Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Conflicted ...

This book isn't badly written from a grammatical or descriptive sense, and I actually put the second one on hold at the library out of curiosity regarding what will happen to the family in general, but when it came in I decided that I just didn't have it in me to slog through another several hundred pages of what is essentially nonstop sex. Not that there's anything wrong with nonstop sex, but after a certain point, OK WE GET IT they like to have sex. People in love have sex. Got it. Did I mention that they have sex? Just in case you didn't get it.

Get it?

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Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall

43!

Hmm. Let's see. That's ... two parents, one brother, twenty street addresses, thirteen towns, six states, visits to eight countries, one F5 tornado, thirteen jobs, three husbands (two divorces), three kids, infinite stretch marks, two mortgages, six cars, eight injury stitches, two c-sections, one torn ACL, one concussion, two tumors, one PICU visit, several broken digits, zero proms, one mini-triathlon.

The frame of my life, filled in with awesome details. Here's to the next 80 years, can't wait to see what they'll bring.

To Do List Week of March 19-25

1. Eight hours of sleep every night except Thursday because Thursday night is HUNGER GAMES AT MIDNIGHT IN IMAX!!!!!

2. Eat only meats, eggs, vegetables, fruit, seeds, and nuts.

3. Gym or road running every ... single ... day.

4. Try this meditation thingamajig, 10 minutes a day.

5. Do not allow my boss's (plural) issues get under MY skin. I can only do what I can do, no amount of their freaking out is going to get my stuff done any faster, so just let it roll off, girl.

6. No drinkie-poos. At all. Remember #5 and #2, both related.

7. Sit on the ball at work, and occasionally do some sort of exercise.

8. Restart 100 push ups program.

9. Do not leave Facebook signed on in a window at work. Take away the temptation.

10. Do not post or respond to any posts that involve anything even remotely political on Facebook, regardless of how much ridiculousness comes out of the Republican field.

11. Water, water, water. No coffee.

12. Count to ten every time one of the kids (including the big one I'm married to) does something completely incomprehensible before throwing a fit. They're doing their best.

13. Turn off the TV at night. TV off, Squeezebox on.

14. Take the dog for a walk, or send one of the minions to do it, every day.

15. Find ten things every day to donate or toss.

City of Fallen Angels

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The curse of the overly drawn out series ...

The Mortal Instruments reminds me of Lost. I enjoyed the first few books. None of them were soul shattering, but fun reads - and each had an ending that made me want to go grab the next one immediately. That's not bad, any of it. Brain candy is fun, and I enjoyed the characters (especially Simon).

Unfortunately, just like Kate and Jack in Lost, the two main rcharacters have really gotten to the point where I just want to slap them both silly and hope they call into a demon pit so we can pay a little more attention to the other characters.

There were other aspects of this one that seemed a little phoned in, which I won't go into for spoiler possibilities, but overall it feels like Clare is dragging out a revenue generator. I don't blame her for it (in fact, I envy her - oh, to have that problem), but it's just losing steam.

That said, I'll keep reading ...

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Leptin Rx Experiment Day One Take Two

OK, let's try again. Derailed Week One last week, hopefully back on track today, irritated with myself but the past is in the past.

On a positive note, I've found that some lean roast beef in my eggs allows me to cut the eggs down to four ... six was just too much.

Honestly, if I could never eat again, I'd be totally fine with that. Just a side note.

Seriously, Self - You're Pissing Me Off

On Monday, March 5th, I started a little eating experiment called the Leptin Rx. Note, this is five days ago. In the post, I even said that anyone who says they've "tried" everything but is still overweight or out of shape or whatever is not-their-ultimate-goal is probably talking a bunch of bullshit, that "trying" is not "doing."

And what did I do this week? I "tried."

For two days I was fine. Monday and Tuesday, were easy, with the most difficult challenge being eating quite as many eggs in the morning as were prescribed.

And then came Tuesday night.

After work, I heard from my husband, who went to a surgeon to see about the tumor in his shoulder. He's been taking a brutal medication to try to shrink it because it's in a really bad place for surgery if you ever want to use your arm again, and we found out last week that while it's not growing anymore, it's also not shrinking. The surgeon told him that at this size we're almost definitely looking at some or all loss of use. We're going to start radiation too and see if that helps but he's going to have to keep taking this awful stuff (Sutent) and that pisses me off.

We also found out that his lay off has been delayed for at least the sixth or seventh time. I won't go into why that's frustrating because I know a lot of people think we should be grateful that he still has a job and of course we are, in a way. But it is problematic for a lot of personal reasons.

Also after work, I went and helped with the Democratic caucus for a friend of mine, which was fun and something I'd never done before, but it meant I got home around bed time, WAY too amped to sleep.

So what did I do? Had a couple of bites of pasta, which is definitely not on the Leptin Rx (and made me gassy and gurgly almost immediately, for the record), and had a glass of wine. One became two as I did some late night work-work, and two became three.

Wednesday I ate like crap. Utter, complete crap. Which is pretty much always what happens after wine.

Thursday, not bad. But had wine again in the evening, and Friday was ridiculous.

So here we are at Saturday, with me knowing that really I should have dropped about five pounds of just excess water my body hangs onto when I eat like hell, and it's still hanging on.

Why. WHY? *****************WHY*********************

Did that wine and crap food help me at all to deal with the frustration over my husband's health and job? Did it make me mentally, physically and emotionally better able to deal with the myriad of things I have to do as basically a single parent in the evening? Did it make me proud of myself? Did it support a longer, healthier life? Did it really taste THAT GOOD?

OK well on that last one, yes, most of it was pretty tasty. BUT STILL!

So many aspects of my life are out of my control and it really pisses me off that those components have so much sway in my brain that I'd allow them to make choices for me. BAD choices. And they have for years.

I'm not beating myself up and don't need a group hug. I need to fucking step up and be a grown up, pretend like I'm having this talk with my children, because I sure as hell wouldn't tell them that it's OK to abuse yourself when you're not having a good day. They're learning it from me by example, which is another awesome aspect to my own stupid behavior, so YAY MOM, but I certainly wouldn't tell them that it's OK to do, so why am I telling myself the same thing?!

WHY AM I SO FREAKING WEAK AND STUPID SOMETIMES.

Gah.

That is all.

Leptin RX Experiment Day One

OK, Day One and I already screwed up, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

But before we get to that, let's get to some numbers. Well, one number.

181.6

I haven't taken pictures or taken measurements, I'll do that tonight and post with Day Two, but the above is my weight per my completely unreliable bathroom scale that can deviate up to three pounds depending on exactly which tile in the bathroom it's sitting on. But for now, it's what I'll use. Part of the prescription is to purchase an item of clothing in a goal size, which will be an 8 for me, so I need to do that as well. Much more reliable than a scale anyway.

How did I screw up, though? Not enough protein at breakfast. I made four eggs and one egg white (leftover from making homemade mayo yesterday), and that only came to 31 grams of protein. Holy. Ovo. Batman. I'm going to need to have six eggs every morning, or add some other kind of protein - meat - to make up for it. I thought eggs had more protein than that. SIX EGGS! That's a lot. I had trouble eating what I had this morning, to be honest. But I can do it.

But I ended the day fine - 51 carbs, net. Big salad for lunch, and then a chunk of beef on homemade flax bread, with some homemade slaw with homemade mayo (which really - you should try making your own, it's excellent), and finished eating by 6:15. I don't feel awesome today, but I haven't felt awesome for a week and think I'm still coming off of some kind of bug. And I know well enough to know that I should anticipate some painful days in the next week or so ... so it's all good. If that makes sense.

Tomorrow, more protein! And pictures. Maybe. I have to find something to wear ...