Happy Valentine's Day, Cynics.

It's Valentine's Day!!! Damn straight I'm ready.  Damn straight I'm participating. I have chocolates and gifts for my valentines -- Spousetacular and The Boy.  I found a weather-proof workout jacket for Spousetacular.  He doesn't like to get wet in when he's coaching rugby.  He gets cranky when he gets caught in the rain.  You'd think as an English guy, he'd be used to that.  But no, so I got him a jacket.  A practical gift always appeals to Spousetacular. 

For The Boy, we (Mom and Dad give joint gifts -- this was not what Spousetacular's parents did, but they ended up getting divorced, so, go figure, eh?)  got him a set of docking speakers for his iPod.  He likes to soak in the bath after rugby and listen to music, so there you have it.  A practical gift for him, too.  They're both getting a big red heart full of chocolates from See's (my favorite, so whatever they don't like, I'll eat!).  And of course, mushy cards.

I have to say, this is probably the best Valentine's Day we've had since Spousetacular and I got married.  We've had some rough times.  I almost wrote "not emotionally", but that wouldn't be true.  Every marriage has its ups and downs, ours included.  When I look back at the past 17 years, what I notice is that many of our downs were connected to other stress-inducing events and situations that impacted the emotional connection between Spousetacular and me. Things are good now.  In fact, I think this last move we made has been really good for us.  At first, I was anxious that it wouldn't be, but it's proving to be quite good.  So good, that Valentine's Day is a good opportunity for us to celebrate this particular up cycle.  So, damn straight, we're participating.

A number of my friends have posted messages on "the interweb" as The Boy jokingly calls it.  They're being very cynical about the commercialization of the day, the history and how far the current holiday is from that, and how if your mate is so damn special to you, show it everyday, not just today.  Okay, fine.  I get your point.  It's valid.  We should show that love and commitment daily.  Bur frankly, why not participate in a day devoted to love?  What does hurt to show a little extra effort?  So what if the capitalists have taken hold of the day to make a profit?  How is that different from any other holiday?  Furniture stores have Arbor Day sales for Pete's sake -- how hypocritical is that?  So relax, cynics.  Take a moment, breathe in the love, and smell the chocolate.  It's Valentine's Day.  Happy VD.

With a Spring in my Step...

I got duped by the weather yesterday.  The day was amazing - sunny, in the 70s.  Perfect outdoor weather.  Lady and I spent some time outside, she walked around the yard while I took some photos.  Appears even the tulip bulbs have been duped...

 

 

Quite a few of the bulbs I planted in October are starting to pop up through our lovely Georgia clay.  I'm looking forward to seeing how many of the 100 bulbs I planted survived squirrel foraging.  I noticed several holes had been dug in the general vicinity of my tulip beds, and, the cheeky little rodents with whom we share our home are looking very smug and well fed.  They appear to be getting very comfortable with us, too.  Last weekend, The Boy came rushing out of his room, very dramatically for a 15 year old boy whose usual attitude is Tres Blase'.  Apparently, one of our squirrel tenants was finding it difficult to reach the attic via the normal tree-gutter-roof route and was scratching at his window trying to gain access, about 2 feet from where The Boy was sitting.  Scared the bahgeezus out The Boy.  I wonder if the previous owners of this house fed the squirrels, because usually, squirrels are not that brazen (If I knew was female squirrel at his window, I could call her a "brazen hussy").  We've been told that the former owners had a salt lick in the back yard for the deer and the deer would actually give birth in back yard.  Thinking...maybe not on the salt lick.

 

The tulips and I were not the only ones duped by the lovely weather...

 Here's one of our new Camellia bushes, already in bud. I'm looking forward to seeing these in bloom. I really like Camellias. They're a happy flower. We have some very large, obviously older, ones along the property boundaries, and we missed blooming times last year. I hope they all bloom. There's a nursery in southern Georgia that specializes in Camellias. I may need to make a trip. Oh all right, since you asked: http://www.lochlaurelnursery.com/. But don't go all buy happy on me so that by the time rugby season is over there are no Camellias left for me. Do me a solid, because I'm the one who turned you on to this place.  





This is Tama Americana, and I would like to have
one of these for my yard.  Available through
Loch Laurel Nursery in Valdosta. 
See link.

Today, the weather has reverted to typical Southern Winter:  rainy and coldish.  The kind of day when I would love to bake brownies, and then eat the entire pan while watching the rain fall.  I am watching the rain fall, but not eating brownies.  In fact, I'm trying to stay out of the kitchen today.  First, because I'll be tempted to make brownies, which I'll then be tempted to eat.  Second, because the kitchen needs cleaning.  I'm not in the mood to that.  It's presentable, that's close enough.  And it's cloudy out, you can't really see the dirt. 

 

 

 

 



Better Living through Chemistry

I'm not sure that I could live a totally organic life.  There are too many things I like, even rely on, that are the process of chemical alchemy.  I was thinking about that today, as I colored my hair.  I like having the option of not only hiding those shiny, pastel black threads that increasingly populate my hair, but I also really dig have the option of totally changing my hair color on a whim.  There's a small victory in being able to laugh in the face of genetic programming and say, "No!  Today, I wish to have hair the color of Florence!" if I so choose.  Here she is - Florence Welsh, from Florence + the Machine.  Dig the hair color.

That's one of the upsides to chemistry.  Hair color roulette.  I also enjoy Diet Coke.  Yes, I know, it's filled with substances born of the ghoulish work that goes on in unsanitary underground laboratories, but I like the taste.  I also enjoy the revitalizing effects of caffeine.  Therefore, thank you, mad chemists, for Diet Coke.  Oh, and those of you mad chemists that have made Starbucks possible, I would nominate you for the Nobel Prize for Better Living through Chemistry, if there was one.  (Please, Starbucks, just lower the prices a little.I gotta put The Boy through college! )

I know there are ways that I could eliminate the amount of chemical additives in my life -- I could dye my own yarn using herbs, flowers, and crushed bugs.  Yeah, I know that's possible.  But I don't have that skill.  I have the mad skills to turn yarn into stuff, not turn natural yarn into pretty colors.  I do love me some pretty yarn though.  Here's a favorite.

OH THANK YOU GOOGLE ENGINEERS! So, I accidentally closed this page whist searching for some awesome Madelinetosh yarn illustrations, and I thought (with tragic dejection), "Oh s#!+!  I've lost my blog post."  But no, when I went back to my blog headquarters command page -- there it was!  Autosaved!  More like AWESOME SAVED!  But I digress...

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you Madelinetosh, chemical goddess:

See what I mean?  When one has the opportunity, and good fortune, to turn lovely twisty hanks of sheep fluff into gorgeous, wearable art -- why fight the chemistry behind it?  And at the risk of further digressing, let me show you this picture I found, which needs to appear in physical form in my house:

Seriously?  I'd like to thank the genius who created this because it is gorgeous.  To me, that's art.  Better living though chemistry, right there people, right there.

 

Okay, I know the above "stuff" is really not chemistry without which I could not live.  However, I do have to say that I do embrace chemistry seriously, because without it, I would not be alive right now.  I think that I have mentioned in a previous post that I am a diabetic.  I am of the Type 2 variety, so I know that, technically, it is possible to live with T2D and control it through diet and exercise.  While I am working on getting to that point, I am not there yet.  So for right now, I am not better living, but actually living through chemistry.  That goes for my under-producing thyroid as well.  Every day commences with a kick start of Synthroid, to keep my metabolic processing functional.

 

Funny story:  I tried weaning myself off the Synthroid at one point, when I didn't quite understand what it was doing in my body.  My doctor looked at me, quizzically, very dubiously in fact, and said, "You realize that without thyroid hormones you could be dead within five days?"  Okay, then, back on the Synthroid.  Religiously. 

 

Now back to our blog already in progress:  If you've read my post "Relationship Status:  It's Complicated", then you already know that I have an interesting, complex relationship with food.  Working that out is all part of reducing the amount of medication I have to take for the diabetes.  Which is a goal for me for several reasons, including the cost of the meds right now, and, my fear that the newly christened universal healthcare death panels will one day decide that I am not productive enough to be maintained, and I will be unceremoniously stripped of my access to the diabetes medications, leaving me to languish in a diabetic coma until I die.  For now though, I worship at the altar of chemistry which keeps my pancreas chugging along.  Until tomorrow - cheers (clinking of Diet Coke cans)!

Relatioship Status: It's Complicated

This post is not what you're, most likely, thinking it's about.  After nearly 17 years with Spousetacular, that relationship has settled into a nice steady groove and is definitely not complicated.  Nope, it's not about The Boy, either.  We have our ups and downs, but for the most, he's been a pretty easy kid to raise.  Even this first year of high school is going well, thanks to rugby...for so many reasons.  No, this post is about a longer and more complex relationship than either of those two.  This post is about my relationship...with food.  Ugh. There, I wrote it.  It's out there.  I have a complicated relationship with food.  Always have.

When I was young, I wasn't fat, but I wasn't bloated-belly, third world starving, flies in the eyes, thin either.  I grew up in a large family (I was the last of 5 kids), and the parental units weren't exactly making it rain dollar bills when I was young.  We ate a lot of carbs, primarily because the Mothership could make carbs stretch the budget while keeping the kids, mainly the 3 boys full.  There was pasta, bread, peas, corn, and full-sugar Jell-o.  Tuna fish casserole -- can't really eat it today.  Not because I don't like tuna, I enjoy a good tuna salad.  But not the tuna-cream of mushroom soup-egg noodles combo.  No thanks, I'd rather have flies in my eyes.

Later, as older siblings left the house, more accurately finished college then left the house, Pater made more cash, and the budge freed up, the household diet changed.  The Mothership read Jane Brody's book on nutrition, and suddenly broccoli appeared.  But by then, I think a lot of the damage was already done.  I was already insulin resistant, bordering on overweight, and had gone through puberty early (like before 5th grade early - hmm, hormones in milk?).   When I was in late elementary school, maybe even 6th grade, the Mothership was taking my measurements to make me some clothing.  In all her motherly wisdom, she did this at the top of the stairs between the kitchen and the sunken family room of our suburban split-level.  One of my brothers, in all his most teenage brother sensitivity, heard my mother announce my waist size and said, "I know girls in high school with smaller waists than that!"  Combine that with a childhood nickname of Melon (because it not also rhymed with my name, but reminded me that I was fat in their eyes), and you get why I have a complex relationship with food.

The summer before 8th grade, the parental units took the two remaining siblings, I being one, and traveled to the East Coast.  Awesome trip, actually.  I loved The Breakers.  Loved Boston.  Loved The Cape.  Loved New York and Montreal.  Anyway, (not a digression, I swear!), we were at Filene's Basement when I found it.  The Dress.  It was a Jessica McClintock long cream colored, scoop next dress with puffy gauzy sleeves and a giant ruffle-tier at the bottom.  I immediately knew I had to have this dress.  (It was the early 1980s, give me a break.)  It was also Filene's Basement, which meant that it was deeply discounted, a fact which appealed to the Mothership.  The Mothership approved the dress as an appropriate 8th grade graduation dress.  When I tried it on, the Mothership noted that I could gain an ounce over the next year, or it would not fit. 

So, fast forward through my 8th grade year:  I did not make either the basketball team or the volleyball team (my coordination would not kick in fully until I turned 15), so I wasn't getting a massive amount of exercise (I still don't think I was fat, although my brother's used that idea as a very effective weapon against me).  Well, wouldn't you know it, about 60 days out from graduation, the Mothership hauls out The Dress.  Of course I had gained weight, and now the dress didn't fit.  So The Mothership creates a diet (this was before she read Jane Brody).  I have to lose a pound a week, or I have to eat fruit, just fruit, all fruit, until the pound drops off.

I lost the weight, not easily because I was basically an insulin resistant person carb loading, but I lost it, and I wore the dress to 8th grade graduation.  But man, that diet was a struggle.   It was also the first of many diets I would embark on, probably yearly, from that day on.  Dieting is not easy, psychologically or physically -- in fact, I'm now a diabetic.  My body has been programmed to believe that life is either feast (non-dieting time) or famine (dieting time).  I have been up and down the scale like it's a damn escalator.  Atkins, done it.  South Beach, done it.  Check the boxes beside:  SlimFast plan, Mediterranean diet, Cabbage Soup diet, 17 Day Diet, 30 Day Diet and some diet I don't remember if it had a name, but basically it was roughage and chicken.  I've also been through the whole binge and purge cycle (but it's easier if you take vitamins that make you gag, you can justify that to yourself - I'm not purging, I'm gagging on a vitamin!), laxatives, exercise (got to the point where I taught step aerobics for 20 hours a week, on top of my full time job) and begging my doctor for a lapband (proven to control blood sugar, let's try that with the insurance company). 

Where am I now?  I'm actually fat.  Not a surprise, I guess.  I don't consider myself grotesquely huge, or morbidly obese.  But I am overweight, by all standards, especially the way I feel like I should be.  And I'm not going to give excuses, because at 46, it's my fault if I'm overweight.  I have simply eaten too much of the wrong foods and not burned enough calories, irrespective of the way my body burns off calories or stores fat.  Period.  End of story.  But not end of post...

I've found a food I cannot resist.  That's it above.  Pure Protein bars.  Any flavor.  Although the chocolate and the peanut butter are my favorite.  I need to do some research on how sugar alcohols affect blood sugar, because these bars have 4g of sugar alcohols each.  But I actually really like the taste.  (Okay, yes, they have a laxative effect with excessive consumption, but with my food relationship history, a laxative effect is something I can handle).  The Boy thinks they're disgusting, and Spousetacular isn't really attracted to them either, but that just leaves more for me!  I'm wondering if I could do a Pure Protein bar diet?  I wonder if the Pure Protein people would like to sponsor me?  Maybe that's my dieting upside - I could be a pro.  Hello?  Pure Protein marketing?  I would like to lose 40 pounds using your yummy product.  Whadya say? Huh? Huh?

People Let Me Tell You 'Bout My Best Friend...

This is Lady.  She's my best friend (Spousetacular does not qualify as friend, he's more.  The Boy cannot be a friend - yet.  He's too young).  Lady came to our family when she was 6 months old.  We didn't know beforehand, but we figured out pretty quickly that she had been abused at her first home.  Yeah, I know...we got her at 6 months.  A puppy isn't usually separated from the litter until about 3 months, so in 3 months, someone was a complete bastard to her.  And she was the cutest puppy!  Lady is 12 now.  Just turned 12 in January.  We had a little party for her.  There was cake, and presents, and we sang "Happy Birthday" to her as she sat on Spousetacular's lap.  She loved it, especially the cake and the Busy Bone part.

We need to go back a little way -- to the abuse part.  When we got her, we thought maybe she was just shy.  No, it was more than shy.  She was terrified.  Lady would roll over on her back and wet herself when a man walked in the room.  If someone sneezed, she would run to a dark corner and hide.  If someone raised their voice (didn't have to be angry, just louder than conversation), she'd pee, then run away and hide.  It was heartbreaking.  To this day, she'll still seek out a dark corner if she can.  But we've worked on all these things, because we love her. 

We cured her fear of Spousetacular because we found she was even more terrified of the vacuum.  So, one night, when I needed to vacuum, and Spousetacular was lying on the couch, I plopped her trembling little body on his chest, and he held her, pet her, and whispered sweet nothings in her ear, until she fell asleep.  Cured.  Now she's a big fan of Spousetacular.  The greeting he gets when he comes from work is really cute.  She's a dancing fool for him now.

Sneezes were more difficult.  She's still not really confident when she hears a nasal explosion.  But we try.  We call her over immediately and tell her how brave she is.  She likes that.  Every now and then, she'll start heading over as soon as she hears the sneeze, but not consistently.  Yep, 11 1/2 years and we're still working on that.

We do our best to avoid male dogs.  She's not at a fan of them, though she has stopped wetting herself when she smells one.  In general, other female dogs are fine, if they're on the other side of the fence, and they don't put a wet nose in her ear.  Lady has sensitive ears.  When our other Lab, Duchess, was alive, Duchess took good care of Lady.  Duchess would put herself between Lady and another dog, even if the fence was between them.  At first, Duchess, affectionately called "The Pooh", was not a fan of Lady.  Duchess liked being the only dog.  After a while, Lady grew on Duchess, and Duchess adopted the "she's a pest, but she's my pest, so piss off" attitude.  Duchess was a great and terrible beauty.  Gorgeous, show dog gorgeous, but she absolutely ran the show.  Lady idolized her.

Now, Lady is the alpha dog in the house.  That she is the only dog in the house helps.  She follows me everywhere.  I could have named her Shadow.  She dances when I grab the cars keys, because she loves to ride in the car and usually gets to go with when I go out.  In nice weather, she'll spend all day lying on the different decks and porches around our house, or, out by the mailbox.  She loves The Boy and likes to play "puppies on a blanket" with him, or "Ice Station Zebra" under the blanket. 

I know at 12, we have a handful of years left with her.  I'd like to think that she's happy with us.  She seems it.  So, if you remember the TV show, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, you probably remember the theme song.  I sing that to her, although I've changed the words a little.  She's my one dog, cuddly toy, my up, my down, my pride, my joy.