Sprouts!

First, a shout-out to my homeboy, Chia Scooby, the inspiration for the whole crazy thang:

I figured that if we could sprout a thousand chia seeds off a terra cotta dog's head, we could probably sprout some actual food for eating, and stop paying the guy at the market big bucks for a few pennies worth of seeds and water. We're really into eating sprouted grains and vegetables because when they're sprouted, the nutritional value increases astronomically (plus they won't break your teeth). You could trust me on this or you could go to the Google and learn more, like find out what actual nutrients and phytonutrients are miraculously generated when you expose seeds to a little water and sunlight.

So we headed down to the local health food store and got a few packages of premixed seeds (expensive), a few hundred grams of various seeds from the bulk bins (cheap), and dug through the pantry at home for some other beans and seeds (free). 

And here is the part where it gets very tricky and complicated.  Pay close attention to the following instructions and follow them to the letter.

HOW TO SPROUT SEEDS:

• Toss the seeds into a couple of Mason jars with cheesecloth or some other fine mesh under the lids.
• Soak them overnight
• Rinse and drain twice daily, keeping them damp
• When they look the way you think they should (after 3-5 days), eat them. 

Here they are after a day

and here they are after five days

After a final rinse and drain, they are all ready for John's salad

 The image above shows the contents of the two jars combined: organic chickpeas and regular brown lentils, with A. Vogel prepackaged "Fitness Mix".  Next we'll be sprouting chia seeds as an homage to Scooby, broccoli, black mustard (spicy!) and red clover.

Total cost, about $10, and we now have enough seeds to keep us in sprouts well into the fall (John was spending about $5 for two small bags at the market).  We would have paid about half that if we'd passed on the prepackaged seeds and just put together our own mix as we did with the lentils and chickpeas.  I think by Googling up the sprouting times and nutritional benefits of the various seeds you could easily figure out some good combinations.

Thanks Chia Scooby!

Ms. Moneybags

Turns out one of our local grocery stores has self-serve checkouts where you just toss the coin part of your payment into a little bin, rather than having to feed the coins in.  So I've been having fun gathering up all the loose change from here and there around the house, and using it to buy stuff.

Just a little fun thing to do  - a little amusing distraction- absolutely nothing to do with my being unemployed for the last five months and our current financial situation.  Really!

Today I (well actually "we" but JTM was too mortified to actually participate) thought it would be a bit of a lark to take the contents of the giant penny jar, dump it into a freezer bag and take it to the store to and use buy a turkey for Easter (only .99/pound - one per customer!).  So there I was, as discreetly as possible, reaching into my very heavy purse for handful after handful of pennies (and other copper-coloured currency from many lands) to slip surreptitiously into the bin. For what seemed like hours.

After a while the cashier lady who tends to the self-serve lanes decided to get in there with me, saying encouraging things and helping shovel the rejects back into the hopper.  Which of course, didn't draw any extra attention to what I was doing at all....

Then about halfway into the $70 transaction, in which I had deposited about $15 in paper money and the rest mostly in pennies, the machine gave a little squeal and started flashing some rather obscene error codes.

A manager was called, the various parts of the machine were opened, and inspected - very similar to the process of clearing a paper jam from the photocopier. A big fuss was made. (Oh God, nothing to see here, people.  Really.  Just move along now. You too, sir. I mean it!)

Once the machine was all cleared up and ready to go again, I'd lost my enthusiasm for the whole venture and just paid the rest with my debit card.

 This battle may be over, but the war is not won.  I may have set my sights a little high today trying to score a large piece of meat with my ghetto moneybag, but I am determined to keep spending those pennies, one bottle of pop or can of corn at a time, until they're gone.  And until they are, just call me Ms. Moneybags.

A little update on a bunch of random things

I drafted this update on various things a couple of weeks ago but didn't get around to posting it.  Most of this info is a a little on the stale side, but I expect it to provide really important context for some scintillating posts to come in the very near future.

Pants: Still too tight. Way too tight.
Job: Still none (swear it's like tossing resumes into the abyss - a faint  optimistic whistly, rustly sound as they descend,  and then just an eerie silence.  That pretty much sums up the job search to date.)
Feet: (this is a new topic for the blog but far from new to me) Flat.  Totally flat, as in "Oh God your feet are totally flat," says the foot doctor.  Born that way.  Nothing to be done but throw out all the cute shoes and invest in $500 orthotics that aren't covered by JTM's insurance.  Uh....not this week, thanks.  Managed to convince to do a quick and dirty temporary solution for much less cash.  Hoping against hope that the new insoles will give me some relief cause man, the dogs have been barking louder and louder with each passing day!
Teen Boys: Still totally unqualified to parent teenagers (see Holding Hands), but somehow managing to keep everyone in school and out of rehab.

But the real news is that we are moving next month. MOVEZILLA! YEAH! Bring it on.

Frickin' Housework!

So I've been trying to figure out why it is that I am so obsessed with housework, and why I think that needs to be the focus of my attention while I am not working.  It's kind of making me crazy, because there are clearly so many more entertaining and meaningful things to do right now!

A couple of weeks ago it occurred to me (as I was on my hands and knees unsuccessfully chasing tufts of dog hair and spilled coffee up and down the hallway in filthy pajamas, just like I was the day before vacuuming the basement stairs in pilled fleece pants and a two-day-old t-shirt) that I could probably stand to lighten up just a little on myself. I have such a critical eye; I'm always scanning the background for the thing that's out of place, surreptitiously glancing into the corner for the dust-bunnies, noting whether or not the drapes or the pants are an inch too short or long, checking to see if the shoes, belt and bag match or at least coordinate... It's incredibly distracting. And I am always mortified when someone stops by the house and sees the inevitable dirt and clutter (because it seems no matter how hard I work it still all looks like shite).

I've always thought that the reason my home was less than Martha Stewart perfect was because of my own inefficiency and lack of skill and training in housekeeping. If I could just master the special counter-wiping technique, or train myself and everyone else to follow a routine, develop rituals, find the money to buy the all new everything... 

And so, off and on over the last half-dozen years, I've been following the FlyLady - she's all about routines. Unfortunately she is also all about selling her proprietary FlyLady stuff, and filtering through all her puffy-haired, pantyhose-under-the-jeans, Jesus-lovin' BS, etc... so I tend to fall off the wagon - frequently and hard.  But even if the Flylady is a little too Right for me - she is absolutely right in that clearing out clutter, and developing systems and routines one at a time, will eventually get the desired result. (visit her at http://www.flylady.net if you're interested - just prepare for some cringing and wincing)

But why do I care so much about this housecleaning business? Why am I always feeling ashamed about the state of my domestic affairs (and it's particularly mortifying when I'm not working outside the home)? I don't really understand what this obsession/compulsion is all about (except the accessories thing - that comes from having Margot Clayton as your mom; even at 82 she still puts herself together perfectly 100% of the time, but she is the most devil-may-care housekeeper, and I've never heard her utter much more than a peep about the quality of someone else's housekeeping efforts); all I know is that not only am I just generally distracted and irritated by the dirt and clutter around me, and I must assume that other people are too, and will judge me. Or worse, they'll feel uncomfortable in my home.

Clearly I can't hold Margot accountable for this one (except that maybe she could have trained me just a little bit better in the womanly art of homemaking), so I'm totally blaming Martha Stewart. Clearly she made just a bit too strong of an impression on me during my early household management career.

And this is the part where I'm supposed to commit to finding other priorities.  Or to being a better housekeeper. But I'm not going to.  I'm still determined to do both.

This is the Last I'm Going to Say About it!

Okay, I ate better, got some exercise and I feel better.  Well duh!

And that's about all I'm going to say about it. Like Gwendolyn in "The Importance of Being Earnest" who  never travels without her diary ("one should always have something sensational to read on the train,") I passed a somewhat entertaining half-hour or so the other day reading back on my posts from the last year - and the only even remotely interesting or insightful content had absolutely nothing to do with the everlasting sisyphean effort that is my weight loss journey.

So no more waah waah posts about diet and exercise, posting of statistics and droning on and on about what I am and am not going to eat and sharing my girth with the world.  Seriously boring and self indulgent and the - the ether is already clogged and choking with boring, self-indulgent crap already.

So unless I have something brilliant or hilarious to say, I'm done with all that.

All out of condensed milk. And excuses.

READER WARNING: The following blog post  deals with self-indulgent subject matter and may contain references to both new years resolutions and to dieting.  Some readers may be offended by its whiny, self-pitying and humorless tone.

So here we are at the end of January. Oh man, so much for the New Year's resolution to write more.  Or any resolutions at all.  Okay well I promised myself that I would take more baths and I've been pretty good with that.

Anyway back to the same old, same old boring January thing.  Or late January thing - cause this year I've just been too freaking busy to get on the old healthy eating and exercise kick, or even drone on and on about it in the blog. Oh wait, I'm still not working so I've actually got all kinds of time on my hands - so what gives?

Okay I'm not going to talk about the ratsa fratsa inertia or my fun and exciting Winnipeg in January adventure just now, even though distraction pretty much is my best thing right now.

No, I need to talk about the eating and exercise.  I can honestly say that, now that Christmas and a January visit to friends and family back in Manitoba has come and gone, there has been NO craving left unsatisfied.  No holiday baking left unsampled, no second helpings refused, no late night snacks of herbed liverwurst on pumpernickel denied, no naps not taken, and no workout avoidance techniques not employed....

But today I am all out of condensed milk, and butter, and chocolate, and excuses.

And I feel like crap.  A lot of my clothes (especially PANTS) have gotten a little snug and camel toe-y, my energy level is at an all time low, and my motivation to do much else besides watch tv, take naps and sneak chips and chocolate bars is just gone.

This place I'm in right now is not a good place, but it's a place I know. I remember feeling like this when the kids were really small and I spent my days chasing them around, consumed by a fantasy that I could get them to nap at the same time so I, too, could lie down; and medicating myself with bags and bags of M & Ms and other sugary junk.

Candy! I was (and am again), medicating with SUGAR! Who the hell DOES that?  Lots of people, probably.  I didn't realize what I was doing at the time; using sugar to deal with the stress and fatigue associated with parenting toddlers.  But anyone who knows anything at all about nutrition knows how this story goes: you are tired, stressed, whatever.  You eat candy.  You get happy and you get energy because your blood sugar rises quickly.  But CRASH!  It doesn't last: blood sugar plummets. You are tired and stressed again, so you reach for more candy...and so it goes for hours and days and weeks and months till you are 235 pounds and miserable as hell...

So I guess this unemployment thing has been tougher on me that I've let on - I don't seem do so well on my own and of course financially it's brutal.  And Christmas wasn't a lovely soul-restoring sojourn. At all. And January (apart from a really lovely trip back to Winnipeg last week, which actually WAS good for the soul) has been so very, very quiet and grey and painfully unproductive. And I've fallen, hard, into those old habits, even though there is nothing to chase around right now except my own tail!

But fortunately I know how to dig myself out of this rut (God knows I've done it before) and I've got the tools to get right on it.

So starting tomorrow I assess the damage, get my ass out for a walk, and  get the rest of me into sugar rehab.  It will be January 29 - not a moment too soon!

Mama's got a brand new....

The following exchange (which actually took place) represents how things are going for me in terms of diet and exercise this holiday season:

JTM: *rummaging in fridge looking for butter*

Me: I must have bought at least ten pounds of butter for holiday cooking and baking over the last month.

JTM: I know, I'm wearing a lot of it around my waist, AND I've even been working out!

Me: *looking down at pants that actually fit properly three weeks ago * Uh, yeah....well, I've got a new camel toe.