Manners, do they even still exist?

This weekend we (my mom, cousin and I) attended a baby shower. The girls mom threw the shower. When we arrived, the mom was not very nice. No greeting, no offering of drinks or snacks, she pretty much ignored us. I thought back to my shower, where the people hosting the party were friendly offering seats, drinks and anything else you wanted. I think it is safe to say we felt totally unwelcome in this house. The girl who is pregnant is carrying the child of my cousin so it's not as if we were strangers, in fact we were the only other family besides the boys mom to show up.

As time progressed we were told to go eat. Then we were rushed through some poorly planned games and still treated pretty poorly. At this point, when I say we, I mean EVERYONE AT THE SHOWER! At one point, the mother of the girl even called her into the kitchen to lecture her on something or other, and I felt like that was a total mood killer. The worst part though was when my mom sat down and the chair cracked. The girls mom came thundering over picked up the chair and angrily flipped the chair over declaring, "THAT CRACK WASN'T THERE BEFORE YOU SAT IN MY CHAIR"! I stopped and looked over and was just floored. She didn't ask if my mom was okay, she didn't say, I'm sorry I feel so bad, or oh man are you okay that was awful can I help you, no she yelled at my mom. Then she grabbed the chair stormed off and threw it in a hall. Five minutes later we saw her standing on another chair to do something for the party. She weighed at least 200 pounds and was standing on her chair no fucking wonder they cracked.

Later, as her daughter opened gifts and received a ton of diapers, plus tons of notes from family saying they would be supplying diapers any time all she had to do was call, plus a shit ton of stuff from me, not one thank you was given. Her mom never said wow thanks guys this was so thoughtful of you, or gosh she would have never gotten all of this if it wasn't for you.

Now would be a good time for me to say, the pregnant girl is 16. All of these people showed up for her, they bought her stuff, gave her stuff, whatever, and her mom never thanked them, or me. Her friends didn't come, it was mostly her moms friends, her boyfriends sister, and us, with 2 other friends. I would have thought, at the end she would have thanked people for helping her daughter who has nothing, who is totally unprepared and is basically being ignored by her family. The people who showed up, should have been thanked.

There were so many more moments where I just felt so unwelcomed at this poor girls shower. You could tell how uncomfortable she felt too, being in this situation. Even when I won the game there was no, good job, nothing. Instead, they threw a box of gifts at me and said here take a present and then move on.

The lady got upset with Brandon for walking up and down the stairs. He wasn't going in any rooms, or even stepping off the stairs, he was just going up then down up then down, and she got upset about it.

I remember both of my showers. I remember at the end my mom stopping every single person and just thanking them for being there for me, for buying me gifts that would help me out, for taking the time to be there for me and just thanking them for everything. Everyone felt welcome in my house.

In the end, we left feeling so bothered, feeling like our presence wasn't appreciated. I also left wondering what the fuck happened to manners.

Even babies get caught!

The guy at the Mac store asked just what the fuck exactly happened to make my computer look so bad? I mentioned something about kids, he looked at me with a face that said, "kids can't do this", maybe I should email him these...

"Moms in the other room, she can't see me"Look at it, so shiny and white and forbidden

Ooooo let me touch it with all my fingers and toes

OH SHIT here she comes I better hurry up and smash it!

Rubbernecker

If you would have been driving down the street by my house today (the very public high traffic street) you would have seen me pushing my two year old in a stroller and carrying my 7 month old in the Moby like one of those moms who exercised and shit! However, if you would have driven by at exactly the right moment you would have also seen my BOOBS! Yes I had Codi situated in the Moby so he could nurse. Somehow I was still able to hold the stroller with both hands, nurse and not drop him. I think only one guy happened by at the right angle and he nearly wrecked rubbernecking to figure out if he really just saw that ladies boob hanging out!

Also, if you were looking hard enough you probably could have pin pointed the EXACT moment I realized I had just started my period, unexpectedly and TOTALLY FUCKING UNPREPARED!

How to start your morning

There is nothing like groggily reaching up to scratch your face in the middle of the night only to yelp out in pain once you realized you just scratched a HUGE pimple that wasn't there the night before. What makes it worse? It was in that spot right below your nose but above your lip. OUCH MOTHER FUCKER!

However, this would have been fine anyone else would have went back to sleep, but, since you know my history with picking, and poking zits I just had to jump out of bed to inspect the new zit and then promptly smoosh it!

Not such a good way to start they day.

What will forever be referred to as THE BEST DAY EVER

For months I've been counting down. No, scratch that, over a year. Then it got closer and closer and I counted the days, then hours and then minutes until it happened.

What was it? It was an opening? A big big opening!

A died and gone to heaven fuck my diet for a day kind of opening.



OOOOO It's like porn for a food fanatic. My mom, cousin, office mate and I scheduled a lunch date around it. I nervously watched the minutes tick down on the clock. Suddenly it was time. I walked to my car totally nonchalant but inside I was shouting IT'S TIME OH GLORIOUS FOOD GODS IT IS TIME I GO TO MY MECCA!

We arrived and the front of the store drew me in with its California looking exterior and free food tasters out front. Upon entering I was bombarded with tasters. TASTERS a girls favorite thing. Fuck your Prada give me tasters! And then, suddenly, it was chaos! We were running around tasting and oooooing and ahhing and getting lost and wrecking into other people.

IT WAS AWESOME!

I felt like I was in some sort of fun house. Every isle got better and better but then. Then
I stumbled into this!!!!!!!!!!!! The bakery. There was shelves and shelves and shelves of ooh gooey chocolate goodness! I didn't even know what to do with myself. I started running in circles and wringing my hands and at one point I thought I might need to sit down and have a drink! Right when I thought things couldn't get better, they did.

Suddenly there were trays of bread circling under my nose and platters of cinnamon thingies being placed in my hands, and bread with artichoke something or other finding its way in my mouth. I wondered how many times I could sneak back for seconds, thirds, twentieths before they realized what I was doing. We stocked up on freebies. Tons and tons of freebies. Cliff bars, milks, vitamins and so on.

Finally I noticed the salad bar, soup, ethnic, taco, holy mother fucker there is so much food buffet and it was as if I had just had the biggest food orgasm ever. I filled two boxes and two tubs of soup and topped it off with fresh baked bread. We waited in line and checked out and I went back to work dreaming of the next time I could go back and visit again. The awesome thing is, it is only two miles away from where I live so I can walk there. They also host a cooking school and I can't wait to sign up for classes. All of my food was delicious.

My actual favorite part of all, is that they had an amazing selection of kids foods. Tons and tons of stuff for my boys. Codi got some tasty teething cookies, and Brandon's head is literally going to blow up when he sees that I found macaroni that is shaped like bugs and worms! He is always calling elbow macaroni or spaghetti worm noodles. Other pasta, like shells, are circle noodles. I can't wait to see his face tonight when he sees noodle that look like real worms, and catapillars and bugs!

I have a date set up with Katie on Saturday to go back. But, if anyone wants to make a date for the rest of the days this week just let me know. I see no problems sampling more delicious fresh breads!

Hungry for some fresh farmers market food

Head over here to learn how to cook fish in parchment paper!

Pre-schools not so bad

My son has learned some cute stuff. Some of them being, a distorted version of the ABC song, how to glue marshmallows to paper and, how to eat more then macaroni and cheese.

BUT!

My favorite thing he has learned so far.....

"MOM!! You my best friend"

I'm sorry I can't type anymore as I've just died from joy overload.

Then we went out and looked at his vegetables and they were big so he said;
"Look my begtables big, HOLY MOLY COW THEY BIG BEGTABLES!"

Swoon!

Prickly situation

Last night I was playing in the grass with Codi. He was barefoot and he was having none of it. It was hilarious. He would lift one hand then try and crawl but not want to put his foot down so then he would lift that leg, leaving him balancing on one hand and one foot of tippy toes. Funny funny shit. The best part though was when he decided to crawl up onto my bare legs for refuge I could see him stop for a moment and wonder if my legs or the grass were more pokey. For a second it seemed he would be suspended in air rather then crawl up on my pokey legs.

Maybe I should shave.

Ehh. Maybe next week.

(Kidding kidding I shaved last night after the grass incident gosh)

Please standby.....

A few months ago my husband told me his best friend from school was celebrating his 30th birthday in Vegas. He REALLY wanted to go. Since my husband would be 30 shortly also, and obviously his old bones would be to tired to travel here soon I figured I should probably let him go while he was still a young spring chicken with a 2 before his age rather then a 3!

(I'm going to get in huge trouble for calling him old)

I told him I would look for a flight and get him set up. He told me that his two good friends worked at the airport and had buddy passes. One friend said he could get him to Vegas, standby for $64.00. The husband said okay, and his friend said to bring the money by any time. A few weeks past and we finally got around to taking the money, only when the husband went down there the ticket now cost $137.00. He paid it with out talking to me. I was shocked because I was pretty sure I could have gotten a non standby ticket for far cheaper.

Wednesday he decided he wanted some nice dress shoes. He doesn't own any because like me he wears flip flops or tennis shoes. Off to the mall we go. After wandering around for hours AND HOURS we decide that instead of black he needs brown and now he probably needs so slacks to match the shoes and OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! We go into Banana Republic and he finds some slacks. I run over to Aldo and discover they are having a shoe sale. I go back and fetch him from Banana Republic with his new slacks that are way to big (but perfect in his opinion). We walk up to Aldo and find some perfect shoes. They were also only $39.98 and that sounded great for a pair of shoes that he would only wear once. We talked to the girls checking out and I browsed shoes for me. I picked up a cute white pair that were on sale down to $29.98. Since they were closing in 3 minutes I said for that much money I would for sure come back tomorrow and get my size. The girls agreed the price was great. My husband gets his shoes and goes to pay. We chat with the girls about sunglasses and the great price of his shoes and leave right as they close. We rush home get him packed and we are feeling pretty good about this trip.

He was due to fly out Friday morning. Thursday Brandon got sick. Visions of a sleepless weekend ran through my head. While I knew he would also be having a sleepless weekend I deemed mine worse since he would at least have the liquor to help him stay awake. After a sleepless Thursday we woke up at 4:00AM to head to the airport. The whole family was wide awake and fully dressed when we go the call that his flight had been delayed until 8:00AM.

Sick kids, late flights, I could already tell what kind of weekend this would be. I finally get him to the airport and he jets to Vegas, only, first they have a layover in Phoenix. I get a text telling me his flight had been delayed and he wouldn't be leaving Phoenix for another 2 hours. 2 hours later I get a text that he was not on the standby list for the next flight, or the one after that. In fact, at 3:30 PM he was still not able to catch a plane, and the next chance wasn't until after 6:30PM. I check out prices for car rentals and find out that for 21 bucks I can rent him a car and he can drive there faster then he would have been able to get there by plane. He leaves the airport, shuttles to Enterprise and gets told that sure the car would be $21.00 IF he wasn't taking it out of state. Now it would be more like $200.00 +. Fuck.

I finally give up, go to Southwest and book him a flight leaving in 5 minutes and he's on his way. He calls his friend at the airport who tells him he can take the credit for the unused standby flight and apply it to a fixed flight for his trip home. The kicker is the next plane leaving from US Air (the standby airline), was the same plane his friend come for OK was on, he told Rob, his name was the first name called on the standby list. Oops. His trip ended up being nothing but more delays. His friends wife managed to be a few hours late the whole day, I felt pretty bad for him.

Friday afternoon I was home sick with Brandon and decide to balance my checkbook. I log on and see a charge to Aldo for $75.00 WHAT THE FUCK. My head nearly explodes. I drive up to the store, grab the sales girl and walk her over to the same shoe under the giant sign saying $39.98. She says, oops it is on the wrong shelf. WHAT!!! So it's on the wrong shelf for 3 days now since we had been there Wednesday. I asked her if maybe they thought they should organize their shit. She said no, because it would just get messed up again so there was no point. She showed me a sticker on the bottom of the shoe that said it was $69.99. I said yeah, we saw that, its a normal price sticker, not a sale sticker and you had a giant sign in the window stating 50% off. Not to mention we told the sales girl (who turned out to be the manager) that he would only be wearing these once so the price of $39.98 was GREAT! She heard us say that price. I was pretty shocked that rather then say to my husband the total of the purchase she just took his credit card and made small talk. I was more shocked when I walked over and picked up the cute white shoes from the $29.98 rack to see they were really $50.00. I couldn't believe the MANAGER of the store let me think they were that cheap, and they would let me drive all the way back up there the next day knowing they were in fact over $20.00 more. The sales girl actually agreed with me but said that since I was rung up by the 21 year old manager there was likely nothing I could do, because the manager would surely not admit she had tried to pull a fast one. She gave me her name and said that I could call the district manager and she would also back me up telling them the shoes were clearly on the other rack, and marked with a normal ticket not a sale ticket, leading us to believe the discount would come off the price as marked. I couldn't even return the shoes because while I was up there yelling about them he was wearing them in Vegas making them non returnable!

He was originally set up to be on an 11:30AM return flight so he knew he could party it up Sunday night. They went out partying until 4:30AM and then remembered that his friend from OK had to be on the 6:30AM flight. The guys had breakfast and then went to the airport. My husband decides he will just go that early too, because surely he would spend less time standing by. I have just fallen asleep so I miss the message that he is going to attempt this. They did not get on the plane. I just laughed. I called US Air to find out about upgrading his ticket and learned, that NO you could not actually upgrade buddy passes, and the credit we had could only be used for another buddy pass. The next flight out is at 9:00 AM and guess what, they don't get on that either. This was okay for Rob as flights from Vegas to Reno happened almost every hour. But, Vegas to OK umm, no more flights until after 6pm. His friend ended up spending $350.00 on a fixed ticket, and wondering if it might have been better to hide in the airport all day and night then tell his wife how much he just spent on a flight.

I ask the husband if he wants to use his money to get another ticket and he says he'll wait. 3 hours later he was telling me he needed me to get him a ticket because he had now spent his money on airport food and a present for Brandon. I call my mom and beg her to please help. She gets him another ticket and he is set to be home in just over an hour at 1:15PM. At 1:15 on the dot I walk into the airport, only to find out that his plane has been delayed 50 minutes. Seriously, could it get any worse. The only redemption was discovering that our airport had a coveted Peets coffee in it (we don't have those like other cities so this was a hidden treasure.) We got a couple Fredos and finally headed home.

• Cost on airline tickets $411.00 dollars (after doing research I coulda got him a non stop direct flight from the beginning for only $158.00.

• Cost of shoes for one weekend $75.00

• Cost of pants for one weekend $44.00

• Cost of my husbands next trip out of town....Free cuz he'll be walking his ass there!
  

When my husband gets the camera

Well! First whats up with my hair? Second, sigh, I'm such a messy cook. Third, you can deliver my gourmet kitchen any time mkay! And forth, seeeee how I get my fingers in my food, thats how you cook baby!

Tomorrow, the story of the airport, standby, and my husband is never allowed to fly again!

Grilled green garden chicken sandwich

Recipe here

American idol here we come

o donald from wilddreemer on Vimeo.

So, how did your day start?

Mine started by being faster then lightening and managing to catch almost all of my sons puke on his plate of pancakes so that it totally missed him, the floor and the chair!

Go super mom!

Just call me Lightning McQueen, Kuchinga!

No pasta for you

I was going to come on here and dazzle you all with photos of the amazing pasta I made for dinner last night.



That was before Brandon put his plate in the sink and turned on the water to rinse his plate flooding my pan of fresh hot steaming basil pasta with water.

(See his tiny plate there in the corner)

((Also, I felt like the carb Gods were telling me I'm getting pudgy again and to lay off the pasta)



However, behold, my very first attempt at scallops with a spicy mayo sauce. Rob said they were actually really good, and tasted like his favorite sushi.

Recipe here, on my Tasty Temptations website

Shannon on skinny jeans

Most people look at skinny jeans and think fashion. And, while I do think they are the ugliest fashion choice a person can make, that is never what I actually think when I see them. Aside from looking absofuckinglutly ridiculous, all I ever think is..
Fuck, that must really hard on whatever guy is trying to have sex with her! I mean, at what point does the guy say, "fuck this I'm not horny enough to keep trying to tugg these fuckers off!"

I mean really, just look at them. Tell me stopping to peel your jeans off you wouldn't be a total mood killer!

Yes, I see jeans and I think sex, whatever, isn't that normal? Don't we all think about sex every 3.7 seconds or something?

Yeah, I'm that mom

I'm that mom who woke up to pack her sons very first ever school lunch.
It was being packed, because he was having his first ever field trip, on only his second day of pre-school. They were taking a trip to the planetarium to see the stars.
I'm the mom, who thinks, hey, his first lunch, on a trip to see stars, well then this obviously makes sense!
And he ate every bite!

Sometimes we all just need a good freak out

Do me a favor, go over here, read this, and offer some encouragement!

The hole in my lip

Below is a picture of my brand new dress. It cost me $4.99. What a steal huh. It came complete with boob stains and all. What isn't pictured is the milk stains. You see, last week I went to run some errands. I was hotter then shit hence the boob stains. Then, since I wasn't with Codi and it had been a few hours I looked down and noticed that not only was I leaking milk, the milk was leaking so bad it was actually DRIPPING out of my dress and all down the front of my dress. It was at the exact moment where the dripping milk and boob sweat meshed together that I had to walk into the Apple store and explain to them that between my two year old and my 6 month old my computer suddenly stopped holding a charge and was less brigth white and more, Grey.

Then I got hungry. My cousin offered to get me a sandwich. Since I was still running around and in a hurry I decided to eat and drive. Hence the guacamole stain on my dress.

The worst part is, I'm allergic to any fruit with a pit, including avocado. Meaning I spent the rest of the day in total pain making me that much more pissed over the stain. Pain + stain = Very fucking mad!

Here is a picture of my teeny tiny tomato. I think he's cute. I have jalapenos and bell peppers and peas and so on. Brandon loves to point to the jalapenos, declare them HOT and then say, those are daddies. I find it funny.

(Insert photo of laundry clusterfuck here)
Yeah, I was so mad about the mess I found in the dryer yesterday I didn't even get my camera. I bought two new dresses with strings that tie around the neck. I tossed em in the laundry and opened it to find EVERY! SINGLE! FUCKING! piece of clothing somehow strung together in one massive knot. The best part was when my husband walked by and said, "thats pretty funny". I felt like cutting the waistbands off every pair of underwear he owned. One tank top was so fucked up and tangled that when I got it out the right strap was 2 goddamn inches longer then the left one from being twisted so badly. On pair of shorts some how got so tied up in the clusterfuck they were permanently wrinkled. So wrinkled they laughed at my iron, and laughed harder at my spray starch stuff. It took me a good 8 minutes to untangle that shit! EIGHT MINUTES PEOPLE!

Also not pictured is me spending 4 minutes in the parking lot trying to figure why in the zombie fucks sake I could not open my husbands car door. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was clicking the remote for my car. I'm almost positive that wasn't the problem. It also had nothing to do with me jamming MY car key into HIS door hole. Pretty fucking brilliant this one is.

And, if I wasn't messy enough, while visiting this weeks farmers market I picked up a Pluot took a bite and this shit happened.

So if the floor looked like that, take a guess what the front of my shirt looked like. Also, my manicured toes were covered in sticky shit for the remainder of the day. As compensation I purchased, cauliflower, salmon, scallops, leeks, raspberries, strawberries, white nectarines, pluots, beets and whole wheat garlic pasta! I'm eating like a queen.

Or, a queen with a massive fucking hole in her lip!

Be back soon

My beloved computer is paying a visit to the Apple hospital. She is having a problem with her battery. Something about a small 6 month old baby chewing on her cord and then shorting the battery board gizmo. As soon as her new parts come in I will be back with some good blog, including pictures...and boob sweat!

In which I get myself in big trouble

Last night I had a date to go see Stephanie. We planned to go for a quick walk and what not. I was running late because I had to do something for my husband. In the end I just took his car. His freshly washed and detailed car. I text Steph asking if she wants some coffee and she says yes.

This is where it all goes down hill. See there is a Starbucks right down the street from both our houses. But, it isn't a drive through. Codi was super mad last night so I didn't feel like dragging him into the coffee shop then trying to carry his car seat and two coffees out. I decide I'll just drive one more street away to the drive through Starbucks. I grab the coffees and head down that street towards her street. At this point I have no clue if the street I'm on actually goes to her house so I jokingly text her,

"I'll be there as soon as I get unlost"

I wasn't really lost because I know this area like the back of my hand. So I keep driving. All of these roads are stupid long so I'm driving along listening to a good song when I get this message,

"Where are you lost?"

I reply,

"I'm at a dead end"

Seems they are still doing construction so they haven't made the road I was on connect to her road yet. At this point I'm sitting there staring at a dirt road. A road that I know leads to her house. BUT! I'm in my husbands freshly washed detailed car. You know his BLACK CAR! So I'm sitting there having a conversation in my head and it goes like this, "Shannon don't drive on that dirt, you will get in trouble. Big trouble. Rob will be soooo mad if you get his just washed car dirty. " But then as I'm saying these thing I look down and realize my feet apparently got a mind of their own and with out even realizing it I'm driving on a dirt road.

I AM IN SOOO MUCH TROUBLE!

So. I keep driving. Only I miss the road that connects to her house and end up about 5 MILES AWAY on a whole new road. I call her and tell her and shes just laughing her ass off. I finally make it to her house with cold coffee and a pissed off kid. I showed her the dirty vehicle and we were like okay it's cool it is early enough that after the walk you can just run to the drive through car wash and never get caught.

We set of on our quick walk. An hour and a half and 3 miles later we made it back. It was really fun and we talked and talked and talked. The best part was when we started comparing notches in the wall, and crazy shit we did in high school. We were totally one upping each other with cheating escapades. I don't remember exactly but I think I won that one. We continued chatting and I went inside to hang out with her and Eli. He had cooked some tacos and if I ate meat I would have eaten the whole pan because it smelled great. I finally fed Codi and even asked for some water. In fact, I took my shoes off put my feet up on the couch and relaxed.

This meant though that by the time I left it was way to late to rewash the husbands car so I had no choice but to go park it and wait to get in trouble.

I'm getting better people. I think something changed in me when I went to Oregon, and I sat down on the floor with Jen and drank water out of regular glasses at restaurants and went walking after dark. I'm slowly getting better. A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders financially, and personally things are getting better. My friends read my blog and they all saw what I was saying and reached out. Ginger knew I wanted to spend time hiking and seeing the side of my down I forgot about. So she took me hiking, and has agreed to go eat at some fun little places with me. Katie read my post whining about lack of fresh food here in Reno and promptly took me to our Saturday market. It was amazing and I loved it and got some of the best food I've had in years. Stephanie saw that I was still unhappy with my weight and said she would go walking with me after work, late at night when everyone else is settling down for the day.

My husband has probably helped the most. He's been walking with me after work, going on hikes, letting me try brave new things in the kitchen and just being extra supportive of me. While I was hiking with ginger and shopping with Katie and smelling the pine trees and seeing the abundance of food I was reminded of why I love this town. Next weekend I've got my mom convinced to go to Tahoe with me. I can't wait. I miss Lake Tahoe so much. I haven't gone much because it is cold, or I was pregnant, or I had fears of taking my baby to a lake. With water. Where he could drown. But now I'm okay. I want my kids to grow up like me, appreciating our town. I can't wait for Tahoe. I'm already mentally packing a picnic in my head, and lamenting about the sunburn I will get.

I'm glad I had this blog. I think if I had never been brave enough to reach out on this blog and talk about everything, the people in my life would have never known I needed help. Now, I'm surrounded by crazy love, and having a great time, and in the end, I feel like I owe it soley to this blog.

Some day, when I post about the other huge changes in my life, I'll tell you how my parents have played one of the largest rolls of all in saving me. But, I've given you enough to read for one day.

Just know I'm getting better, and sillier, so expect a lot of retarded Shannon is an idiot posts to come!

The downside to this blog thing

Is that your friends can totally embarrass you on their blog. Sigh.

It's true what she says, only me. I'll post more about it tonight because my side is pretty fucking funny.

I'm to far out of the game

A friend of mine recently asked me,
"So at what point did you ask Rob what you guys where, and how did you approach it?"

I answered but now I wonder if things are still the same all these years later. So ladies. What is the proper etiquette for "asking where things are going?" When do you move from just seeing each other to boyfriend girlfriend? Do people still even call it boyfriend girlfriend? Help me out here. I feel so clueless and unhip when I get asked shit like this.

Summer market inspired dining

This weekend I went to the Reno farmers market (On California street for you locals). I browsed around for some dinner items. It was opening day so the selection was limited since most stuff isn't all the way in season. I came home with, fresh spinach pasta, a roasted bell pepper sauce, fresh caught halibut, white corn, strawberries, raspberries, cherries and salsa. Tonight I decided to make a meal that was inspired by my purchases. The only items I purchased at the store were asparagus, garlic and Parmesan. I made this great dinner, and had fresh berries for desert and all of it supported local farmers, and was great quality. I plan to visit the farmers markets around town every Saturday, so expect more great meals like this. Both recipes will follow this post. Enjoy. And remember, sometimes you have to let the produce that is available decide what you eat. It can be more fun and exciting that way. I had never cooked halibut before and I could have easily gone to a store and bought salmon or some other fist I was familiar with but this is what the fish guy was offering so I thought why not. I hope my ideas inspire you to visit your local market and create some magic in your own kitchen.

(The rosemary and lemon thyme were grown in my own garden, but still, they weren't purchased at a store)

(There will be a much broader selection to come, citrus, fruits, garlics, lettuces and a wide array of veggies, lets get creative people).

Citrus grilled halibut

Fresh grilled corn on the cob

Update

The first pic is a little over a month ago. I don't actually see much difference aside from the whole I'M WEARING SHORTS THING! Also, I'm down a size. I started this diet a size 18. I moved down slowly and a month ago when that last photo was taken I was able to comfortably fit into a size 14 at American Eagle and mush myself into some size 12s. This weekend I went and tried on clothes and I fit comfortably into a size 12 and could mush into some 10's. I'm on my way people. Anyway here is me about a size 14

I realize the shirt is not even kind of flattering at this angle but it is sooo cute from the front. So here I am in my size 12's.

Also just for kicks, I seriously need a hair cut eh?

* This post was part of my monthly photo updates over at Tuesday Tummy Tuck. If you are interested in finding out how I've lost 40 lbs and possibly joining come on over and check us out!

It is that time of year again!

Throughout my journey of weight loss I have set mini goals. I found this helpful since weight loss can be sooo overwhelming. When I set out to start this I had to make major mind changes. One of them being that I had to learn weight loss was going to be slow this time around, and, I had to have realistic expectations. So I set up a series of goals. The first set of goals were 10 pound goals. I wanted to lose ten pounds and then start over. Losing 30-50 pounds just made my goal seem so inaccessible. Then I made other goals. I wanted to fit into old jeans in my storage. I wanted to be able to cross my legs the right way, not resting my ankle on my knee.

Then I made other goals. If I reach 170 I get a hair cut or something. My most recent goal was that if I reached 150 I would buy new clothes. I'm currently at 153. However, it is hot as fuck here in Reno, and getting hotter so I made the executive decision to adjust my goal and say I could buy new clothes when I lost 40 lbs instead!

So I bought a bunch of great clothes. Can you believe I got dresses and khakis at Aeropostal for $4.99 each! I love a deal right now since I intend to keep losing weight. My husband and I went on a 4 mile walk today then I took the boys to the park and did some marathon shopping. Needless to say I was due for a shower. I was in the shower and I was mentally laying out all of our clothes for the next day when I realized, it's that time of year again. You know what I mean. That time of year when you start wearing shorts meaning, you have to start shaving your whole leg and not just below the leg.

Damn! I hate full leg shaving season. However, then I started thinking and realized that FUCK it is probably almost bikini line shaving season. People, I can handle shaving my jiggly thighs, but I am sooo not ready for lawn maintenance!

How do you know when it is summer?

This pretty much says it all

I'm going to raise my kids to speak their minds and tell it like it is!

Why boys have dads...or, why moms suck

Brandon came to me last week and asked me to make a paper airplane. I made this. I thought it was awesome. Brandon picked it up, threw it, and watched as it did nothing but sail miserably into the floor about 4" away from him. He looked at me with a look that said, "You are such a rookie, woman," and walked off. He came back, and declared again, "MOM I WANT AN AIRPLANE." I picked up my airplane, handed it to him and watched as he tossed it aside and said, "no I want a daddy airplane."

"What the fuck is a daddy airplane" I found myself thinking?

Oooo, a daddy airplane is an airplane is an airplane that ACTUALLY FLIES!

At this point my husband walks out and sits on the couch. He looks down at the floor and then says, "what the fuck is that?" I'm busy in the kitchen and I look up wondering what he is talking about. He bends down picks up my flaccid piece of paper airplane with a smirk on his face and repeats, "Shannon, seriously, what is this?" I told him it was Brandon's airplane. He erupted into laughter, grabbed a piece of paper and went to work creating this. An airplane that flies!

Psssh I sooo could have made that.

Brandon spent the next few HOURS launching the daddy airplane at my head. Since the planes my husband makes actually fly, and very accurately I spent the next few hours getting hit square in the head with an airplane. My husband spent the next few hours alternating between shaking his head at me, and telling me I was a sorry airplane maker.

I'd like to know, at what point exactly do men get pulled aside in school and learn to make a plane? Because clearly I need to learn this shit so my son will stop looking at me like I am a complete moron whose 2 year old is light years smarter then her.

For a vegetarian I sure do make a lot of burgers

The MBACOS burger...Or the mushroom, bacon, avocado, caramilzed onion, swiss burger

For recipe click here

Using my power for evil not good

It's funny when people forget they make me an author on their blog.

This is what happens.

Dear God, why does ramen taste so good?

I'm eating some ramen right now. I'm thinking the same thing I always thing when I eat ramen. "I may be full but I could totally eat 5 packs of this shit right now!" I'm telling you man, this shit is good and I want to eat bag after bag of its processed goodness. At this moment I'm staring at the broth left in my bowl wondering if I would be burned at the stake if I ran and buttered some bread to drown in it and sop up the Msg goodness.

I've been doing so well on my diet this week. However tonight I feel like the cookie monster. I want to devour everything in site. Only, I don't just want cookies, I want EVERYTHING. Yeah, I'm more like the everything monster.

Oh, sorry, I'm back. I was busy swirling my fork in the bottom of my bowl looking for any remaining lone noodles I could slurp up.

I don't feel bad though, ramen is reasonable calorie wise. I'm watching this Oprah 21 day cleanse thing on TV and I am telling myself I could so do that. The point is for 21 days you basically live as a vegan. Okay fine. I can give up my eggs for a month. I can try and give up cheese. But dude, I need my coffee creamer. Then I'm thinking, isn't that powder creamer stuff, non dairy? Thats vegan right? Only then this crazy woman on Oprah says, no alcohol, gluten or sugar. Now I'm thinking what the fuck am I supposed to eat you nut balls? You really want me to give up my Almond M&Ms, and my slow churned frozen yogurt and my bread?

FUCK FUCK FUCK.

And also. No. But, I want to do it. Not to lose weight or anything, just to see if I can. Oprah is having trouble and some twisted part of my head wants to totally kick Oprahs ass at the 21 day cleanse. Hmmm I wonder if my Odwalla bars are vegan? I know my Kind bars are.

Stop the press. I just heard I'm supposed to give up caffeine. Well now I know this bitch has lost her marbles. She's one soy patty away from a burger, with no bun, and no cheese, and no giant steaming cup of coffee on the side.

Back to my Kind bar. They are delicious. However do you know why I bought them? I bought them because I was at Whole Foods late one night and shopping for bars when I saw the Kind bar. I started giggling because, HEE, Kind, you know like Kind Bud. And then suddenly I was 15 and taking a bong hit laughing about how I had the kind bud and before I knew it I was filling my basket with about 15 fruit and nut bars I had never tasted before acting like a stoner with the munchies, only you know, a super health conscious stoner and stuff. See, now at least if I still smoked weed I could have an excuse for why I got fat. It was all the munchies fault. Nope. I have no excuse. It's my fault. That sucks. It's always easier when you can blame the weed right?

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around no caffeine. I just can't seem to groove on that. Not that I can groove at all. I have zero rhythm you know.

I'm rambling huh? Oh well. I'm nursing right now, meaning all intelligence is being sucked out of me. How is it I can spell intelligence right but I fuck up the word nursing? I misspell so many words. Not because I'm stupid, but because I'm dyslexic. With the exception of my blog, I've stopped fixing my errors. If I text you chances are it will look like this.

yeah i'm thrying to type righ tnow mbut i'm haivng some troubles iwth that.

See my problem. Me and spell check, we are like this (crosses two fingers and holds them up to say we are tight man!). Oh and also. I totally don't know the difference between effect and affect. I use them wrong all the time.

I think I've babbled enough. But I'll leave you with this. My son is walking around the house trying to be quiet. So he is tip toeing. Only the being quiet of the tip toeing is totally negated by him saying "tip toe" as he tip toes. So now, my little guy is walking around "whispering" Tit toe Tit toe. Meaning, that I can't be quiet because he is saying Tit toe, and I'm a first grader who thinks hearing the word Tit come out of a two year olds mouth is hilarious!

Sometimes you just need some laughter

giggle from wilddreemer on Vimeo.

Also shush I know I look like a dork.

Results

This is a continuation of this post where I wondered if I should track down my brother and sister.

So after much hemming and hawing I went ahead and tracked my sister down on Myspace. I sent her a short note. I explained who I was, and very nicely let her know I was here if she wanted to make a connection. Here is her reply (SIC):

I know who you are. I'm not sure why you think you need to tell me I'm your "sister". I do not remember who you are. I have gone 18 years without you being in my life and you contacting me doesn't change a thing for me. I really have no interest in this situation. I have 3 brothers and i have a really good life and I dont need the drama of something that doesnt even affect my life. I have an amazing dad and a family that means the world to me, along with a great group of friends and I'm not looking for anybody to reach out and stir things up in my life. Im sorry if you were looking for something else in me, but Im going to please ask you and your family to just let it go and leave me and my brothers alone. If for some reason you and your family dont want to respect my request, you can call my mom. I hope you dont decide to take that path and just let things go. I know what i need to know about my birth father and i dont need to know anything else. I have moved on and i live my own life without the past and want to move on. Im sure this is not what you want to hear, but please respect what i am saying and let it go.

Well. Theres that. I must say, I always expected her to not want a relationship, or feel like we were sisters, however I never expected her to be so hateful. I guess since I will never know what awful things her mom said her, I will never understand why she is was so awful about it all. The saddest part is since she was only 3 she may not remember me but I was old enough to remember her well. I have tons of memories of her. How she used to call Nylons Newlons, or the time she stomped on a Christmas album because we couldn't hear, "Grandma Got Ran Over By A Raindeer," one more time. I remember seeing the video of her moms ultrasound when she was pregnant with Nick, and how our dad was so ridiculously happy because Nick twiddled his food in utero the same way my grandma, dad and myself all did. It is sad she won't ever know how much her dad actually loved her. Or that she had a whole entire family out there who loved her.

More then anything it is sad she wants nothing to do with any of the family. My motto has always been, "You can never have to much family." I guess most people in this world disagree, as proved by the problems going on in my own family now. However, someday when she has kids maybe then she will understand the damage her mom did lying to her so much. She will probably grow up wishing she had more family. At some point I'm sure she will want to know more about who she is. About music she loves, or why she is maybe better at math then English. Why she probably loves animals, and maybe soft batch cookies.

While I am relieved that I don't have to forge some giant relationship with this person, because as I see it I have enough shit going on, I would have loved the opportunity to at least tell her some truth about her family so she could have grown up, knowing she was loved by all of us, that her family wasn't all bad, and that there was actually a lot of positive in her life.

Like I said, mostly I'm sad she was so rude in her letter. Had that been me, I probably wouldn't have tried to make us sisters, but I wouldn't have minded being friends. I guess truth is over rated, and sometimes it seems it is easier living lies.

I did write her back a short note, telling her I was sorry, and that I will respect her wishes, but I'm here if she ever changes her mind. From what I can tell she seems like the person who will simply delete the letter with out reading it. I think I agree with my mom, knowing what I know about her family, I think she is missing out on a great friend, and a chance to meet two really great kids.

Onto bigger and better things now right!

A perfect post

Petra, at Petroville started this thing called the perfect post award. Every month her friends award certain people an award based on one post they wrote for the month.

Last month I wrote this post. I wrote differently when I did this post. I was angry, and upset, and mostly defeated. I didn't edit it, I didn't prethink it, I just wrote. I just opened my blog let out of a flood of emotions and went with it. I was astonished when I got 13 comments (a lot for my little blog I'm longing for the day of 100) because to me, this was just a quick note, a girl jotting down what was on her mind. No humor just raw emotion. I was triple shocked when I signed on this morning to see that Jodifur a long time reader had given me this.
You can follow the button to here, where the award is posted. Thank you Jodi (I call you that even if it isn't right, sorry) . I appreciate it. Your comments and emails that day, and also Devras were a giant huge relief. Sometimes, you just need to know your not alone. So again, thank you.