Fashion Funk

I will freely admit that I have no idea what is going on when it comes to fashion. Sometimes I feel like I'm riding the wave along with everyone else, and then I see someone in high-waisted denim cutoffs with a plaid shirt tied about their waist and I find myself exclaiming "What the hell year is this?!"

I can't, for the life of me, figure out why the 90's fashion came back. From the sloppy flannel shirts to the combat boots, the circle sunglasses to the dark purple lips. Why the fuck did that come back to haunt us? I thought the unshowered grunge days were over, but apparently I'm wrong. 

I have found that lately, with my (sadly)increased size - shut up, I'll work on losing this baby weight next month! - I have no direction when it comes to fashion. I've recently taken up decluttering my wardrobe because I have a closet and dresser and a huge plastic bin FULL of clothes, yet I find I am saying "I have nothing to wear". It doesn't help that I just plain don't want to put on some of my clothes for fear that I'll look like a potato in it. I've fallen into the mom habit of leggings and a t-shirt, with skechers slip ons for shoes. Or runners because my arches don't much care for the Skechers. 

So I'm looking at the very few sites I can shop from, and I'm completely spacing out on what clothes I could actually wear. I know for a fact that I don't need dress pants until I'm looking at jobs again, but on the other hand should I not have some in my closet for when I need to "dress up"? And what about casual pants? I've got leggings and one pair of yoga pants, and then pajama pants. I recently sold all of my jeans because I know that I feel like a frump when I wear them... but what am I going to wear outside now that it's colder? Why can there not be casual pants that aren't jeans and aren't leggings but are as comfortable as leggings but have the leg shape - read: bootcut or straight fit - of jeans? And if any of you chime in and say jeggings, I will be forced to come through the internet and punch you in the throat. I know that Old Navy sells plus-sized khakis... but would I look like an absolute idiot showing up to a casual friend gathering in khakis and a sweater? I can hear the comments now... "Oh, look who dressed up to come out" and "What, you off to church?"

Ugh. 

I promised my best friend that when I was on mat leave, I wouldn't fall into the mom-clothes trap. That I'd put in some effort and wear more than just yoga pants and a food-stained t-shirt. I have failed thus far. 

But I just don't know what my fashion is anymore! With nowhere to be specifically (like work), I feel like any effort is kind of wasted while I am at home with the kids. Why wear an uncomfortable bra - that's a whole other post - and jeans and a blouse when I'm just going to be chasing after kids and sitting on my ass? Why wouldn't I try to be as comfortable as possible?

And therein lies the rut, I think. Comfort. I just need to find comfortable clothes that don't look like I gave up on life. Unfortunately, that costs money. Money that we don't have. Yes, I've been clearing out my clothing left right and centre... but I'm cutting the cost on that because I want it out of my house more than anything. I'm selling shirts that I've only worn a handful of times for a fraction of what I paid, simply because I want it gone. 

When it comes to doing my hair, I laugh at that concept. Spending the hour it would take to blow dry & straighten is absolutely pointless unless I'm headed out for the night. And even then, I'm more likely to just toss it into a bun and say to hell with it. I've been growing it out for nearly 2 years and it still isn't quite long enough. 

Makeup, again, is another thing I laugh at. Which is fortunate because my Sephora spending was getting out of control when I was at work. Thankfully I have a fully stocked makeup drawer, I'll just need to replace a couple items within the next couple months - mascara, concealer, and powder. Everything else will be just fine, and I do use it on occasion when I have to run out for all of Mr. M's appointments. 

But let's get back to clothes. Help a sister out, how can I style this frump of a dump of a body? Especially just for the time being until I lose weight again and start feeling better about myself? 

IT'S ALIVE

Why yes, that title DID require all caps. I needed you to feel the sauciness flowing through my fingertips right into your eyeballs.

I dropped off the face of the earth for a bit there. Yes, admittedly, I was paying more attention to the younger blog and writing stuff there. But I needed to keep things separate for the time being - by things I obviously mean my mental state - just until I could keep a better handle on it. I'll probably merge blogs at some point because honestly, nobody reads this one so why would I have two blogs that nobody reads? Because of reasons that's why.

I like to be full of empty promises, but the ones I love the most are the promises I continually make and never keep. Such as this gem: I promise I'll update more in the future. As it's currently after 10pm and I'm going to be solo parenting again tomorrow (as Tyler goes to work because his company is garbage), I should really be getting to bed so I'm not a complete Mombie in the morning.

Tomorrow I will attempt a better update when the kids are sleeping.

Cue maniacal laughter at that idea.

Introducing...

The newest addition has arrived. Okay, he arrived (yes, HE) on April 7th but I don't know if you all realize this... babies are a huge time suck.

It has taken me a solid week to try to write his birth story and all of the hullabaloo that has followed, but I find it difficult to do so. It's not that it was a traumatic birth experience or anything, I'm just having difficulty getting the thoughts out.

I'm going to refer you to my new blog where I've begun writing about the troubles I've had since his birth, mentally. That's right, folks. This well-adjusted and normal human being is dealing with some serious post-partum depression and I feel like deep down, writing about it will help.

I'll keep this blog for recipes and stuff, and the other one will deal with the mental side of me.

Thanks, ya'll!

Shh, My Hormones Are Calling

Sometimes, being in a group of hormonal (read: pregnant and/or trying to be pregnant and/or done with kids but have a 3-year-old like I do who JUST WON'T LISTEN) women is just too much.

Or maybe it's all the time.

I'm having a hard time dealing with the repeat posts, the stupid questions, and the sheer idiocy of some of the women I deal with in my online groups. I know that's kind of a stupid thing to say, seeing as I said "Online groups" and everybody knows that the Internet is full of idiots. May as well call the thing Idiotnet and call it a day.

Please don't call it that. Or if you do, I do NOT want credit.

Anyway, I'm a snarky SOB. It's pretty much a given, especially if you've read any of my previous posts (wait, there are a total of 5 people who read this blog so it's pretty much assumed that they/you have read at least one prior post). It is EXTREMELY difficult to a) hold in the snark and/or b) convey the snark appropriately so as to not piss off these extremely delicate flowers. I already rocked the boat in one group by sharing some screen shots with a friend who left regarding what was being said about her after leaving. I owned up to it AND I told off some of the people for being bitches about it. Yes yes, anonymity is a great thing. But that doesn't mean that you have to be downright mean.

I know what you're thinking: hypocrite much?

And the answer is yes, I am a hypocrite. It doesn't make me any better to admit that willingly, except somehow my subconscious DOES think I am better because I own up to it. Stupid subconscious. What I mean is, I have made some good friends from both groups I belong to - the one from my daughter, and the one from this mystery spawn - and fortunately enough for me, they're just the right amount of bitchy/snarky/friendly/awesome that I am.

As I get older - and shut it with the remarks that 29 isn't "old" because I'll be 30 this year - I've realised that I really don't want to keep people in my life that I have literally nothing in common with. This becomes harder because there are people you WANT to keep in your life, but maybe they're feeling the same way - that there just isn't a common denominator anymore. Even if that common denominator used to be how much beer you could drink in one sitting or that your kids are the same age, you just can't force the issue. I would love to reconnect with some people and gave it a solid effort. But when the effort is one sided, it really isn't any fun.

This is why I have so many online friendships. Yes, they all come from different walks of life, but we all met for the same purpose - we were having kids around the same time and we know how to use the internet. My best friend is based out of Ontario, and we've yet to meet face to face because Canada is ginormous and it's incredibly expensive to travel anywhere unless you want it to take a week. Trust me on this one. Yes, I've got close friends in my general area that I DO see face to face, but it's not the same. But it's really been bumming me out lately because we haven't been talking as much as we used to. She's been dealt a shit hand within the last year, and where I say that I'm always here for her, it's a totally different dynamic to be literally over here for her versus right there in front of her. If I lived closer, I could have helped more or been more of a confidant. Instead, I'm the texting friend whose phone is always on but really would only be responding for about 16 hours a day.

I miss face to face interactions, but at the same time I don't. I like being able to sit on the toilet and have a conversation with someone without it being weird and/or them knowing that I'm sitting on the toilet while having the conversation (although, to be fair, I did sit on the toilet during a phone conversation with a good friend recently, but that was only because it was late at night and she was delivering bad news and i really had to pee. Lame excuse, but she didn't care). I like knowing that it could be 3am and I just need to let out a huge spurt of emotion and i can just text or email or message them, and they'll respond when they're willing/able. Most of all, I like that they know me for my personality first. It's the same thing with online dating, to an extent. I liked to have a lot of conversations before meeting face to face because I knew, every time, that there would be that moment of disappointment when they would see what I actually looked like. So I wanted to build up the fact that I am intelligent and funny first, and hoped that would tide me over in the looks department (thanks, brain, for almost writing "looks apartment"). It didn't always work, but hey that's how I met my husband so ... yeah.

Back to the bitchy idiotic women.

Not all of them are. It's not like I see flaws in each and every single person in my groups. But there are like... cliques of them. They're similar enough that I'm grouping them together in my head and labeling them because apparently that's just a thing that I do now. There are the ones who constantly need to be right; the ones that are always going into labour; the ones that are the 'been there done that' mentality and reeeeeally in your face about it; the ones who have no censor and/or no fucks left to give; the ones who are really clueless about everything and you kind of wonder how they got pregnant in the first place. A mixture of all of that. And to deal with it on a daily basis is kind of exhausting, but I love the drama of it. Plus I have fodder for chatting with friends later or telling my husband certain things. He doesn't care about any of it, and doesn't really let me tell him things that often, so I make sure to save the good things for him.

10 Ways How a Toddler is like a Bro

There have been a lot of these lists going around, and they're all true. But mine is more true (because I said so and I'm pregnant and do you really want to argue with a pregnant woman in her third trimester?!) because I'm living it ... IN A HOTEL.

1. They spill things. EVERYWHERE.
I honestly don't know how toddlers are so inept. Miss O likes to spill things like juice riiiiiiight beside the laptop as she watches Paw Patrol for the millionth time (so mommy can watch Food Network on TV) but then not tell me until I come over to clean up and notice that there is a little splotch of dried up OJ roughly millimetres away from the HDMI-in plug.

2. They eat things off the floor. 
There's no 5-second rule in this house - erm, hotel. There's a "Miss O noticed it on the floor so she's going to eat it" rule. On one hand, I'm okay with it because she's building immunities with all the floor germs she's eating AND this hotel is relatively new so there's logically not as many gross germs on there. On the other hand, GROSS HOTEL FLOOR. Last night she dropped some popcorn on the floor (see the above point) and then she hopped down from her chair and proceeded to eat it off the floor. Literally. As in, she acted like a puppy dog and had her mouth almost suctioned to the hotel carpet like one of those scum suckers you see in a fish tank. And like the winning mother I am, I ignored it and asked if the popcorn was good.

3. They're loud.
The concept of "inside voice" is completely lost on a 2 year old. Her whispers sound like the normal level that I talk at, and her normal level of talking is that of a screaming banshee. When we're at home, I could care less about how loud she is because our windows are closed and you can't really hear anything between the shared walls (unless you're our douchebag former neighbours who blast their music/TV so loud the glasses shake in the cabinet). Plus, it seems like she just wasn't as loud. At the hotel, however, it's like we're stuck in an eternal tunnel and everything echoes. She was coming back from breakfast this morning with my husband and I could hear her from down the hallway, laughing and screaming joyfully as she ran to our door. Sorry, hotel neighbours. My kid has no volume control.

4. They watch shitty TV shows.
Bros watch shit like reality TV or NASCAR or whatever. Toddlers watch shit like Caillou and Dora. OH MY FUCKING LORD do I hate Caillou. It is not allowed on in our house (or hotel) even though it's on Netflix. We went through phases of Super Why!, Bubble Guppies, and now it's Paw Patrol. I get why they're liked by kids... they're easy to watch, there's catchy music, and the characters are roughly the same size as a toddler. But fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck I don't know how much more I can take.

5. They wipe their mouth/nose/hand on whatever is handy.
Miss O likes to use her own clothes. If she gets food on her finger, rather than licking it off or wiping it on a cloth nearby, she'll just wipe it on her shirt and then alert me RIGHT AWAY that there's something on her shirt that needs to be cleaned off before she can continue eating. She's come up to me after I've gotten dressed and ready for work, and wiped her face on my shirt for no reason. And I was equally running late and too lazy to change my shirt, so I went to work with peanut butter smeared on it #likeaboss

6. They're both picky and not picky at the same time. 
Bros will pretend to be pretentious sometimes and require that their steak be ONLY prime rib, but then they'll eat a hot dog from a random cart by the bar and proclaim it's the best thing they've ever eaten. Toddlers are the same way. Miss O will have moments of not wanting to eat anything that we put in front of her, even if it's something we know that she's loved before, but then we plop a peanut butter sandwich in front of her and it's like it was covered in gold. She's even gone so far as to proclaim things as " so 'licious" which is both adorable and baffling.

7. They're okay to sit in dirty undergarments.
Okay. So this one might have a bit to do with parents slacking on diaper changes - for toddlers. Bros can just be lazy. After picking up Miss O from daycare, there are a lot of times that we just don't think to check her diaper or change it before bedtime comes some 5 hours later. Then we go to change it and it's like oh man.... that is one full diaper. With bros, there's no way I'm touching their undergarments wearing a hazmat suit.

8. They can nap at any time. 
This does change throughout the years, but Miss O can take a nap in the afternoon pretty much anywhere. She fell asleep at my parent's house on the couch and it was darn near impossible to wake her up, even though she decided 5pm was the good time to sleep. When she was smaller, she would take more naps pretty much whenever she felt it necessary, even if we had shit to do. Come to think of it, this point applies to my husband as well. That guy can fall asleep at any time and it drives me absolutely bonkers. Further to this, they talk in their sleep. I would have made this a point all on it's own, but... oh well.

9. Their mood can flip from amiable to angry in an instant.
Sure, with bros, their moods flip based on alcohol consumption. Toddler's change based on a number of things. It could be hungry, thirsty, bored, full diaper, you're not paying enough attention to them... the list goes on. Miss O will go from playful to shouting at me in the matter of minutes if I decide that I've had enough of her jumping all over me and ask her to stop. Seriously though, toddlers have pointy elbows and knees and when you combine that with a pregnant baby belly, it gets dangerous. But she doesn't care about that, all she cares about is playing.

10. They're adorable at the weirdest times. 
Sometimes, you just can't help hugging a bro. Their lost, absent look sometimes just strikes a chord and makes you go "awwww". I have that moment with my toddler, but usually it's when she's being nice. Such as sitting nicely and watching her shows quietly. That makes me want to just smoosh her with hugs. But then she tries to get away and we start the cycle of number 9 all over again.

Even though most of you knew that toddlers and bros were alike, you try dealing with all of the above in the confines of a small hotel room and then get back to me. Maybe a bro would actually help do the fucking dishes once in awhile...

I Done a Thing

Further to the whiny post where I claimed I was super boring (truth), I was commissioned by Message With a Bottle to write an article. He suggested I do one about gestational diabetes, as my previous posts in here have whined about it enough. 

View my entry here. 

I was so excited. And so proud. And goddamn scared because where, sure, blogging is public to an extent (I've selected to have this blog unsearchable but still public) this was a site with a lot of views. And a lot of people expecting funny things. I think I'm funny, but would random people on the internet? 

On the note of GD, I checked in with my dietician today and I think I'm going to be okay without insulin for the time being. But I managed to come across the spreadsheet I used last time to keep track of my sugars... and sweet baby Jesus, I'm about 90% sure I needed insulin last time but the dietician I was dealing with last time decided that I didn't need to or something. Like, all of my numbers were high. I had more high numbers than I did numbers under the recommended amounts. This time around, I've only had a couple overages and they're explainable by "I just didn't care what I was eating". Yes, I'm that person right now. 

Morning Sickness and Other Stories

If there is one phrase synonymous with pregnancy, it's "morning sickness". Everyone just assumes that once you become pregnant, you're going to be bed-ridden with the ante-meridian sickies but that you'll be totally fine once you pass the hump of the first trimester.

These "people" are either
a) men;
b) women who have never been pregnant;
c) women who somehow got amnesia after being pregnant before; or
d) the magical unicorns of pregnancy who just float by without any fucking symptoms and are adorable their entire pregnancy.

Morning sickness, as it is so called, is actually the biggest load of crap you'll deal with in pregnancy. And yes, I can actually say that with utmost certainty because a high percentage of women will deal with more puke coming out of them than poop. #constipation

It doesn't just last in the morning. It doesn't just last in the first trimester. It's not always just a case of feeling a little "off" and that you need some water or to lie to down. Or that crackers or dry toast or gingerale will help alleviate it. For some women, including a couple friends of mine and the Duchess of Cambridge, get it so bad that they literally have to be hospitalized. And this is how they feel the ENTIRE pregnancy.

With my first child, I was somewhat of a magical unicorn. I only had mild nausea in the first trimester, and it was always at night/suppertime. I wasn't working at the time so I was able to just lie down and take a nap whenever my body said it wanted to. And my husband didn't really care if he got home and I was comatose on the couch and he had to fend for himself for supper. This time around? I had to delve into the world of prescription anti-nausea pills (Diclectin) at roughly 10 weeks pregnant and here I am, 22 weeks later, and I'm still taking them daily. I work, I have a toddler to take care of, my husband is out of town working, and I'm dealing with all of this house re-building bullshit. My body is also 4 years older than it was when pregnant with my first, and it's like "HAHAHA FUCK YOU BITCH WHY DID YOU WANT TO DO THIS AGAIN" as I lie on the couch praying I don't lose whatever I just attempted to eat.

I told my workplace early - as in I was only like 8 weeks pregnant - because I came to work one morning with a box of junior mints, a coke slurpee, and gummy candies. At 830 in the morning. And they kind of stared at me like I was crazy. So, the cat was out of the bag and I just didn't care that they knew. If anything were to have happened, I would at least have a good explanation as to why I was moping around.

But all of that has absolutely nothing to do with why I'm writing today.

This post goes out to all of the women who willingly choose to keep going with the baby farming despite how shitty they feel.

I get it. Kids are pretty awesome, especially when you can grow them yourself. Some women (or men, for that matter) want a million kids to overpopulate the world with (shit, I sound bitter)so they just keep on doing "what God wants and allows them to do". I'm about 900% sure that God has nothing to do with you choosing to use your baby bucket so often that the kid is lucky it doesn't just fall out.

I am certainly and definitely grateful that I am able to create and carry life. But I also know that if I felt exponentially shittier this pregnancy compared to my last, that I am done with utilizing my baby bucket. I know women who have what seems like a million kids (enough to fill a Hutterite van at least) who feel like hot salty garbage every pregnancy... AND THEY KEEP GOING. Why. Why do they continue to do this to themselves? And further, why do they continue to complain about how shitty they feel?

"Ugggh. Morning sickness is so bad! How did I forget this from last time?" they moan, when their previous child is less than a year old. Sometimes I just want to tell them to shut the hell up, they did it to themselves.

But I much prefer being passive-aggressive and writing a blog post about them.

OMG Like So Boring

One of my favourite blogs... okay, that's actually factually inaccurate because it started as a FB feed, then delved into Tumblr and Instagram, THEN blogging... A Message With a Bottle put out a call over the weekend for contributors, as his life and site were getting way too busy. The guy also writes articles, has a couple books such as Thank You for Not Laughing, The New Dad Dictionary, and these two winners about being an asshole and getting away with it. 

I started following him - in the social media sense, not a literal stalking sense - when I had just had my daughter and a friend had posted some of his hilarious post-it notes on Facebook. It was kind of an epiphany, to me, that I had the same thoughts that others did when it came to the odd situations you find yourself in as a parent... not to mention a father. Where that seems a bit sexist on my part, which I freely admit it is, when you are the stay-at-home parent and your significant other goes off to work every day, you kind of fall back into sexist stereotypes. 

So Chris puts out the call for contributors, and I'm excited. I love writing, and I love being a sarcastic asshole about life. And parenting, I guess. So I skim his post and shoot off an email, being witty and carefree and all that jazz. 

Then I go back and read the original call for contributors. 

"We’re Looking For A Few Good — And We’ll Even Consider Average — Parents To Join MWAB

Leave a reply

Hey! It’s me, the guy who runs this place. Yeah, the post-it note guy.

Here’s the deal — this website is growing rapidly and it’s gone way beyond a one man operation. I can’t do this alone, and frankly, I don’t want to. So that’s where all of you come in. I’m looking for writers. Hell, you don’t even have to BE a writer. I’m looking for people to help create content.

So what’s content? Well it’s anything that moms and dads would give a crap about. Do you have an insane hobby people would want to read about? Is your regular job fascinating to strangers? Do you cook, build, destroy or do anything in the free hours not spent dragging kids from place to place that you want to share with others? Well, that’s content.

Even if you’ve already got a website, Tumblr or creative outlet for your passion, I still want to hear from you. Let’s work together! <– said like an annoying kid’s show character"

Shit. Did he just say a hobby or job that's fascinating that other people would want to read about? So I'm wracking my brain for what I do and I draw an enormous blank. I knit. I crochet. I cook. I bake. I parent. That's about all that I've got going on, and with pregnancy number 2 knocking me on my ass (why hello, 3 hours of sleep last night because of NO REASONS AT ALL) I barely squeak by on one of those options. I'll give you a hint: it's the only one that I have to do legally. 

I blatantly sucked up in my email, even made notice of it, with how I bought & read his Thank You for Not Laughing book. It was one of the first purchases I made on my Kindle, so that's saying something. I know that I said something along the lines of how I could offer a female perspective on parenting and going through the whole pregnancy and birth bullshit, but no one wants to read about that. There are already SO MANY OTHER sites that do that, like ScaryMommy, so why bog down this lighthearted site with posts about how much of a pain it is to be pregnant etc. 

All in all, even though Chris was nice enough in the response email stating that he got so many offers of contributions (I seriously don't know why he was surprised - we live in the digital age where outside is something to fear and the Internet is our best friend) so he'd reply  back with specifics later n the week, I don't think I'm interesting enough to offer something to an already incredible website. Does this depress me? Sure, at the root of it. But if anything it makes me want to find a better hobby than yarn crafts so that I can impress people. 

Or I can just say that I've literally stood elbow to elbow with the Mayor of Saskatoon (The Atch himself) as we attempt to correctly say names during a lot draw. 

Gestational Diabetes: A Love Story

So it's no secret that I'm not a skinny minny. And, well, if you didn't know that by now then you are either blind or are just really good at seeing the beauty inside of me or something like that.

There's a big misconception about being plus sized and pregnant, and that is the likelihood of gestational diabetes. The truth is, everyone is at risk for gestational diabetes when they're pregnant. Everyone. Because guess what? Gestational diabetes is caused by a fluctuation of hormones (oh gee, I think there's something about being pregnant that does that...) and how said fluctuation reacts with your body's ability to process sugar. Nowhere in there does it ever state that plus-sized women will definitely get GD.

Don't get me wrong, the chance is definitely higher when you're plus-sized, but that's not just for GD. That's for diabetes in general. The first thing that doctors say when you're in a higher risk bracket is to lose weight, and there's science behind that. It's not that the doctors don't want to deal with a larger person and the health issues; rather, they don't want YOU to have to deal with the health issues that come from being plus-sized.

Back to specifics though.

Yes, I'm plus-sized and have been for longer than I care to admit (okay, fuck, it's been 10 years). But I'm a lovely medical marvel. Aside from some lovely lactose intolerance and IBS (TMI? DON'T CARE), I'm healthy as a goddamn horse. No thyroid issues, no diabetes, my blood pressure has been great before, after, and during pregnancy, and I've somehow managed to maintain the flexibility and muscle tone from dancing all those years ago. It's just all covered in a substantial layer of skin, stretch marks, and fat.

Now I'm going to have to be a hypocrite. When pregnant with Olivia, I was diagnosed Glucose Intolerant. What does that mean you ask? It's the same thing as being intolerant of other things, like lactose. My body just couldn't process it right. Yes, it's a wimpy version of diabetes. But I'm about 900% sure I brought it on myself. I had squeaked by on a fail on the 1 hour glucose challenge where you don't fast but you aren't supposed to eat for 3 hours prior to the test. So I had to do that pesky 3 hour test where you fast for like 10 hours. I had to do that one at I think 30 weeks pregnant last time, so I woke up first thing in the morning and was pretty sure I was going to pass out if I didn't eat something. So I shoved a piece of bread in my mouth and hoped for the best.

Idiot. I'm an idiot. Carbs = sugar = fucking up the results. Le sigh.

Anyway, all it meant for me was that I tested my sugar levels at regular intervals: first thing in the morning, after meals at 1 hour and after meals at 2 hours. If my levels were a little high, I made a notation that I probably shouldn't eat that item again OR that I need to eat at more regular intervals. I didn't have to report it to anyone, but my doctor would ask for a summary at each of my pre-natal appointments just so that he could keep note of it himself. At 41 weeks and 3 days, I gained a total of 35 lbs, and Olivia was born at 7 lbs 10 oz and no sugar dependency. Which means, hallelujah, keeping track of shit worked.

This time around, I just asked my doctor if I could bump right up to the fasting test. That way if the results came back high or borderline again, I'd know and could just do the same thing I did last time. I did the test on the weekend and will see my doctor next week, so we'll see how that went then.

What brought on this post? I belong to a group of moms from all across Canada who are due in April 2015. The past two weeks have been nothing but "Oh no I have to take the GD test" and "My life is over I failed the 1 hour". And it's taking literally ALL of my willpower not to tell them all to shut the fuck up because it is NOT the end of the goddamn world. You just have to be a little more vigilant in what you eat and when, and make sure that you're not going crazy with the super carby or sugary foods - including those that contain naturally occurring sugars. If you're bad enough, yeah you'll need insulin but again... NOT THE END OF THE GODDAMN WORLD.

But you try using logic in a group of 100+ hormonal pregnant women. I dare you.

All I Want for Christmas is to Live in My Home

This year has been filled with ups and downs. Too many people close to me and/or close to people close to me have passed away. The newest one being my great-grandmother (although if we're being sticky on the relation it's my step-great-grandmother), who passed away on Friday morning. She lived to be a grand 100 years old, and after listening to some stories from my dad (again, step-dad if we're being picky) she led a full life. She had health issues as she got older, strokes dementia and the last drop in the bucket was a heart attack, but she was still wily and funny.

Friday afternoon, Tyler calls me at work on my cell phone, letting me know that our basement flooded. As we live in an entry-level bi-level townhouse, this means that all the bedrooms and our full bathroom and the storage area is in the basement. I kind of brushed off the damage because I had other things on my mind - work was busy as we sent co-workers home sick, Granny had passed, etc - but once I got home later I realized just how much damage was done. After speaking with different levels of people that are needed for this job, we were informed that all of our stuff would need to come out, they would rip out all of the carpeting and the subfloor, and more than likely rip out 2 feet of drywall out of every single wall.

Again, this didn't seem like THAT big of a deal. Until I realized that we wouldn't be able to stay in our bedrooms, that we would have to move everything upstairs, and that Olivia would basically be our clock as to when we go to bed.

This blows.

So last night Tyler moved our mattress upstairs as we had spent the previous night sleeping on couches and had the worst sleep ever.

Olivia insisted that we put up the Christmas tree, as Tyler had left the box upstairs and she kept going to it and saying "Christmas tree! OPEN" and would get mad when I would say no. Our box of decorations was unscathed, but I just can't seem to bring myself to deck the halls, as it were. So our tree is going to have to do.







We've got all of our clothes in bins that my parents emptied from my Gramma's house, and then we've got boxes of other stuff upstairs with our other belongings. Our hall closet now houses not only coats and shoes, but my wedding dress and my work clothes.





I fully realize that we got off lucky. We didn't have gushes of water or a tsunami. At most there was probably an inch or two that flowed through from the end unit (two doors down) through to the other end unit (the one on the other side of us). But the fact is that it still came through, and the water sat because our building manager didn't call the FirstonSite people for 2 days. Those guys were definitely pissed that the call came so late, because they should have been out here within an hour to get the water removed.

We don't know when construction will even start because the condo insurance apparently has to put out a call for offers/bids. And even then, the condo association will have to get involved to determine just how much money they're going to put into it. It could be fucking months until we're back to normal in our house.

I've been flip-flopping between finding the bright side and being totally bummed about everything. Bright side: new carpet, they'll paint our rooms (we were going to re-paint Olivia's old room for this new baby and paint the spare room to be Olivia's new room), and they threw out all of the garbage that we really should have thrown out years ago. But the bummed out side is that we will potentially be out of our house for weeks on end or we're going to be living in our upper level for weeks on end until things get started. It's fucking baloney.

So, Merry Christmas to everyone... but i'll be sitting in the Bah Humbug corner.

Sometimes, It's Just Too Much

What a weighted subject heading. It could seem maudlin, melodramatic, depressed, or literal. I mean it both literally and I guess figuratively.

The one gripe I have with pregnancy right now is my body's inability to do everything that I used to be able to with no problem. I could spend the day filing and actually doing my job or I could spend an hour putting up Christmas decorations without so much as an achy hip. Now? I have to lay on the couch for the rest of the evening because I hurt everywhere. I get the lovely round ligament pains with the occasional random twang elsewhere, and my back and hips ache like I'm a bedridden 100-year-old. It's absolute garbage. I was getting so much better at life pre-pregnancy, and then all of a sudden I turn a complete 180 and suck at everyday everything.

Woe is me, right?

The figurative 'Too Much' is just with the amount of emotional upheaval dealt to me this year. Wait, that sounds a little too contrite. What I mean is, the emotional upheaval indirectly dealt to me. The horrible thing about getting older is that you are going to be around death a lot more often. You always hope (or pray) that it's not your friends because you're just way too young to be dealt that card. But it just seems like lately, everyone I know has had someone close to them pass away. Me specifically, it was my Gramma and then my friend's 1-year-old son almost immediately after. That was just too much for me to deal with at that time. This year has also taken two of my husband's great-relatives within a week, a new friend's in-utero baby and potentially themselves (said new friend is currently in the hospital in the high risk wing because they don't know what is wrong with her), and just recently an old friend's fiance to the bitter battle of cancer. Why can't I just be a teenager again, where I wasn't directly affected by any of this?

Husband told me tonight that for every sad story I tell him, I have to follow it up with a funny one. And how bad is it that I couldn't think of any off the top of my head? My day was filled with crappy ones - starting with some a-hole parking in my reserved stall at work so I had to park in the overflow lot which is another 3 blocks away, then work being so boring I wanted to gouge my eyes out, and then 1 hour of Christmas decorating at work is apparently too much for my pregnant body, then finding out about friend's fiance and new friend's hospital stay. Oh wait, I guess the funny story was me backdoor bragging about how judgmental my family is. That counts, right?

I guess I'll round out this post with some pregnancy updates and then sign off:

- 21 weeks today
- I feel like an achy tired mess, and my toddler doesn't understand why I can't lift her up anymore
- Easter Bunny (as husband has decided it shall be named) was being a turkey during the ultrasound last week and we couldn't determine gender nor could we get a look at their face or heart. So I get to go back for another ultrasound. Yay, I guess?
- Somehow the cold is breaking through my increased internal temperature and I find myself cold more often. I don't know if this is a good thing yet.

Pregnancy - The Reality of It

You'll always hear different tales of pregnancy. Some women get the worst of it: nausea for all 9 months, acne, bloating, hair EVERYWHERE, etc. Others just seem to float through it, developing a beautiful basketball belly and just seem to look like a perfect pregnant lady.

Watch 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' and it'll give you a pretty accurate view point of the differences.

With me, my two pregnancies have been relatively similar. Nausea during the first trimester, but where last time I was able to laze around and sleep it off this time I had a toddler and a job to be held accountable to.

With my daughter, the only issues I had were my weight (which I'll get into in a minute) and that I was glucose intolerant. That means that I didn't have gestational diabetes, but I wasn't scot free either. I tested my blood sugar like 8 times a day, and kept a food diary. But by doing that, I guaranteed that my child (and subsequently myself) was healthy. She came out, 10 days overdue, at 7 lbs 10 oz which is a perfectly average sized baby.

My weight is a different story.

When I say I only gained 30 lbs when pregnant, some people get pissed off because they gained 60+. Be all pissed off, but then realize that I started pregnancy at a whopping just-shy-of 300 lbs. Morbidly obese according to everything. I was lucky that I mostly gained weight in my belly, and in my boobs, and just a bit in my face. I swelled up a bit in the hands and feet, but nothing crazy like some of my friends who couldn't fit their shoes.

When it came time to have my daughter, I was in labour for about 20  hours with 1 hour of active pushing before they called for a c-section. By this point I was like "JUST GET HER OUT I DON'T CARE HOW". Like, I heard the OB and OB resident whispering about a c-section and I was like "Did you say c-section? Where do I sign? Let's get started".

Once in the OR, the OB and OB resident were faced with a problem. Because I have that hideous permanent fanny pack that lots of larger women have, they couldn't figure out where the best placement for the incision was. If they went under the flap, they ran the risk of infection because I wouldn't be able to see it or clean it properly/keep it dry. If they went over, they ran the risk of it just not being a nice scar or healing clean away.  They chose to go on top, simply to minimize the risk of infection. I do not regret them their decision, because in the end it was the best decision.

I suffer a lot of insecurity about it now, though, almost 3 years later. Especially being pregnant again. Everything is wonky, the scar (as well as the 4 laproscopy scars from my gall bladder surgery) is so fucking obvious and just goddamn hideous. I can't hide it. If I wear leggings and not a long enough shirt, you can even see where it indents between my belly and my flap. My flap is uneven because the skin wasn't pulled up evenly when they stapled it together and that's a huge bone of self-consciousness for me.

I find myself disgusted at my own body, even more than I was before babies. And this time, it's something that I had no control of. Yes, okay, it could be argued that I had control of my body pre-babies and that I could have lost the weight and sorted it out so I wouldn't have to deal with this now... But that's hindsight. When you're lying on an operating table and you're just anxious to meet your child, you give no fucks about how they come out. You give no fucks after the baby is out because you had your child FINALLY and you are 100% absorbed with them and their needs.

It's only once you start to get over that birth that you realize that things are not going to be the same. Lots of smaller women have issues with their hips having permanently stretched, or they have some extra skin because they got so big with their child. We all have insecurities, and I fully acknowledge that mine are just added into that lump, but Christ... I feel disfigured.

Pregnancy is beautiful, and wonderful... until it's not.

Growing A(nother) Human

So... pregnancy. What a loaded word. It's both amazing in that it's something that I can do and be. But it fucking sucks.

When pregnant with my daughter, it was easy. I wasn't working, I wasn't actively looking for a job knowing that I'd be leaving it soon. So I was at home, lazing around, eating and watching TV. I did manage to get employed about half-way through, at a seasonal job that required me to sit on my butt and deal with the phone or computer stuff and then watch tv or play on the Internet for the other hours. So, my priorities were not many nor were they difficult.

This time? Oh God. I'm working part to 3/4 time, I've got a 2.5 year old to run around after, and it just seems like it's so much more difficult. I was nauseated this time around to the point that I actually need to take the prescription anti-nausea stuff. My clothes started not fitting a lot sooner. More foods, scents, movements set off my nausea. I have to drink 2.5 - 3L of water a day or I'm hosed. The list goes on.

But the biggest complaint I have this time around is the absolute horrid lack of plus size maternity clothing. I have one option, and that's Motherhood Maternity. And their selection is abysmal. I need professional-ish clothes this time around because I'm working in an office and dealing with the public (whereas last time I only dealt with inter-office people, and worked overnights and weekends). I desperately need some pants that aren't leggings, but I just can't find any. So I'm resigned to wearing leggings 4 days out of the week. I know that doesn't seem like a major complaint, but there are days that I want to wear a shorter shirt or a different sweater that I just can't wear while wearing leggings and I hate it.

When will retailers learn that plus size maternity is something they should have? Just because we're bigger doesn't mean that we should have less options. I fucking hate going onto the Motherhood site or into the store and seeing the racks upon racks (or pages upon pages) of adorable and wonderful maternity clothing, only to find the 3 racks of plus size clothing and only 3 items are in my size.

Obviously, the option is to make my own clothes or wear one of those belly bands with normal pants undone. But have you ever done that? It is hella uncomfortable. And I am so not a sewing clothes person YET.

Don't get me wrong, I love that I'm growing a second human (uh, maybe ask me again in a couple months if I still feel the same way). But Christ I wish that I could feel good about how I look while doing so.

My Origin Story

This blog has changed 'feels' many times. Food blog, random words blog, then there was the other blog that I have since deleted.

And I suck at updating all of them.

Today I'm posting about mental and emotional health, which ties into being healthy and being a better 'me', if I wanted to be so bold as to sound super lame and pretentious.

We're going to regress a little bit here, but I hope that it shows how far I've come.

When I was a kid, I bounced around schools a lot. Not because I was some sort of hellion, but because of life changes. I went to one school from Kindergarten to halfway through grade 2 because it was directly behind my house, and my mom had a day home with other kids that went to that school (and their younger siblings). Then she got a job out of the home, and so I went to a different school with my cousins.  My Gramma watched over my cousins, and she lived about 2 blocks away from us, so she would just take me with her.  I loved that school. All my fondest elementary school memories bounce back to that one, where all the kids knew my cousins already (note: my eldest cousin, the one whom I was in a class with because it was a 2/3 split, has cerebral palsy and requires constant care) and they freely accepted me into their social groups. It was great.  Then my dad got transferred to northern SK, and we moved up to Goodsoil, SK for grade 3. If you ask my mom how long we lived there, she can give it to you right down to the minute.  I don't really remember a lot about being up there, and it was my first experience living in a very small town. Of course, being a kid, you're a little more resilient and can take the change.

When we moved back to Saskatoon, I attended the elementary school closest to us. While yes, I did make some good friends, some of which I keep in touch with now, it was pure hell to go to school there.  Showing up in grade 4, after these kids have all been together for 4 years (or more, if they also went to preschool), and being behind in math because they forgot to teach us all of the times tables when I was in Goodsoil (or something), was just awful. Add to it that I was a chunky kid who was a total teachers pet and admittedly (now) a know-it-all... I was teased mercilessly. If they had insulted my intelligence, that would be one thing. But it was always, ALWAYS, about my weight. Always. I remember one kid, when we were in grade 6, made some disparaging remark about my weight and I pushed him into a desk and he ran into the chair. I was so terrified at what I did that I hid in my locker/cubby/whatever and cried. Now that I remember that, I think to myself and wonder why I was crying that I hurt him physically, when he should have apologized for hurting me emotionally? Granted, I know that lashing out physically is definitely not the way to respond, but I was 12. And some boy called me fat.

And that was essentially the beginning of it. The beginning of me trying NOT to lash out physically at all the douchebags calling me fat.  I'd like to say that the jokes ended as we got older, but they didn't. They carried through to high school and if you add the constant insults along with hormones and the yearning to be in a relationship, it makes a very volatile cocktail of emotion. I had to mentally tell myself not to get angry, to just keep it all in and calm down and just be nice.

Kids can be cruel. In my head, I thought that if I asked a boy out, even if he said no, it would be amicable and stay between us. Why did I ever think that? Boys would tell all their friends, and they would laugh at me. Literally laugh at me. The implication being why did I, the fat ugly girl, think that this boy, of relative attractiveness, would ever want to go out with me? Seeing all my thin pretty friends in relationships shoved this knife in a little deeper, and yeah. I was depressed. I was sad, I would cry, and I would contemplate a world without me in it.  I had a friend who called the Kids Help Line about me, and I just remember how mad I was about that because they called my house at 10 at night and my parents picked up. I remember ashamedly trying to cover up why they were calling, saying that my friends were playing a joke on me or something like that. I was ashamed that I was depressed, and I was even more depressed that I was ashamed of it. It was a vicious cycle of shame and depression.

Don't get me wrong, for the most part I covered it up well.  I was still dancing, I was in band, I was in choir and drama and did all of that stuff. I went out with my friends, but I still would crawl inside of myself and cry on a consistent basis.

The worst of this emotional pit came when I was 17, and I had (finally) had a couple boyfriends. I don't really count the boyfriends when I was 15 because, let's face it, those relationships don't really do anything other than hold hands and talk on the phone (or MSN messenger and ICQ, as it were in my day). The first 'real' relationship I had I'm glad I got out of in a hurry. Yes, he was the first guy I kissed. Yes, he was the first guy I did other things with - but I stuck to my guns and did NOT give  him my virginity. I knew that I would regret it, and he was really quite upset that I wouldn't just go freely. So that relationship ended.  The 'rebound' relationship, as it were, was with someone who did not take my No to mean NO.  I'm not going to come right out and say it, but I did not have a choice. Again, that relationship ended QUICKLY.

The next relationship was the doozy. My best friend and I used to go cruising around the main drag, and we'd talk with other people doing the same thing. One night we happened upon a car with two guys, both of which were funny and nice and we ended up hanging out with them. My friend and one of the guys hit it off, so instead of third and fourth wheeling it, the other guy in the car just took the keys to his friend's car and said let's go for a ride. So we left them and drove around the city for what seemed like hours. But it was GREAT. He was older than me (as were the other two guys, but that's neither here nor there), out of high school, funny, and just nice. He was really nice to me, which was a refreshing change of pace from the epic douchebags I had to go to school with every day. When we returned to his place, my friend and I got into her car, we exchanged hugs with the guys, and were on our way. We each started seeing the guys, and it was ... I don't know how to describe it. For the first couple weeks, we would hang out as a group. I think maybe that's just because we didn't know what to expect. Then the guy I was seeing and I would hang out on our own, and it was just so chill. There was no need to impress him because finally, FINALLY, someone cared more about what was going on with my personality than what was going on physically.  The catalyst to this relationship happened when the guy my friend was seeing decided to pull an epic dick move and try to force her into a sexual relationship. Their relationship ended, but mine was still going. I was going to school full-time, working part-time, and seeing this guy, and essentially ignoring my friends. When my friend commented on this, and I tried to explain to her that I didn't have time to do all of it, it wasn't that she gave me a literal ultimatum but I felt like there was an implied one.  And I chose her. She was my absolute best friend in the whole world, and who was I to shove that friendship aside for some guy. So I called the boyfriend and broke up with him, and I was devastated. Completely and unequivocally. And that was the night that I tried to kill myself.

I wish I could say that was the only time. It wasn't. But it was essentially the one and only time that I probably would have followed through, had I fallen deeper into the hole.  Instead, I got about half-way through and cried myself to sleep instead.  My mom came in the next morning to wake me up, asked what happened to my neck, and I broke down crying as I told her. I knew it wasn't something she had ever expected me to say, and she just stared at me shocked. I stayed home from school that day. I kind of wish that I had gone to talk with someone, professionally, at that point, but I don't think that either of us thought of that option. I ended up doing some permanent damage to my throat in that I opened up some sort of pathway of infection to my tonsils and I ended up getting sick, a LOT, and having to get the tonsils removed a couple years later.  But that's beside the point. I didn't attempt suicide for the attention, or to make someone notice me. I attempted because I hurt and I didn't want to hurt anymore.

There are other boyfriends and other sob stories, but that one was by far the one that hits the hardest, even still. He was the only guy (until I met my now-husband, that is) who didn't ever comment on my appearance or physique, aside from lovely compliments.

When I was 18, and my self-esteem was horribly low, I somehow made the connection that if I got guys to like me in "that way", then that means that I'm doing something right. I deliberately tied my self-worth to my desirability. Of course, this always ended badly. It ended with me feeling horrible about myself for putting that part of myself out in the open. It left me wondering why I even bother at all. Most of all, I lost myself. I would be who I thought everyone wanted me to be, and then I would get sad if no one even wanted that. I'd witness my friends, who were in relationships, get hit on and get free drinks and be the centre of attention, and then single me would be on the wayside, just trying to make a friend. I was a disaster, to put it succinctly. I moved out a couple times, only to have to move back home a couple months later because I quit my job or got fired or I just spent all my money on booze instead of rent and utilities. It wasn't until I was 20 that my mom put her foot down and made me go see a counselor. On one hand, I'm glad that she did because I mostly got my shit together after that. On the other hand, this counselor was SO BAD that I feel bad that my dad's EFAP paid for it. Seriously.  I moved out, for the final time, around the time that I started seeing this counselor.  I was also finally happy about my relationship status. I didn't care if I had a boyfriend or not, I cared about how happy I was. I was working a low-level job at a restaurant, but it was fun and I had responsibilities. I was good at it, and I was training new people within the first couple months of being there, which spoke well to me in that I was needed.  When it came to dating, the first dates I always dressed casually because I didn't want to be judged on my appearance. Sounds silly, but it's true. I'd wear my comfy jeans and a random t-shirt, wouldn't do my hair or makeup, just to see if the guy was worth it. I met a couple nice guys who I hung out with again, and I also met my husband. I could go into our story, but I'm not going to.

Fast forward to when my daughter was born, and holy god the hormones and emotions are all over the place. I remember one night, within the first couple weeks where she was alive, and I was standing in the shower bawling my eyes out because she was crying. My husband had to work late all that week - when I say late, I mean until 10 at night - and I was so gross and I needed a shower because I had a c-section and I HAD to keep that incision area clean. My daughter just wouldn't seem to settle down, and I knew deep down that I had to put her down and walk away or it might get ugly. So she's screaming and I'm sobbing and I had so many thoughts of 'Why did I do this?' and 'Does it ever get better?'. I didn't necessarily suffer from post-partum depression, but sweet christ can being a new mom be overwhelming. Over the months I developed this odd habit of rooting around my scalp for the random hairs that were super curly and a different texture (or colour - I've got random black hairs in my naturally blond head) and pulling them out. It was getting to the point where I'd be pulling out other hairs with them, or instead of them, and I knew that I needed to stop doing that. That it was a compulsion that could lead to worse things. I never told my husband about it, and in hindsight maybe I should have. Regardless, having a child brings everything to the surface. Hormones fuck with your emotions, and with your self-image. Instead of thinking "I just brought this beautiful baby into this world", I would think about how fat and gross I was. I lost a lot of myself in that year after she was born. I'm slowly starting to re-build it, but it is so fucking hard. It's hard to put it into words or to express it to other people, because they just don't get it. They don't understand why you're feeling blue because you ran out of your favourite soap. They can't comprehend why being fractionally late for something almost gives you a panic attack. It's like your hormones blank out for a bit, then come back full-force and you're just trying to keep up.

It's hard to be a woman in a society that thrives on the perceived notion of perfection.When you're plus sized like me, your shopping options are slim to none depending on where you live. I'm fortunate enough that there are, hmm, 3 stores in town that have clothes I can fit into enough to try on.  I'm fortunate enough that I can order online clothes that might fit - thank goodness for Old Navy's free return shipping. But every day, every fucking day, I wish that I didn't have to go through all of these troubles. That I could just walk into a store, any store, and be able to try things on and/or buy them. Yes, I am fully aware that my physique is my own doing. I'm not blaming genetics - although to be fair I have some relatives who are in the same boat that I am - but I'm not entirely blaming myself.  If our society weren't so fucking OBSESSED with self-image, there wouldn't be all of this bullshit. A store wouldn't charge an extra $20 for a shirt because it's got an X behind the number, it would just be a shirt that they make.

To close out this horribly long and drawn-out emotional post, I would like to say that I hope someday we can get past this obsession with perfection. That a woman, any woman, could look in the mirror without wondering what she can do to make herself perfect. Instead, she could see what she is and who she is and be intrinsically happy. But let's be honest, that's never going to happen. I'm a lot of talk and no action, and at some point I hope that it clicks in my brain that I can't just expect things to happen for me and that I need to do it for myself.

I need to be happy. I deserve to be happy. And so does everyone else.

Picking Up and Getting Through

Do you ever have a week that's just so incredibly bad that you don't believe it actually exists? That was my past two weeks.

As I mentioned before, my grandmother passed away about 2 weeks ago.  The worst part was after finding out. Not only because we were all so devastated, but because of the conditions surrounding her passing. She died alone, in her home, potentially in her sleep. Her neighbour noticed newspapers piling up and they called the town administration, who then called the first responders who went to her house. The coroner said it was about 4 days between death and her being found.

It makes me really sad that she died that way. Don't get me wrong, it's sad that she died in general but to die alone with no one finding you for days... I hope her soul felt better once she was found though.

That was Wednesday that we learned about her passing, and Friday we were dealt another blow.  Friends of mine that live in the same townhouse complex as us lost their 1 year old son. I don't know the specifics, only that he never woke up from his nap. When my friend told me I couldn't hold it together. I couldn't even imagine losing my daughter, let alone in a way so helpless. (in that the parent is helpless because there was no indication or reason).

After that, I needed to take the week off. I couldn't deal with the fact that two people so important to me were taken away from me. I still can't deal with it. But I'm working on getting through it.

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog postings.

I'm super proud of myself. I got properly fitted for some running shoes a couple weekends back, and they've helped so much. And I apparently can now jog intermittently on the treadmill without feeling like I'm going to die. I'm doing some interval training to help me get up there, and my goal by August is to be able to jog an entire mile. Now I'm doing about half. It may sound like peanuts to most people but I was in the WORST shape ever. I would get mildly winded walking up my stairs (okay, being honest I still feel a little winded even still). I'm still trying so hard to get into a habit but... It sucks being a single parent during the week. I don't have enough time to get everything done. The past 3 weeks I haven't even had a moment to go grocery hopping during the week. So my daughter and I have not been eating the best.  I was supposed to be taking part in 'A Month Without..' with my co-workers and June was suppose to be fast food/takeout. Yeah. That didn't happen.

That all being said, I'm finding a new appreciation for the Epicure that I sell. When you're trying to lose weight, it's hard cooking without using super salty ingredients or tons of sauces. Thankfully the spices and dip mixes are low sodium and delicious, not to mention the cookware is super great. I use my steamers a couple times a week because I have this huge 'ew gross I don't want to' thing about touching raw meat. This way I can just shove it from the bag into the steamer and it's GREAT.

Wow, this totally went off the rails. I aim at a somewhat coherant post next time, maybe with a recipe or two.

The Day I'll Never Forget

I lost my Gramma today.

I never thought I'd say those words.  I'm not trying to imply that I'm naive enough to think that my Gramma would stick around forever. I just mean that there's never any way to prepare for the absolute gut-wrenching loss that is losing  a loved one.

My mom had me when she was 19. My biological father was never in the picture, and my mom and I lived with my Gramma for a bit in the beginning.  Lots of the pictures of me when I was younger are at my Gramma's house, or even with my Gramma.

She was my biggest fan and my greatest champion. I could go to her about anything and she would have something to say about it (be it good or bad). She put up with zero crap, but also spoiled me rotten.

It was a known fact that I was the favourite.

Everyone always has regrets when someone dies. They wish that they had talked to the deceased more, that they visited them, etc etc.  I just wish that my Gramma was able to be around to see the person that I will become, to see her great-grandchild/ren grow up, and to see the legacy that she created come to fruition.

My Gramma did a lot for me.

She apparently never knew how to sew until I came around, and then she was making me clothes (from awesome 60s and 70s patterns), and sewing my first couple kilts and highland dance costumes. She used to let me help her gather the fruits and vegetables from her garden, until she saw me just pop a squat besde the strawberry bushes and shove them all in my face instead of putting them in the bucket.

She always stood up for me when others were putting me down, and she never once made any sort of comment about my weight or figure or anything. She loved me just the way I am, and I love her for all the same.

I'm going to miss her so much I can't even fathom it right now.

In short, my Gramma is and was an amazng person, and I just wish that she could have stayed around longer.

Chicken Club Wraps

I cannot stress enough how much I am in love with my Epicure steamers. Yes, I sell the stuff (here, to be precise) but that doesn't mean that I like all of it. Not a huge fan of the Pulled Pork What's For Dinner (not that anyone asked), for example.

Anyway, these steamers are fantastic. They come in two sizes, and you just pop your stuff in there no oil or water, and cook for whatever time it is that you're cooking. For example, I cooked two 5 or 6oz chicken breasts in the square steamer for 10 minutes and they were perfect. Juicy, and fully cooked. As someone who has had food poisoning more than I want to (anything over 1 time is more than enough), my chicken is usually dry and stringy. No more!

So anyway, back to these Chicken Club Wraps.

I cooked the chicken in the steamer, with a sprinkling of seasoning salt, ground thyme, and smoked paprika. I let that sit while I cooked my daughter's food because she was acting like the world would end if she didn't get to eat her chicken nugs. Kids, amirite?

I cooked some bacon up too, because what's a club sammich without the bacon? Although I definitely regretted it, because my body seems to abhor pork bacon. Turkey bacon is fine, pork bacon and I feel nauseated.

I digress.

I chopped up some tomatoes, grabbed some green leaf lettuce (a favourite of mine for sandwiches), and then started putting the wrap together as I steamed some potatoes in my rectangular steamer (1 baking potato cut into 1" cubes and nuked it for 6 minutes = perfect tatoes with zero oil). Lettuce down, then chicken (used about half a breast), then tomatoes and bacon, then topped with a very light drizzle of Epicure Honey Mustard.

Mmmm.

My Fitness Pal gave this meal (including the potatoes) a 592 cals, but I think that's because the wrap was a white flour one (180 calories) and that dang bacon was 200 calories. Next time I make it, it'll be turkey bacon on a whole wheat wrap and I think I could get it down to under 500. Regardless, I'm still full from supper and my mouth is still singing my own praises.

I also knew I should have used the smaller plate for my picture, but you just shut your face.

Guacamole Turkey Burgers

You heard me right. Turkey burgers... with guacamole. I honestly don't know why I waited so long to
a) make my own turkey burgers; and
b) top them with guacamole.

The original recipe can be found here, courtesy of Modern Christian Homemaker.  I used their recipe for the burgers themselves, adding spices and substituting. And then of course the guacamole.

Burger Patties

2 packages of Lilydale ground turkey breast
Cornflake crumbs (enough to make it stick)
2 tbsp minced garlic
Some BBQ sauce to hold it together
dash of Worcestershire
sprinkle of fresh thyme
juice from half a lemon
Salt, pepper, seasoning salt... The sky's the limit.

1. Mix your stuff. Form into patties, then let sit (in the fridge, for the love of Pete) for awhile. Like half an hour or so. I think this recipe made 8 burgers, but my dad makes the patties HUGE.
2. Heat your grill, then grill these burgers. Because that's what you do with burgers.

Guacamole

2 ripe avocados
2 limes
2 tbsp sour cream OR greek yogurt
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced fine
1 tsp cilantro
salt & pepper to taste

1. Smash your 'cados. Smash 'em real good.
2. Juice your limes into the 'cados. I just set a wire strainer on top of the smush, just to catch the strings and seeds. But, y'know, if you have a citrus juicer thingie that would work too.
3. Mix in your sour cream/greek yogurt, garlic, and cilantro. Then tasted it. Honestly, guacamole is always "to taste". If your guac needs the salt and pepper (mine does), I add a couple grinds of each at a time, then taste it again, and then keep repeating until I like it. Feel free to taste as you go with the limes and the sour cream too, because you might not like it as limey as I do.

To Serve!

Top your buns or flatbread or whatever with lettuce, tomato, cheese (we used Kraft Singles Fat Free Mozzarella and it was a great choice), and guacamole. Oh and a burger too. Duh. Be prepared to die and go straight to heaven. Keep in mind that guac makes your burger super messy, so maybe don't wear fancy clothes or the colour white. And keep a fistful of napkins nearby.

Penne & Spaghetti Squash Alfredo

Okay so... Food time.

I've been playing around with recipes for awhile, trying to make them "skinny" versions or whatever the hell the current word is for reducing the fat and not being such a pig. Yeah, skinny.

Pinterest is my best friend right now. Honestly, it is. How some of these bloggers come up with these recipes is beyond me, but I'm okay with it because my body likes the majority of it so I like the majority of it.

Below, I'm going to include some of the favourite recipes that I've used lately. Granted, there are still a lot of days where I just throw shit together and it's a "meh" meal. But these ones are great.

Spaghetti Squash Alfredo

The above is the original recipe, which I didn't entirely follow. I mean, yes, I had all of the components. I followed the instructions for the alfredo sauce. But I added sweet, amazing, delicious... carbs.

1 spaghetti squash, cooked as you so choose*, scraped and spaghetti'd
2 cups dry PC Blue Menu Whole Wheat Penne

I cooked my squash by slicing it in half, scraping out the seeds, placing it face down on a cookie sheet with some water at 375 for about 45 minutes.

Cook your pasta as you get the sauce started. The sauce takes way longer than cooking the pasta though.

Sauce
Note:Uh, so maybe don't totally double the sauce amounts. Because I had way too much. So maybe 1.5 times it? Regardless, I doubled the below recipe and it was just way too much

1 Tablespoon butter
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
2 Tablespoons flour
1 cup milk (I used fat-free)
1 Tablespoon cream cheese or Neufchatel cheese
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus 2 Tablespoons extra for topping
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Crushed red pepper flakes and fresh parsley, for optional garnish

What I did differently, aside from doubling, was that I used half parmesan - half light mozzarella shredded cheese.

Melt butter in a small pot over medium-low heat. Once hot, add garlic and sauté for 1-2 minutes. Whisk in flour, cooking for another minute while stirring. Whisk in milk until no lumps remain. Once hot, add cream cheese and stir until smooth. Remove from the heat. Stir in Parmesan, salt and pepper.

From here, I mixed my penne and spaghetti squash together in the pasta pot, then mixed the sauce in. To serve, I mixed in some bacon bits and then topped with a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and some fresh basil in lieu of parsley because honestly parsley is useless.

Result: tasty, delicious, oh em gee you can't even taste the spaghetti squash.  And that's just how I like it. According to My Fitness Pal, this recipe (which serves about 4-6 people) rocks a lofty 450 calories per serving HOWEVER that was using full-fat cream cheese and full-fat parmesan. Imagine the difference using light stuff would be. I was also so incredibly full after eating it. Go fibre and vegetables.

Do the Thing!

Sometimes, there's one little thing that makes you think about life differently. All the "what ifs" just seem to pile up, and every so often I find myself pulling one out and seriously pondering it.

This time, it was "What if I hadn't stopped dancing?"

I don't know who all reads this blog, so I'm just going to delve into some personal life shit right now.

Shit's about to. Get. Real.

I used to be a highland dancer. With the kilts and the swords and the bagpipes. I competed, I performed, I enjoyed it for about 11 years.  I went to DisneyWorld to perform at Epcot Centre, competed across Western & Central Canada, and even went to Scotland when I was 15 to compete in about a hundred (okay, over-exaggeration) highland games and perform at Stirling Castle.  I loved that part of my life, and at the time I had made some seriously amazing friends.

And then I got "too old" for it. Actually, that's false. I went away to university and ate my feelings.

Trying to get back into highland dancing is seriously tough. For one, you're constantly jumping. Some kinesiologist did the math and they determined that a 6-step fling is the equivalent of running a mile with your arms in the air and your core engaged the whole time... but this mile is run in like 3 minutes. Could you imagine? A 3-minute mile? Anyway, it's a cardiovascular gut punch.

Now try doing that after gaining 50 pounds and see how your unused leg muscles like it. Then try it again after gaining a hundred pounds, and then sit in the corner eating chocolate and chips to make yourself feel better for failure.

Nothing makes a wake-up call happen quite like not being able to do something that you did, moderately well, for eleven fucking years. It's depressing that I can't just hop up and do a 4-step fling, let alone a 6-step. Try as I might I can't even do basic moves because my muscles have apparently forgotten how to be muscles. They're just the layer between fat and bone that hangs out and says "Yeah, I'm still here, but what are you gonna do about it?"

Exercise. That's what I'm going to do about it.

My husband allowed me the purchase of a treadmill - and I say the phrase "allow" in quite the literal sense. It's a huge financial commitment AND it's just a huge commitment in general. To actually buy a piece of exercise equipment says "I'm going to fucking do this", and do this I shall. I'm starting small so as to not shock my body although going from the relative inactivity to any sort of activity routine was bound to shock it. I've been meal planning and talking with a personal trainer (who is, coincidentally, my cousin) and just trying to get things back into line so that maybe someday, even though I'm almost 30 fucking years old, I can do a fling again.

Once a highland dancer, always a highland dancer. Even if it's just at heart.