Daisy v/s Skink: Round 1

This is Daisy. Daisy is pretty much your average Labrador. Loves to play fetch, wants to sit in your lap, sleeps on her back with her legs splayed, and is terrified of dishwashers. So maybe the dishwasher phobia isn't so typical, but I digress. Recently I was giving the kids dinner and I was amused by Daisy out in the yard tearing full tilt around the grill over and over and over and over and over and over. Occasionally she's stop and stick her head under the grill cover only to resume her frenetic racing in circles. Eventually she moved on to do her "I'm looking for something really really hard!" routine around the yard and I went out to investigate. As I came out she refocused her attention on a toy wagon and I noticed a teeny lizard tail sticking out. Yeah, not so much.

What we have here is a full grown male broad-headed skink. The one taking up residence in our yard is easily 7-8 inches long and they can reach lengths of up to a foot. This is what we see when we look at it. I'm pretty sure Daisy sees something more like this.

The kids soon joined me and what ensued involved lots of shrill screaming from Emma, Aiden giving chase, and the skink bolted across the yard all the while avoiding everyone and scampered up the tree. (Who knew they could do that??) While what we saw was pretty much a goofy dog running around looking earnestly for a largish lizard I'm pretty sure how Daisy saw herself was more like this:

Now she and the skink are caught in some sort of twisted cat and mouse game. Daisy is constantly looking for it when she goes outside and I'm pretty sure every now and then it shows it's face and throws insults at her to keep her interested in their epic struggle. I'll let you know how it turns out...

Misc Pictures

Radishes from our garden! Lots of things have buds but this is our first harvest.

They're super peppery but GOOD!

Hunting Easter Eggs!

Breakfast!

Best. Honey. EVER.

Weekly Weigh In 4/23/11 and Green Smoothies

The past couple of weeks we've had grandparents visiting, multiple appointments with multiple doctors, and just a touch of the gloomies. I've been fighting almost constant tiredness and it's hard to know if it's a side effect of the Zoloft or that I'm singled handedly parenting three kids under the age of six at the moment. As of tomorrow I'll be switched over to taking my meds at night to see if that helps. Every now and then I've felt like I had good thoughts but by the time I have a chance to get to the computer to share them with all my devoted fans I'm wiped out or I've forgotten them completely.

Dad and Mom were here for Easter so we got to weigh in and he's at 9 lbs lost!!! I'm so proud of him! I lost another 2 lbs for a total of 8 so far for the competition (17 overall!!). This week I'm gonna have to get going again working out to see if I can take the edge and kick his ass!

I'm almost done with my 14 day Green Smoothie Challenge. I feel awesome and I really look forward to my two green smoothies a day. I have one first thing and then again mid afternoon. It is really helping to control my appetite and my cravings for junk food, sweets, fast food, etc... are GONE. To help control the cost and also to keep it super quick and easy I'm using pre-cut fruit, washed organic spinach and or mixed baby greens, and water. Sometimes I include a frozen banana to add a bit of creaminess to the texture. A couple of the smoothies I've made have been fairly awful in color, berries and spinach lead a concoction that looks just like thick black mud, the taste isn't that bad though. My favorite combination is banana, mixed fruit or strawberries, and spinach. Next time I'm at Sams I want to load up on mangoes and freeze them to have on hand. Below are my smoothie ingredients, YUM!

Here they are all ready in the blender, have I mentioned that I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Vitamix?

Away we go! It's so much fun to watch this machine totally transform these ingredients in 35-45 seconds. Ta-da! A quart of yummy goodness!

I've only done smoothies so far but this thing can make soup, juice, sauces, salad dressing, bread dough, peanut butter, almond milk, mixed drinks, and of course, ICE CREAM in about 15 seconds. Aiden can't wait for me to try that one!

Hopefully this week I'll get back to feeling more like myself and I'll post more often and regale you with funny anecdotes about the kids and dog. I may even post a few more pictures tonight, I don't feel like trying to reformat this entire post though to add them.

He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

Jesus said to her, "Mary."

John 20: 15-17

Weekly Weigh In 4/16/11 and Other Misc. News

This week has been busy but good, my mother-in-law was here for a few days and I got to take TWO naps! I also go to get lunch with one of my closest friends and I had the pleasure of introducing her to sushi. It agreed with her and we're hoping to make it a regular thing.

Part of my eating plan has been to have a fruit smoothie in the mornings with a scoop of protein powder in it for breakfast. The blender I had was one I'd gotten almost 8 years ago at the exchange for about $20. All things considered it's gotten the job done and been a good blender with the daily use though it started to make weird sounds and would speed up and slow down on whenever it felt like it when in use. After some research and talking to a couple of friends I decided to get a Vitamix. Among this blender's claims to fame is that you can make ice cream in it in about 15 seconds. While I was doing my research I started reading up on green drinks and I'm now on day 3 of a green smoothie challenge. Each day I'm drinking 2 quarts of green smoothies. They are various combinations of water, fruit and greens like spinach or lettuce. For the most part I've been pleasantly surprised that they're not nasty. I am figuring out what method is easiest for me in my crazy life and actually enjoying drinking huge quantities of spinach, lettuce, and kale each day. This lovely machine is what makes it all possible. :)

This past week I took off from the Couch to 5 K training because I'd aggravated my knee and was giving it a break. I plan on resuming starting back with week one on Monday and seeing how it goes. Even with taking a break I weighed in this morning (I've changed my weigh in day to Saturday) and I've lost 3 more pounds! That's a total of 15 lbs in four weeks! So I'm down to 221. I'm hoping all the green drinks help these next 22 lbs melt off so I can get under the 200 mark! In the competition with Dad we're now tied again at 6 lbs each, we'll see who takes the edge this coming week!

Other things of note this week include Madaline getting 2 more teeth for grand total thus far of 7 chompers. She's enjoying the great wide world of baby food and is loving yogurt, carrots, and mixtures of applesauce and carrots and the current favorite of beets and carrots. I just have to strip her down to her diaper when she eats it to avoid bright pink stains on all her clothes.

The farmer's market was fun this week. We got some grass fed beef, tomatoes, yellow squash, honey, bread, orange juice, salad, fresh mozzarella and we were bummed that the guy who sells eggs was out. Apparently they got dropped, literally, he's saving me some next week though.

Emma has transitioned from her tricycle to Aiden's old bike with training wheels and Aiden is reading like crazy. Not just little sight word books but EVERYTHING he sees he's reading. It's amazing and exciting to watch. He will now come up to me and throw facts at me that he's getting out of his school books on his own. Last night he was explaining how when undersea volcanoes erupt the magma cools making new rock and that's what pushes the old rock up to make undersea mountains or when they're big enough, islands.

On Tuesday I had a cleaning service come and clean the house so it's been wonderful having a nice clean house this week with everything in order. It's so much easier to maintain when it's all clean all at once.

The big bummer of the week, last year we got swarmed with thousands of caterpillars/tent worms creeping out of the woods and all over the house. They're back, and they're gross. I hope they don't eat my garden.

Gonna go drink some kale now....

Farmer's Market

After being here for a year the kids and I took off this morning and headed to the Fernandina Beach Farmer's Market for the first time. We used to love the weekly market on Coronado and in the spirit of improving my/our diet decided to see what they had to offer. The market is pretty small but what they had was AMAZING! The produce was beautiful and I got some beets, green onions, zucchini and strawberries. I was completely taken in by all the gourmet food available. I can't wait to try the homemade pasta with olive tapenade. The honey is Key Lime honey and is fantastic. It would be a crime to put it with peanut butter, much better eaten by the spoonful. I was also excited to get fresh pastured eggs, homemade marinara sauce, cheeses, and artichoke salad. YUMMY!!!

Slaying The Laundry Monster

I hate doing laundry, not the washing so much but folding laundry is my nemesis chore. I appreciate clean folded clothes that are organized but actually getting them to that point is another beast entirely. Meet Laundry Monster, he's been living in our "dining" room for probably 6 weeks. He has varied in size as we wear and wash clothes just dumping them back on him to grow and morph into this mess you see. Not only was all this laundry set to be folded I also needed to sort through all the kids clothes that they've outgrown and finally ditch all my maternity clothes. I sorted out three BIG bags of stuff to give away! I also needed a plan and thanks to the Fly Lady came up with a plan for my laundry room and how to approach the laundry in a totally different way. Things will get folded right out of the dryer, the kids have their own baskets, and I'm going to hang up everything that can be hung up. It'll be quicker and it will keep the clothes from getting the wrinkled spent weeks in a basket look. It took probably 4 solid hours of work to go through my closet and deal with this pile and the laundry room but I'm done! Still a few things to hang up but what a good feeling to have a plan!

This is the laundry room before. I can't imagine why I didn't want to spend any time in there...

Work in progress. Notice the how the monster is no longer visible...

Laundry room after. Yes, that is now my laundry angel on the wall.

And the monster is VANQUISHED!!! (Please ignore the scattering of toys. I was conquering laundry not the toy monster.....)

Weekly Weigh In 4/8/11

Blah.

That's my word to sum up this past week. I felt "blah" in pretty much every area of my life this week. I was a blah parent and wife and I just felt blah about myself. On Tuesday I did my workout and decided it'd be a great idea to push myself a little bit and the result was on Thursday when I did my Couch to 5 K training I had a good bit of knee pain. It's isolated to the front of my right knee and only hurts when I try to run on it and go downstairs. Any advice from my physical therapist friends??? I'm hoping I just did more than I should have with so much weight to still lose and that taking a break from the running until Monday will make it all better.

I did my weigh in yesterday and I'm down another pound for a grand total of 12 lbs in 3 weeks! Again, not what I was hoping for but it's a healthy pace. Dad lost 3 lbs so he's ahead now by 2 lbs. Gotta step up my game. (Excuse me for a moment, my 2 year old just walked out the door.) Things I plan to implement this week: Working out first thing, before breakfast and coffee. Solidifying my resistance training plan. Using my new Vitamix blender for even better smoothies and adding green drinks to my diet plan.

Actually have a good bit going on this weekend and week. This weekend we need to finish getting toys organized and put away and I need to slay the laundry monster. I hired a cleaning service to come on Tuesday, I broke down and admitted I can't do it all alone. I CAN'T wait! The laundry is sure to be an epic battle and I will post before and after pictures. We're also looking forward to my mother-in-law coming for a visit on Tuesday, I got lucky when it comes to in-laws and we have a great relationship. It'll be great to have some company while the hubs is gone. Emma has a plethora of appointments coming up too. Urology on Monday, dermatologist again on Thursday, orthopedic next Monday and both kids finally have their first dental appointments on the 28th. My parents are coming for Easter and somewhere in there I'm hoping to see my awesome friend Tracy if she can make it down here! So actually this month should pass pretty quickly and this summer should be awesome with my older brother and his family being here from Hawaii for quite a bit of it.

Time to get ready to go check out a local farmers market, I just need to drag Aiden away from the epic nerf battle he's been having for the last 3 hours.

In Case You Were Wondering

Powdered milk is NOT just a good as half and half in coffee.

This has been one of those weeks that I'd just like to get through and then forget it and move on. On Monday I forgot to text the husband to get milk on his way home so yesterday I was completely without milk in the morning. Fortunately for the kids I have a stash of powdered milk and mixed some up for the kids and all was well, until I made my second cup of coffee. My logic was something like this "Powdered milk must be JUST LIKE powdered creamer, while not awesome, it'll get the job done." So I scooped three big scoops of it in my coffee and was somewhat appalled at how little it changed the color so I poured some of the mixed up milk in my coffee. Satisfied that I had remedied the no half and half issue I sat down and took a swig. Yeah, not so much, it was absolutely undrinkable.

So what, bad coffee? Not a big deal, I just made up for it with an iced coffee from Starbucks on my way home from Sams Club with the kiddos. It's that it was one of what seems like a million things since then that has felt impossible and difficult and overwhelming. This week has felt like I've been running on a hamster wheel and there isn't any way to jump off. After getting dressed this morning and changing Madaline I picked her up and she proceeded to spit up ALL OVER both of us, I did the only reasonable thing and started crying. Not because I don't like getting spit up on me but because I just wanted to not feel like something as simple as getting dressed was rendered futile in the space of 11 seconds. The rest of the day didn't really go much better. Aiden took a rock to the head (not by his sister this time) and ended up with a minor flesh wound, the kids decided to go all kinds of Ultimate Fighter on each other, I cleaned up pee at least 4 times and I'm tired, tired down to my bones. Not so much tired from working out but tired from doing what I do all day every day and from the cycle of looking forward to a break only to have said break not happen. I know that staying home, homeschooling, having three kids, being a Navy wife, all these things are things I've chosen and I get that, but right now, I'm wallowing in self pity, just a little.

I am only one, but still I am one.

I cannot do everything, but still I can do something;

And because I cannot do everything

I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

~Helen Keller

Why yes...

...as a matter of fact that IS jam on my back.

Things are always a little crazy here and before I knew it we had finished reading about Laura Ingalls and how to make head cheese and it was time for lunch. With Madaline hollering in the monitor I quickly determined we were down to peanut butter and honey sandwiches as a quick meal option. Fortunately we had precisely 6 slices of bread left and I slapped our sandwiches together in record time, honey for the kiddos and homemade jam on mine. Before I ran upstairs to get Madaline I set my plate on a box that was on the back of the couch to keep it away from the dog. In retrospect, it wasn't the best location. In the length of time it took me to get the baby and referee an argument between the other 2 offspring I'd pretty much forgotten about the sandwich, as I sat down on the couch I remembered. With the baby in one arm and my foot tucked under me I had far more momentum then I was capable of stopping without dropping my infant on her head. As the plate slid off the box and the sandwich slid off the plate I somehow managed to reach behind me with my right hand and grabbed the sandwich before I actually sat on it. It did however leave a trail of jam down the couch and all over my back. At least it smells better than spit-up...

The Wagon and How to Fall Off

Okay, so TECHNICALLY I didn't fall off the wagon. I give myself an "off" day each week to eat as I please. Wanna know what happens when you drink a bunch of wine and eat fried seafood after being super strict for two weeks? You feel like crap. I didn't sleep well, I had a headache, I felt slow and puffy, and boy did I ever have to guzzle Diet Coke to get myself going. I think my next day "off" will consist of shrimp salad on a croissant again, that agreed with me a lot more than all the fried stuff.

Other than my epic fall on my free day I had a good week. I completed all my training runs and I was feeling great. I actually started to feel thinner even if I still looked like an Easter egg in some pictures from this weekend. We went on a walk on the beach and I actually played tag with my kids, two weeks ago I would have told them that I don't run. It was great to have Daniel around for a couple of days before he's gone again for awhile and we enjoyed lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Ted's Montana Grill.

At the end of our first week of weight loss competition Dad and I tied with a weight loss of 2 pounds each. Gotta kick it up a notch this week and I'll really be hitting it hard this month, gotta be looking good for the hubby when he's back around!

At lunch on Saturday Emma cracked me up with a conversation that went something like this:

"I don't like that big doat." (goat)

"What goat?"

"THAT doat!" (points to a bison head mounted on the wall)

"OH, honey that's not a goat. That's a bison."

"A bison?"

"Yes, a bison."

"It ran into the wall?"

"Sort of."

"They chopped off it's head?"

"Yes."

"Oh, okay. I just don't like that doat."

Gotta love talking in circles...

Weekly Weigh In 4/1/11

Dear Week Two,

I don't like you very much.

Respectfully,

Joy

I worked really hard this week and I feel like I should have more to show for it, BUT I know that what I did accomplish was good, it was reasonable and it was right on track for my ultimate goal.

That being said, this weeks weight loss is:

Two Pounds!!!

Over the last 2 weeks I have lost 11 lbs. I know the second week is tough so I'm hoping for another bigger number next week. I did really well with the cardio this week, need to come up with a strength training routine.

No real creative weight comparisons this week but here are a couple:

Two packages of butter.

Large jar of peanut butter.

Gotta get the hooligans to the zoo!