for that heavy and fattening meal Carter and Russ wanted a new tradition that they started last year on Christmas day when I was sick in bed, Chinese food for Christmas. Since my family is coming for Christmas day dinner and I have been cooking up a storm for that one holiday meal I happily agreed to this new way of celebrating.

Yesterday Russ called the restaurant to ask them if he needed a reservation and was met with the expectable, “Of course you do!” gruff response. Christmas is a big time of year for Chinese restaurants. Despite needing the reservation so badly, he was able to get one right away.

Today I got a Christmas miracle call from our regular Christmas Eve dinner guests. They had made a mistake and were not serving dinner at the shelter tonight, but had to do it yesterday and were now free for dinner. Hooray! Chinese Christmas Eve for us all.

Perhaps this will be our new tradition. No one has to cook. No one even has to eat the same things. We decided that you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Chinese food at Christmas. So God bless us everyone and pass the fortune cookies!

Don’t Send Grand Parents with Little Children Out Shopping Today

It’s official. Thursday as the day that Christmas falls on is the worst possible day. What? You say. It has got to be the best. You get to take a really long weekend after Christmas. No! I say. And here is my reasoning and evidence.

With Christmas on a Thursday, kids get out of school on the Friday before Christmas. That means you have six whole days before Santa comes with kids losing their minds waiting to see if they made it on to the good or the naughty list. With each passing day out of school they are inching further and further off the right list and closer to the switches and coal.

Why would this affect me? I don’t have a little child who is worried about such things. She is not bugging me every fifteen minutes about how much longer it is until Santa comes. Let me continue.

With Christmas on Thursday Grandparents from far off started arriving at their grandchildren’s homes on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday. By today, Tuesday the parents of said grandchildren are losing their minds with so many extra mouths to feed in the house and well-intentioned in-laws to find activities to do with them that don’t cause any fights.

Now that Christmas is two days away the serious cooking of Christmas Eve roast and Christmas Day goose is really ramping up. What do parents with little children and visiting grandparents do to try and get ahead on all this cooking, as well as present wrapping and laundry washing, and mother-in-law pacifying? Send the Grandparents out to the store with all the kids in tow so that the mother can have a few moments of silence since her husband had escaped to work since it is only Tuesday. Again, you wonder why I care about this?

Here is why Thursday is the worst day for Christmas and why it affects me so much. Every food store, from Costco to Fresh Market are filled with very, very old people, dragging very, very young people around stores they are completely unfamiliar with. These familial groups walk five abreast aimlessly up and down aisles of stores they have never been in before looking for ingredients they have never heard of all in the name of some mother finding an excuse to get them out of the house.

These people are already a little sick of each other, though they would never admit that, but you can tell by the way they ignore bad behavior from the littlest child who is throwing a fit in front of the 1000 piece-six foot-long Barbie extravaganza. No peppermint is pulled from a grannies pocket to pacify her little darling. No, just an eye roll and a flick to the hearing aid, turning down the volume just a bit. “Hey Grandma, We all don’t have that hearing aid option.”

It seems like Costco could open early for regular customers so we don’t have to fight those who are just using the store as entertainment. There could be a test at the front door where you would have to identify exactly what part of the store held the Kirkland toilet paper, how many apples came in the Granny Smith Apple ballistic plastic container and how much an executive membership card cost. Only real and true-hard customers could pass the test and be allowed in to shop unaccompanied so as not to block up the aisles with unnecessary onlookers.

Next year with Christmas on Friday is not going to be much better, but maybe Grandparents will have learned that five days before Santa arrives is just too long to spend in their daughter-in-law’s home. It is best to show up on Christmas Eve when everyone is still excited and you will be a novelty to help distract small children from the big event. Or if Grand parents do come to visit, offer to stay home and do the cooking and send the shopping experts out into the world alone.

Christmas Simplification

In my guilt free simplification of Christmas this year I am working on how to not lose my mind while creating a memorable holiday. It started with my giving up on Christmas cards– well, at least on sending cards. I do love getting cards from so many far-flung friends. I love reading Christmas letters that summarize people’s lives into one or two pages. The ones that go more than two are not quite as fun to read; yet I still can’t seem to put them down.

Our friends who we were supposed to have Christmas Eve dinner with canceled when they got noticed that they had signed up to serve dinner at the shelter that night, which they had forgotten. Now I could have volunteered our family to join them, but I work on feeding people all year and really try to take Christmas off from that. I don’t think it is too shellfish to take two weeks off when I spend the other fifty devoted to hunger relief. I’m sure someone could take me to task on that and I would have some choice words for him or her.

When Carter found out the regular Christmas Eve plans were off the first words out of her mouth were, “Could we please have Jewish Christmas and go to a Chinese Restaurant on Christmas Eve?” Since Jesus was a Jew and I knew that this would be Russ’ first choice too I gladly agreed. One less meal for me to cook and that many fewer leftovers in my house to tempt me.

My family is coming on Christmas day to celebrate at our house. Much easier for me not to travel. I called my father this week to see what he was making them for Christmas Eve dinner so I could coordinate my menu not to repeat theirs. “You tell me what you want to have,” my Dad said. “I’ll make something different than you.” Practically before he finished saying those words he added, “I would like you to make pasta and a salad.” So much for me deciding what to make, but so much easier that he made the decision for me. Nothing on earth could be less effort than pasta and a salad and again, something Carter and Russ would vote for.

Normally I go all our on wrapping my presents with a theme for the year. The wrapping is usually all coordinated with Neiman Marcus quality paper, fancy bows that sometimes cost more than the gifts and artist quality homemade gift tags, suitable for framing. I love when you look at the presents surrounding my giant tree you think you have stumbled upon the White House Christmas tree in the Reagan era.

Yesterday I gathered all my gifts and sorted them by recipient to ensure I had exactly what I needed. Then today I cleared off my walking desk of all the mail that has piled up in December and got out the ribbons from the wrapping closet in the garage. While I was doing that I noticed the gift bag drawer was over flowing with bags I had received from friends and family in the last few years. Some were beautiful, others clearly had been reused a couple of times. There were the traditional red and green, but then there were silver and pink and slick Duke blue. None of them matched and some were down right ugly.

What the hell I decided. I grabbed a huge assortment of different sized bags and some off color tissue paper and brought them all in my office where I bagged up all my gifts in less than half the time it took UNC to walk over Ohio State in basketball.

We have no small children who might be tempted to lift up the corner of the tissue and peer inside the bag. I brought all the presents up and put them around the tree and did not bat an eye that nothing matched. I was just happy that it all was done. Only Santa has things left to wrap. This has to be some record in my Christmas house. There will be no staying up late on Christmas Eve tying that last lavish bow that may be appreciated for a second or two. The fancy ribbon will keep until another year when I might care again, or maybe not.