Portrait of a donut eating fool

Donuts make Shannon very happy.

And also. I WILL ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS CHOOSE NEIL DIAMOND. GOSH YOU GUYS DON'T KNOW ME AT ALL (Even my husband got this wrong tsk tsk tsk). (The two who ALWAYS get it right Coffee slut and Laura, who oddly enough both just got mail from me ((or should have, let me know if you didn't)) (I swear Coffee slut is like secretly implanted something in my brain to cheat and guess what I'm thinking every single second of the day, oh shit, I hope she couldn't hear me earlier when I was thinking about, cough ahem, never mind.)

So come on and sing it with me baby

Play it now, play it now
Play it now, my baby

Cracklin' Rosie, make me a smile
Girl, if it lasts for an hour, that's all right
We got all night to set the world right
Find us a dream that don't ask no questions
Yeah

Oh, I love my Rosie child
You got the way to make me happy
You and me we go in style
Cracklin' Rose,
You're a store-bought woman
But you make me sing like a guitar hummin'
So hang on to me, girl
Our song keeps runnin' on
Play it now, play it now
Play it now, my baby

Feeling like Chinese

Chinese chicken and mushroom lettuce cups. Only about 200 calories for 3 cups. Can also be made as a flexitarian meal, half vegetarian and half chicken with no added effort.

Check it out here.

An open letter to the chocolate dipped donuts on my kitchen counter

Yesterday at the store after filling my cart with enough vegetables to make the checker exclaim, "WOW I've never seen someone buy so many vegetables, I hate vegetables, I don't even know how you will eat all of these," I walked towards the deli meat counter. In order to get to the deli counter for my husbands fresh sliced lunch meat I had to pass the bakery.

That is when I spotted you. In your pretty plastic box. Your chocolaty dipped goodness. You reminded me of those yummy little Hostess chocolate dipped donuts ONLY BIGGER! I thought of my sweet little Brandon and picked them up. Even though there were 15 donuts in the package I still grabbed it. Then I looked around hoping to find a package with a smaller amount. There were none. You were a smart package, you knew how to suck me in with your vast quantity and chocolaty goodness.

After you were in my cart I finished shopping. I checked my labels. Nothing with high fructose corn syrup. Nothing with fillers or nitrates (can't wait to taste those nitrate & filler free hot dogs I got Brandon). I filled it with vegetables and organic milks and butters. I got fruit instead of cookies. Slowly I could no longer see the tasty donuts in my cart. I forgot about your tastiness lurking in there.

Until the check stand. Then I found you again as I put you on the black conveyor belt. Suddenly sometime wet appeared on my face, and I found myself hurriedly wiping drool before the checker saw it trickling out of my mouth.

I finished up and paid and walked to my car where I saw the edge of your box sticking out of the bag. You knew what you were doing. You knew I was hungry and you strategically placed yourself right where I would see you.

Of course you know what I did. You know that I grabbed one of your delicious, chocolate covered selves and ate you as I drove home to cook dinner. I didn't even feel bad about eating you, or maybe it wasn't you, maybe that was your mommy donut, or your auntie donut, either way I ate one donut from your little family of donuts and it was OUTSTANDING!

Then last night I got home and fed my family dinner and I gave my son 1/2 a donut as a treat. But this morning, alas you are all still here. Staring at me. You are telling me to eat all of you. Not just one, BUT ALL. Your reminding me how the people on Biggest Loser can eat 1500 calories in a temptation and still lose weight. Your making it sound like eating the whole box wouldn't even be, "that bad."

So I had a bite of my sons donut this morning and it was good. And I have to ask, why do you have to taste that good? You do it on purpose don't you. You were created just to ruin diets and crash weight losses. I'm on to you sweet donuts. And even though I'm on to you, I still want to eat you. I want to shovel you in my mouth and lick the crumbs off the floor.

I'm left now staring at my sons half eaten donuts with tiny bites in them thinking, I WANT TO EAT THOSE TOO! Whatever you maker did when making you, he did right. He has made me question whether I'm a human, or if I am in fact a Hoover vacuum who runs on donut crumbs.

There will be no contest this time donuts. No mailing you out and pawning you off on some other poor soul. No no no, this time donuts, it is me vs. you and one of us won't be here at the end. Chances are, it won't be you!

I see you dear sweet donuts

Up close at the chocolaty goodness

Don't look at me like that bloggers, you would eat it too

Maybe I can get by just smelling it

NO! Must eat donut

NO NO! Must not eat donut. Must just stare at it longingly instead!

Telling donuts, they are bad bad naughty little donuts. They should be ashamed of themselves
(Go ahead and count they are all still there!)

((Mandy was trying to describe my blog to her husband the other day, I stepped in saying, "I'm big on self humiliation on my blog," But then I realized I hadn't humiliated myself lately, which is why you now get these pictures and also, not even five minutes later!

Which one

While driving to work this morning the following was on my radio. Which one did I listen to?

1. Sean Kingston- Beautiful girl

2. Neil Diamond- Cracklin Rose

3. My favorite talk radio show

4. Adam Corolla

5. Something on the country channel

6. That newish song by John Mayer

7. Plain White tees- Delila

8. Chingy- Holiday Inn

9. None got mad and turned on my Ipod

Hurry hurry hurry

I need to Exercise

I need to shave my armpits

(Sniffs) I probably need to throw some deodorant on there too

You know, maybe I should just go ahead and take a shower

I need to buy groceries

I need to remember to put milk on my grocery list

I need to open Codi's savings account now that I FINALLY got his SS#

I need to wash my car it is starting to look like my interior color of choice is dirty toddler shoe dust

I need to put those two cups of milk in the fridge

I need to make Brandons breakfast

I need to pee

I need to go see what Brandon is doing in his room to make all that noise

I need to brace myself for whatever I see, it is loud in there, it's going to be bad

I need to make two care packages for friends

I need to remember not to leave my freshly boiled eggs in the pot of hot water again all day resulting in hard boiled egg shaped bouncy balls

I need to drink at least 10 more cups of my chocolate raspberry Hawaiian coffee because it taste like desert

I need to do more sit ups and push ups

I need to do push ups with out a two ear old sitting on my back saying I WANNA RIDE DA HORSE

I need to tell everyone how this weekend I got a little short with Brandon and he replied with, "oh my gosh mom, my goodness." and I had to try really hard not to laugh

I still need to pee

I need to tell Brandon to get dressed AGAIN because I just walked in and found him reading books naked while covering his mr. wiggle saying look mommy it's gone, as he turns the pages

I need to tell you how yesterday my son ran over to me and farted and smewll it mom smewll it

I need to figure out why there is a tissue in my shirt in my armpit

I need to clip two toenails

I need to tell these guys on the Biggest Loser that they are a bunch of super whiney fucker baby pansey asses AND REAL MEN DON'T CRY LIKE THIS! Shit, do they just find men who are going through menopause?

I need to stop blogging so I can get all this done

Do you have anything you need to do today?

Why is it so hard?

So! You want to know what shirt you wore on your first day of 4th grade? Chances are I will remember. You want to know every guy you ever kissed? I will remember. Basically anything you want to know I can remember. However. Try and get me to remember to feed my son breakfast, and the lights go out. Sure, I remember to feed myself, and that is because I can feel my tummy growl. But unless Brandon is super famished he won't tell me he is hungry. Thats why there have been numerous days when at 11:00 I suddenly think, fuck I haven't fed my kid. That is also oddly close to the time that I find him in the refrigerator savagely digging cream cheese out of a tub with his fingers.

The same goes with teeth brushing. I can feel the fur in my mouth if I haven't brushed, but remembering his. Yeah I suck at it. Which is why I had to cover my bases and bring a toothbrush to work so if I forget at home, then at some point during the day I will remember at work.

Or how about the fact that I CAN NOT remember to put his cup of milk back in the fridge. Resulting in more grossed out looks from my husband then I care to think about. No shit, do you know how many times Rob has picked up a sippy cup of cottage cheese looking milk and just shook his head at me. Oops.

It also seems I never remember to style Brandons hair until right when I am buckling him in the car seat and we are already 10 minutes late. Instead most days my child looks like he just woke up from a nap.

I never remember to turn off his TV which results in Rob saying,"babe, what did you forget to do today?" (This is a tossup, it could be Brandon's TV or the porch light, the porch light is never turned off by me.)

This all leads me to believe I'm going to be the mom who forgets her sons lunch on the counter. Which means I'm going to be that mom chasing after my kid on the playground shouting "honey you forgot your lunch sweety snookems lover muffin!"

Because honestly, if I'm going to be embarrassing myself by being a flaky forgetful idiot, I might as well embarrass him too and add some spit shining to his face for good measure right?

A great summer dish, for only 300 calories

Chicken sate with ponzu sauce & ginger cucumber salad

Summing up my life

A couple things I forgot

Yesterday after Brandon got his presents he was playing with his remote control tarantula outside. Somehow he turned it around so it chased him and ran into his foot. He totally flipped out and started screaming. He went to run but the spider kept chasing him because he wouldn't take his finger off the button. That was funny. However.
Later while in the house Rob wanted to play with the remote to the spider and Brandon wouldn't let him. Finally Rob asked Brandon to turn on the TV to distract him. However when Brandon walked to the TV Rob turned the spider on and chased Brandon. The result of that...Just look below!

Oh yeah, super duper melt down and ugly cry. Notice dad is laughing and smiling NOT being sympathetic!

Thing two. Last week Brandons hair was getting really long. I mentioned to my mom I wanted to get it cut. That weekend they were watching Brandon and when they brought him home they had gotten his hair cut. I was pretty confused because the cut needed some work and I knew the place they normally took him did a good job. I commented something about it and my dad commented back about where they took him. The next morning after talking to Rob we decided that the hair had to get fixed. I kept asking my mom where she took him so we could go back and have them fix it. She was kind of avoiding answering me. Finally I asked Brandon who cut his hair. He replied, "mramaw did it mramaw did it." I was like soooo mom, Brandon says you cut his hair. She started laughing and was like, shit I'm caught. Seems I had misunderstood my dad. He didn't actually say they took him somewhere he just said that place was expensive which made me think they had been there. We asked Brandon more about it and he let us know grandma did it, she used scissors and he stood on the stool.

We all had a pretty good laugh about it because one thing I always said is that Brandon couldn't go to school until I could ask him things and get accurate responses. And while his responses aren't always totally right at least I know he will answer me when I ask him stuff and it's up to me to believe him or not.

Happy Easter and all that jazz

I have great pictures of Easter. I think. Maybe. I wouldn't know, the camera died and is currently sitting on the charger. And, while I could totally pull it off the charger and load pictures, I would never remember to put it back on, and that would result in another partially charged camera battery meaning that the next time my child is right in the middle of doing something TOTALLY AWESOME my camera will fucking die again!

Easter is my favorite holiday. If you read this blog you should know that. So in honor of Easter I made sure to cram AS MUCH SHIT AS POSSIBLE into 2 days! So here you go, my weekend.

Friday was Shannon money day. First, I sold one of my bassinets to Steph, she brought me money. Then I sold a second bassinet on Craigslist. They brought me money. Then my renter who has been causing me some trouble felt bad and brought me $100.00 cash. Hell yeah.

Proceeds from one bassinet went straight to checking account. The money from second bassinet went to pay a deposit on a spot for a softball tournament for my husband. That left $100.00 cold hard cash staring at me! Ginger and I had planned to have dinner together Friday so I decided to splurge and go for Fondue at the Melting Pot. We had a great time and at least 3 hours later we both left wondering how far in the parking lot we had to make it before it would be acceptable to unbutton our pants and let our bellies hang out like Homer Simpson.

Later I watched Big Brother. I saw the part where Ryan chose to take $10,000 from Shelia the single mom rather then a motorcycle. Is it just me or am I the only person who thinks a motorcycle is worth way more then $10,000? My thought would be, give the single mom her $10,000, take the bike and E-bay or Craigslist it and make wayyyyy more then the measly 10'gs. But thats just me.

Saturday morning my husbands car alarm went off for no reason. I was very tired the next day.
We woke up and I straightened up some. Then Rob took Brandon to get a hair cut. He looks fucking awesome.

While Rob went to get Brandon's hair cut I did some exercises. I did some sit ups, push ups, leg lifty things (you know you lay between a doorway and hold on, then try and lift your legs from the floor up into a 90 degree angle), and various other things. Then I decided to do some jumping jacks. Note to self. Doing jumping jacks while wearing nothing but undies and a bra means you get to hear every inch of your fat slapping and jiggling around. DON'T DO THIS AGAIN!

I ironed our clothes for the Easter egg hunt that day and then hung them up. We planned to take family pictures of the egg hunt but had lunch plans before the hunt, and I knew that Brandon couldn't stay clean. I also knew that I could not stay clean (seriously spilled cheese on myself 4 times at Fondue, wasn't risking messing up my white shirt).

Went to lunch at Claim Jumper with my grandpa. I got nachos. They were amazing. Whole black beans, real melted cheese, sour cream, delicious home made salsa, oh baby, it's dirty remembering it. Brandon got the cutest little kid plate. It had macaroni, trees (broccoli) and apples with caramel. The macaroni was fantastic. Seriously, it was homemade, with real cheese and fun noodles, no boxed stuff for claim jumper. He devoured that and his trees which made me proud that he actually wanted to eat his veggies more then his trees.

Still at lunch my husband ordered the club sandwich. It was about the same length as my arm. The fries were to die for.

Headed to the Easter egg hunt and we decided this year to do the hunt for big kids. It is put on in a tiny town a few miles out of Reno at the local school. They have a little tiny kids area on the grass thats just eggs everywhere. Then a medium size kid area that is in some rocks and sagebrush. Finally the big kids get to go in the trees and mountains and dirt and stuff. We started in the medium kid area and before we even crossed into the really big kid area Brandon's Easter basket was full (note to self buy him giant basket next year.) In the big area I had to carry him over some rocks and lift him into the trees. He made out with over 40 eggs.

After the hunt we headed to the school playground and Brandon, Jaida and Maizey played together and guess what THEY DIDN'T EVEN FIGHT WITH EACH OTHER. We took some super great family pictures and I got some awesome pics of the kids and the rest of the family (check my flicker to the right to see them).

After that we rushed to the hospital to see my friend Alli's new baby. Rob dropped me off and headed up to my grandmas house. I got up to her room and she was passed out. No part of me was going to wake a brand new mom so I sneaked a peak at the baby and left waiting for Rob to pick me back up.

We flew across town to Babies R Us where I had a date with Julia. Since I would have been late he just dropped me off there.

Julia and I shopped around the store for hours and it was really fun to have someone to go in the moms room and nurse babies with. Her little girl is soooo cute and has the reddest hair. Codi would not stop smiling and flirting with her. At one point I was worried Julia was going to tell him to back of her sweet little girl (just joking). At the end of the date I even got little Jayla to smile and giggle at me. Rob came and got me and we rushed home so he could get ready for sushi.

I realized I had forgotten to buy stuff to make the dip for the party I had to attend the next day so I hauled ass to the store and then made the dip. I only ate 2 bites of dip which is damn amazing for me.

I did eat a half a can of super processed spicy nacho cheese dip (I didn't even try and think about calories this weekend).

Rob went to sushi and I fed Codi some rice cereal and gave him a bath. He was grabbing my hand trying to jam the cereal in as fast as possible, then pushing it right back out with his tongue because he couldn't figure it out. It was so very cute.

Around 10pm my parents came over and did some super secret stuff in my backyard and then took off again.

Sunday night Robs car alarm went off again for no reason. I am now convinced someone is fucking with us because this is the third time. My theory is that they are purposely setting it off and running, hoping that we will eventually start ignoring it and then really break in.

About 1am on Sunday I suddenly felt as though someone grabbed the bed from the other side and tipped it. I literally felt as though I was rolling or spinning. It continued on for the remainder of the night. That morning I bent down and was spinning so bad I stumbled and almost fell over. By noon it was gone.

Sunday morning we got up and Brandon opened his Easter stuff from Rob and I. Then we opened the curtains to the back sliding door and saw a bicycle with training wheels, a giant thing of bubbles, a bubble gun, a helmet, knee and elbow pads, some Peeps, some malted eggs and a flute thing.

There was also a GIANT remote control tarantula. Brandon didn't give a shit about the bike or the bubbles and ran right out for his spider. He loved it. He walked it allll over the place. However he pushed the wrong button and it came after him. He took of screaming but didn't let go of the button and the spider kept chasing him. It was great.

Then Brandon looked up and realized the yard was full of plastic eggs full of money. He ran around finding eggs squeeling "I found the egg, I did it I did it mama I found the egg, I found nother egg, NOTHER EGG MAMA THERES NOTHER EGG THERES MORE NOTHER EGG. Yeah, there were a ton of eggs.

We came in and opened all his money and played for a while and then went out and played with the bubble gun and big thing of bubbles. We were all dressed and ready to head to Jaidas birthday party. We were just killing time before hand. I came inside to feed Codi and looked up to see Brandon jumping. I asked Rob to investigate and he found Brandon jumping in a mixture of bubbles and dirty. Much to my dismay he had to aquire his second outfit of the day.
We headed to Lisa's house for Jaida's birthday and made a stop along the way to pick up a present for this blogger.

When we got to the party both boys were out. When Brandon finally woke up he was doing really cute stuff in the bounce house and my camera died. We had a great time at the party. My favorite part was after cake, while the birthday girl was opening presents someone turned around and realized Brandon was quietly sitting on the table dipping his finger in the frosting on the remaining half of the cake and just gleefully eating away while all eyes were on the birthday girl.

We then went to Target to find Target closed due to the holiday. So we went to Walmart. I picked up some more color wonder stuff for Brandon. However this gave me an idea.

We got home and I proceeded to do a full on spring cleaning of Brandons room. This meant cleaning the top of his closet, going through all of his clothes (drawers and closet) and checking for sizes. Then I pulled out all of his shorts and checked those too. I cleaned out his play table and took out all of the crayons and markers he doesn't use right now since he's all about color wonder stuff. Then I got the brilliant idea to take all the caps off some of his other dried up markers and hide them in a drawer for when Brandon loses yet another lid to his favorite markers (some day I'm going to find some super mega stash of color wonder lids hidden in his room). I started cramping near my surgery scar and getting dizzy again so I hurried up and finished doing his laundry and decided to eat some ramen for dinner.

Midway through cleaning Brandons room Codi started wailing. I went in to find him covered in poop. Rob was trying to McGyver something together in Brandons room so he didn't hear my screams for help. I suddenly realized that to date Rob has not encountered a single super soaker poop of Codis. I want to know how he has planned this.

I was chatting with my mom when she reminded me that I needed to post an Easter post for ya'll because she didn't want me to leave you guys hanging for a whole weekend. I ate my ramen and sat down to write all of this out.

I'm now enjoying some chocolate and some water, spinning in circles mentally and hoping you all forgive me for not having pictures up yet.

I have to weigh in in two days. I am laughing at myself because I am pretty sure there will be no loss and a pretty good gain. I don't even care. I had a long weekend and Easter is my favorite holiday. I made it through Christmas and Thanksgiving with pretty large weight losses. But if anyone of you expected a loss during my favorite holiday of the year...well, I'm laughing out loud at you!

I must go to bed now. Codi is in his crib which means as soon as I shut my eyes he will wake up and want to be in my bed.

Happy Easter ya'll!