Only Three Weeks to a Healthier, Happier You (aka - a bunch of lies)

Why is it so hard to change bad habits? I know what I need to do. I know how to make healthy food choices. I know that exercise is important. I know these things. But do I DO them? Nope. Why is that? Why don't I make the changes I know I need to make in order to accomplish my goals? Why is it so darn difficult?

Tonight I had a meeting and I didn't get out of there until 7:30. I was planning on getting a salad for dinner. I was looking forward to eating a big salad. I really craved a salad. But when 7:30 rolled around and I started eyeing the tin of cat food that was sitting on a nearby desk, thinking that I was hungry enough to go for a little Fancy Feast (I mean, it's FANCY and it's a FEAST. How bad could it be?), I started rethinking my salad idea. By the time I got to the drive-thru, I was so hungry that I ordered a lard sandwich with extra butter and a side of gravy, an order of fries, and of course, the requisite Diet Coke. I mean, I was hungry, people! Who wants to take the time to chew on field greens when they're emaciated? I want a cow! (And I don't even like beef!)

Another time I eat garbage is when I'm overwhelmed. I work well under pressure. I like being busy. When my calendar is full of commitments, I buckle down, organize everything and get cracking. No problem, right? But I've found there's a fine line between busy and overwhelmed. When I start to cross that line, I shut down. I no longer prioritize and take care of business. I can no longer break projects into smaller chunks and get it done. I sit there like a deer caught in the headlights, not knowing what to do. So I do nothing at all. I don't know where to start, so I don't start at all. Instead, I reach for the pretzles, or chips, or ice cream, or nachos, or cookies. OK, fine - I reach for all of the above. Hey, I keep busy that way, right? Well, my mouth is busy anyway.

I read somewhere that it takes 3 weeks to break a habit. It does make sense, I suppose. It takes time to retrain our brains. If only we could replace a negative behavior with a more positive one for 3 weeks (only 21 days!), it might just become more natural to us. If we could just replace that half hour of TV in the evening with a brisk walk around the neighborhhood, maybe after 3 weeks, we'd start to look forward to our evening walk instead of Seinfeld reruns. Maybe if we could manage to reach for celery sticks instead of cookies every day for 3 weeks, we'd naturally gravitate toward the vegetables without thinking too much about the cookies. I'm not saying that it would become "easy" to make the healthy choices, but maybe it would become a little easiER. Perhaps?

Who's with me? Who wants to try to ditch a negative behavior and replace it with a healthier one for a mere 3 weeks? I'm going to give it a try. Starting tomorrow, of course. There's a piece of cheesecake calling my name right now.

Or I could just follow Brooklyn's diet...

For breakfast, I could eat a piece of string cheese left in my high chair from yesterday's lunch.


For lunch, I'll throw my chicken fingers on the floor, I'll push my corn off my plate, and I'll use my fry as a spoon to scoop up and eat 2 1/2 cups of ketchup.


Mmmm ketchup.


After I've had my fill of ketchup, I'll eat chocolate sauce until it drips from my face.

For an afternoon snack, I'll eat 2 M&Ms I found on the sidewalk.

Then, for dinner, I'll look at my plate and scream, "I don't wan' it!" repeatedly until someone takes it away from me.

And for dessert, I'll follow Joe around until he breaks down and gives me bites of his ice cream.

It's A.....

OK, I've had like a thousand people email me asking me if I was ever going to reveal what the gross food was. I guess you missed the part where I wrote, "I'll announce the winner on Friday." You guys pay attention like my kids do! ;) Since I've already gotten a correct guess though, I'll go ahead and tell you the winner tonight. But first.... I was really amazed at the number of comments I deleted from people who wrote, in a really nasty way, that I was a terrible mother who never changed her kids' sheets. They assumed the food had been there without a container for months. Now these comments didn't really bother me because I knew the whole story behind the food whereas they did not. It just surprised me at how many self righteous people out there feel the need to judge someone else. 

I don't share stuff on my blog so that people can rip me apart. My readers don't share their comments to be judged and put down either. I share stuff to let everyone know that they aren't alone. I tell it like it is. I love my family, but I'm not perfect. I don't pretend to be. I like to share the crazy things my family does and I hope it helps you to find the humor in the everyday, crazy things in your life. I just want to tell my readers that it's ok if you have laundry piled to the ceiling. It's ok if you gotten nothing done in your house because you just spent the whole day holding your sick, feverish toddler. And it's ok if you've somehow managed to miss a chunk of lasagna in your child's bed for a couple weeks! ;) LOL Just keep in mind, when you're reading a blog (be it mine or anyone else's) that as a reader, you're only getting a glimpse into the writer's life. The writer doesn't share every detail of every story because, let's face it, that would be extraordinarily boring. Reading blogs is fun. It isn't necessarily a study in nonfiction. Stories are not necessarily the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They are a mere glimpse into the writer's life and nothing more. So, come on everyone. Let's play nice and support each other . . . Or you'll be grounded until next month! Because I said so! 

OK, the gross food was a turkey and cheese sandwich on wheat bread. Joe and I believe it was only setting out for four days. The reason it got so nasty so quickly is because of the diet we have Jackson on - no artificial additives or preservatives. Have you ever made fresh bread? You know how fast it goes bad, as opposed to the store bought varieties made with more chemicals than flour. Jackson brought his uneaten lunch home from school and carried the sandwich, which was sealed in Tupperware, to his room so he could have a snack after school. Knowing Jackson, he got side tracked, forgot about his sandwich and left it there for a few days. Here's the whole picture of the "sandwich" in the container...  

 Congratulations to morninglight mama who was the first person to guess turkey and cheese on wheat. She'll be getting some new Tupperware containers courtesy of Barb at Tupperware! Thank you Barb! Check out her website to order your own containers or to book a party so you can get some free Tuppergoodies! Oh yeah, if you like giveaways, check out the contest Angie's got up on Mamaslike right now. Thank you to all the people who voted for my blog in the Blogger's Choice Awards. My blog is currently in first place for Best Humor Blog and Best Parenting Blog It's in third place for Best Blog of all Time and Hottest Mommy Blogger. Thank you!!! I'm so flattered! Oh yeah! I cannot believe the amount of folks who googled the terms I wrote about today!

Gross Food Find Contest

Inspired by my friend, Michelle over at My Semblance of Sanity, I'm doing a Gross Food Find Contest. You know, since I can't manage to go a week without finding some disgusting food item left somewhere in my house.
Joe found this in Jackson's bed while helping him look for his tin whistle. Leave me a comment with your guess as to what on earth it is and the first person with the most correct answer will win. I'll annouce the winner on Friday. The prize will be a set of new Tupperware containers to help keep your food fresh even when it's been in a backpack for a month. :)




Mmmmmm, now that's good eats!

Butt, Butt, Butt, Butt

Because we had over 800 comments on my "You Mean I Only Have to Cook Once a Week?" post, I've selected eight winners. When I first started this Blook Tour, I figured I'd write everyone's name down on a piece of paper and draw the names out of a hat. Well, that was before 800 of you left comments! So instead of writing down 800 names, I used the highly scientific method of scrolling up and down through the comments with my eyes closed. After a few seconds of scrolling, I stopped, opened my eyes, and wrote down the name showing on my screen. I did this eight times which is how I arrived at the winning recipients of Trish's book.

Ok the moment you've all been waiting for :::::::drumroll::::::: Here are the names of the eight winners of the Blook Tour! They will each receive a copy of Trish Berg's The Great American Supper Swap!

In no particular order....
Erin
Megan
Susan
Callie
Ann Marie
Leslie
Alice
Kristen

Separate emails were just sent to your email addresses. Congratulations and good luck on starting your own supper swapping groups! Trish has answered many questions in the comments section of this post. If you have additional questions for Trish, please feel free to visit her at her website and ask away!

Thank you to everyone who participated and left a comment!

I know I didn't update last night, but I have a good excuse reason. I actually went out with a friend. No husbands, no kids, just my oldest friend. Well, she's not really old. She's the same age as I. And I am definitely not old. I've just known her the longest. I remember making her laugh and getting her, and a couple other students who sat near me, in trouble back in high school. Ahhh good times, good times.

Anyway, as I was saying, one of my best friends on earth, Jen, and I went out to eat last night. We did really well too. We talked at length and didn't mention diapers even once during our conversation. Neither of us felt compelled to cut the other's entree into bite size pieces and we never told one another, "Finish your drink, a napkin is not a toy, or don't chew with your mouth open." We did very well being Jen and Dawn instead of just "Mom" and "Mom". All was wonderful until a little kid came running by our table and Jen nearly reached out to grab him and tell him to settle down until she remembered that he was not her child and she was out for the evening alone.

I thought of getting all philosophical about how we parents sometimes forget the people we were pre-kids and become "So & So's Mom" or "So & So's Dad". I was going to sing the importance of retaining some of you, the person. I was going to warn against becoming only you, the mom. I know the experts say to take a class, take up a hobby, learn a new skill, get out and exercise, make a little time, every day, for you. However, in the real world, I also know it's sometimes impossible. For those with tight finances, it's usually not affordable to just "take a class" or buy supplies for your hobby. For those whose spouse works long hours or is deployed, how are you supposed to find time to go to the gym or even read a book some days? And is it really so horrible to put your life on hold, so to speak, to become so & so's mother? So & so will only be little for a short while. You've got your whole life ahead of you to take up skydiving, poker, knitting, painting, tennis, or whatever it is you want to do. Just a thought.

Ok, back to my story. So I went out to eat with my best friend, Jen and after dinner, I went back to her home to borrow their video camera. So I'm sitting there talking to Jen, her husband, 3 boys, and 1 daughter. I'm not sure who started it, but suddenly the conversation turned to butts. (As you'll recall from a previous post, "butt" is the funniest word in the English language.) However, it's not just funny in English, as I learned from these guys.

"Dad, how do you say "butt" in Polish?
Dad answers, but I've forgotten what the word was. Apparently it was hilarious though as the boys all started parroting "butt" in Polish.

Butt, butt, butt, butt.

Jen looks at me, rolls her eyes and says, "I'm here all day with the kids trying to teach them not to say stuff like that. He comes home and in mere seconds has them being obnoxious in foreign languages."

And we're in Chicago. Chicago has the second highest concentration of Polish people next to Poland. Someone is bound to understand what they're saying in school come Monday. Gee, thanks Dad!


The hole Clay dug into his wall.


The instrument of destruction. Thankfully it was a safety nightlight, or I can only imagine what he would have done with the screwdriver. In fact, I'm actually pretty surprised he didn't try to unscrew the nightlight. Oh and where did he even get the screwdriver? Out of my middle son's tool box in the garage, of course.



Do not adjust your monitors. Yes, she really does have a white beard. Diaper cream - it's not just for butts anymore.


Brooklyn's artwork. Markers have a way of multiplying in my house. For every Sharpie I toss out, two more appear, much like the Hydra fought by Hercules. Thankfully this came right off with a diaper wipe.




And the Piece de resistance, the banana peel found in my car today. The only way I knew it was a banana peel was from the Chiquita sticker. Ok, this trend of finding food is getting embarrassing, quite frankly. I can understand the occasional fruit snack in the couch cushions, cracker under the chair, wrapper behind the dresser, and French fry on the floor of my car, but this is ridiculous. My wonderful husband cleaned out my van today. He filled the tires with air, the tank with gas, and he washed it inside and out. I'd like to say this disgusting banana was all he found, but alas he found enough nasty, moldy fruit to cover Carmen Miranda's head. I think I may have to put locks on the fridge and cabinets.

Mmmmm Spam Cordon Bleu

No day would be complete without finding some sort of food item lying around the house. Here we have a waffle triangle on the book shelf. This waffle was from dinner. Last night. I didn't even notice the red bottle until I loaded this picture on my blog. Duh. I went back and grabbed it off the shelf. It was filled with little game pieces. What else would be in a bottle on a bookshelf?


Speaking of books.... I made the mistake of letting Clay play in the bathtub as it drained while I got Brooklyn ready for bed. My husband got home from work right at that moment, walked into the bathroom and discovered an inch of water on the floor. This library book was in the water because, you know, I've taught the kids to read in the bathtub just for fun. It looks like we've bought yet another library book. I'm pretty sure between all our mishaps and overdue fines, we've financed a new wing at our local library.


Yep, the last page is as wet as the first page. I think the mom in this picture is looking at her son and thinking, "Yay, the Benedryl just kicked in! Whew!"

Ok, to all you folks from Minnesota, yes I know that Spam is made in your great state. It's really not something I'd brag about, however. Think about it. And although I'm usually confused and don't know what I'm talking about, I really did mean Spamarama in Austin, TX. Seriously, they have a Spam Ball, Spamalympics, and a Spam cook-off. Some of the winning recipes were Spam Cordon Bleu, the French way to enjoy a potted pork meat-like product, Pirates Deadman Spam, I think the name says it all, and Velvet Hotdog Wedding Cake, can you just envision the folks who would celebrate their wedding with this cake?

Speaking of Minnesota, we took a little trip there in November with some friends a couple years ago. I suggest if you visit Minnesota in November, you be prepared for temperatures of negative 40 degrees or so. We paid a visit to the Mall of America which was really insanely huge! I stopped at a grocery store during the trip to buy some ice cream (because the negative 40 degree temps just weren't quite cold enough). The ice cream cost $2.95. I stood there waiting for the cashier to tell me my total, but he just said, "$2.95." I waited patiently for him to figure out that he hadn't totaled it and added the tax. He waited there not so patiently for me to pay him already! I had no idea there were states out there that don't pay tax on food! Incredible. Of course this is also a state that had a sign in a restaurant stating something along the lines of, "Guns are not permitted in this restaurant. Please leave any guns outside." Too bad because I was looking forward to being held up while eating my soup.

Jackson informed me a couple hours ago that Clay had made a hole in the wall of their bedroom.
A hole? What do you mean - a hole?
Come see!
Sure enough there was a hole in the drywall. It wasn't that large, but it was fairly deep. I suspect he was trying to dig his way out much like Andy in Shawshank Redemption. His mistake was not putting a Farrah Fawcett poster over the hole. Tomorrow he's busted. I can just see him trying to fill the hole with chewed gum or yogurt or something.

It's a Hotdog!!!

I was cleaning my sons' room while conversing with a gentleman on the phone. I can never just talk to someone on the phone. No, I have to sweep the floor, clean the toilet, wash dishes, or fold laundry while chatting. I'm not sure why this is. I think that moms are just such resourceful multi-taskers that we simply don't know any other way. We can check homework, chop vegetables for dinner, feed the baby, and listen to our child tell us, in great detail, what they had for lunch at school. We can fold laundry, quiz our child on their spelling words, tie shoes, wipe runny noses, sew a button on a shirt, and drive to the store at the same time. See a man do that! Actually, you'll never see a man do that. They can't. Truly, it's not that they're stupid or lazy. They simply cannot do more than one thing at a time. It's physically impossible. Their minds are very "one track". I can't send my husband to the store to buy more than two items because he WILL forget at least one of those items. If I tell him, "Get a package of size 3 diapers, some bananas, and a gallon of milk," he'll inevitably come home with 3 packages of diapers in all different sizes, and a banana cream pie.

Anyway, I digress. As I was saying, I was on the phone talking to a gentleman, a businessman in the corporate world who was kind enough to call me between a luncheon with a client and a business meeting in order to give me some advice on my new found popularity. As I'm talking to him (and of course, picking up toys in the boys' room) I saw, to my horror, a piece of some sort of food-type object. I really wasn't sure what it was at first. I thought maybe it was a Tootsie Roll. Nah, it wasn't quite the right color. The thought occurred to me that perhaps it wasn't really food! Oh no, please don't let it be.... Whew! It wasn't anything that belonged in a toilet thankfully. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a chunk of a hotdog. A piece of a petrified hotdog. You could easily see that it had been in the boys' room since sometime around the Mesozoic era.

In the middle of my phone call with this important gentleman, I shriek, "It's a hotdog! I just found a petrified hotdog in my boys' room!" I'm pretty sure the man with whom I was conversing, thinks I have brain damage.

This is not the first time I've found food in the kids' rooms. In fact, earlier this week, while tucking my 3 year old in bed, I found half a hotdog bun under his bunk.

"Why do you have a nasty, old bun under your bed?"

"I don't know."

"Remember when I talked to you about bringing any kind of food into your room? You can't take food in your room. It belongs in the kitchen only."

"I know, you said if I put food in my room, ants and bugs and mice will come in my room."

"That's right! You do remember. So why did you put this bun in your room?"

"Because you said that ants and mice will come in my room!" he reiterates.

It hits me now that my little speech about visiting critters didn't deter him from bringing food into his room. No, quite the contrary, he was now sneaking food under his bed in an effort to attract critters! It simply amazes me how their minds work some times.

Anyway, I took a picture of this fossilized hotdog, however while I was at the school's open house this evening, my oldest son used my camera to make a stop motion film and apparently deleted the hotdog picture from my memory card. Oh well. I do have this picture though...

Remember the bar of soap with the teeth marks from last week? It underwent a metamorphosis of sorts. It will truly be a miracle if my kids ever get in the shower and just wash themselves instead of eating the soap, sculpting the soap, or just squishing the soap down the drain.