Ch-ch-ch-changes

Whereas some people make New Year's resolutions and some people do Spring Cleaning? I always seem to make changes in my life at the beginning of Fall. Don't know why. So far, this Fall is no exception. I've decided to reduce my meat consumption again. This time, I'm starting slowly by only eating meat (chicken, fish or maybe beef) for one meal a day (typically dinner). I'm not saying that I'm going to go "whole hog" (pardon the pun) again and cut all animal products out of my diet completely, but I do feel like reducing my meat consumption is better for my health.

I had been vegetarian for a few years when I found out I was pregnant. While I did crave meat during that first month of pregnancy, I think that I also used the pregnancy as an excuse to eat meat. Lots of meat. How many times did I say, "Yep, this is definitely Kevin's baby!" while I stuffed fatty, dripping hunks of flesh down my throat. Once the baby arrived, I really didn't change my diet. It became easier to eat meat because that's what Kevin likes and it's just easier to make meals that include a meat, a vegetable and possibly a starch/carb. I ate all sorts of things that my previous, vegetarian self would've wretched at. Foie Gras--which was a low point in my meat-eating orgy. It tasted like ass and I really, really hate the manner in which it's produced.

I went to Whole Foods this week. I hadn't been there in months. After seeing all of the yummy stuff that I used to eat when I didn't eat meat, I became inspired. I bought some roasted red pepper hummus, whole wheat pita, my favorite Amy's Texas burgers and lots of fresh, organic fruits and veggies. So far, a typical day's food intake looks like this:

• Breakfast: cereal
• Mid-morning snack: hummus and pita
  
• Lunch: A veggie patty and fruit
• Dinner: Chicken or fish, veggies (salad usually) and some sort of potato (yum)

I think this is a reasonable diet. I'm also going to be a little less strict on the weekends. If I want a breakfast taco (with bacon) for breakfast on Saturday or Sunday, I'm not going to worry about what I eat for dinner. It's not worth it to stress out and try to keep a tally of what I should or shouldn't eat on the weekends.

Now that the weather is beginning to get a little more reasonable, Anna and I have resumed our morning walk. It's still too humid for us to make 3 laps around the park, but we do a solid 2 laps most mornings. Just these couple of life changes make me feel so much better. I find that when I make life changes like this, I get inspired to do more. I want to watch less tv; read more; spend more time outside; write more...(lucky you).

Sorry, but...this is just funny.

I don't care who you are.

Fall Flashbulb

I've been thinking a lot today about cooler weather (in this case, thinking=wishing for). I love, love, love that first significant cool front of Fall. It doesn't take much of a temperature drop to make me happy. Heck, a drop from 99% humidity to 85% humidity makes me want to bake pumpkin bread and watch The Great Pumpkin over and over again.

I had one of those "flashbulb" memories today about cooler weather. I remember, a few years ago, going into Central Market one early Fall day around 5:30pm (not sure what I was thinking because that place gets CRAAAZY after work). The skies outside were sliced in half by a ridge of dark, midnight blue clouds and the wind was whipping around the parking lot. People were getting out of their cars to go inside and receipts and other pieces of trash violently flew out. Women had to hold their skirts down to keep them from flying up and men with bad comb-overs looked like roosters, as their heavily-sprayed film of hair stood on end. Unprepared for the cooler weather, people dressed in sundresses and short sleeves hurried through the parking lot and quickly entered the store. The wind was cool and crisp and smelled like leaves and burning wood.

Inside, the deli/prepared foods area was wall to wall people. People were lined up three and four deep, awaiting their turn to peruse the collection of hot, ready-to-eat soups and stews. People were hurrying past me with loaves of fresh bread and bottles of hearty red wines obviously in a hurry to get home to spend time with family, a lover or maybe a good movie. The floral department was ripe with the colors of fall...hydrangeas, rust red and meadow green. Curly willow, accenting every arrangement. Mini pumpkins adorning every horizontal surface. There was an energy in the store--everyone obviously excited about the cool temperatures...a reward for the endurance test which is a South Texas Summer.

I'm not sure why this particular place/time sticks in my head, but it makes me tingle with excitement when I think about it. I also become giddy at the prospect of seeing the same scenario again in the next month or so.

Good Day, Sunshine

Outside playing,
originally uploaded by veggiejj.

We had some beeeautiful weather here a couple of days ago. Anna Claire and I couldn't justify sitting in the house all day, so we moved our playtime outside and spent most of the day out there.

Frustrating Part Deux

So, apparently, Costco doesn't open until 11am, just for your mental bank of helpful info. Luckily, we didn't get there for our second trip until 12, so we were safe. (Because I would've stone-cold thrown a conniption fit if it had still been closed--and by "conniption fit" I mean that I would've sat in my car and cussed and beat the steering wheel into oblivion, while my innocent baby looked on and learned new and delightful four-letter-words and two-worded, six letters each, hyphenated wordy dirds).

Once inside though, we had a good time. A super-nice fellow shopper offered me her coupon for $3 off Charmin toilet paper; we got to look at stuff that we don't normally get to look at when we're with Daddy (clothes, Christmas decorations) and we stocked up on our ginormous box of baby wipes and mega cheap baby formula (only the best for our kid).

Anna Claire also made lots of friends today, as she often does when we go shopping. In the grocery store/Target/Costco, my child? She is a ham. I mean a H-A-M, ham. We're talking brown sugar rubbed, clove-studded, pineapple ring impaled ham. So, a successful trip was had by all, the second time around.

Frustrating

Just so you'll know, if you get to Costco at 9:20am on a Thursday, you will find it closed up tight, as Costco apparently doesn't open until 10am. Grrrr.

In my former life, I would've wandered around Michael's or Best Buy for 30 or so minutes to kill time until Costco opened. Today, I found myself with a baby child in the backseat, who was about 45 min away from naptime and getting fussier and fussier the more times I drove around the Costco parking lot (as if my vulture-circling would make them decide to open 40 min early just to accommodate the borderline mentally-unhinged stay-at-home-mom in the black Jeep).

So, we got back on I10 to head home. Also, for future reference, the speed limit on I10 is 60 mph. I know that means that is the maximum speed you should be driving but going 40 mph? Seriously? On a major interstate? While I'm driving behind you with a fussy, sleepy baby in the back? That's just not cool, man. Even the Ford Ranger with the refrigerator, washer & dryer in the back was managing to go 50.

Cactus Flower

Cactus Flower,
originally uploaded by veggiejj.

Our poor, sad cactus who didn't weather the move to the new house last year well at all, bloomed last night. In it's prime, the 6 foot tall cactus would put out about 10 or so blooms. Now, the mere 2 foot tall cactus (the top of it died when we moved here) managed to put out one bloom. We're hopeful that this is a sign that the cactus is on the road to recovery.

This cactus blooms at night only and the bloom usually withers shortly after the sun comes up in the morning.

Yep, more LOL cats

Glamourous

Uncle Rico's (from Napoleon Dynamite) glamour shot. This makes me feel better.

Fancy Bubble Hat

Blah

I don't feel good. I'm not sick, but just don't really feel like myself. For your viewing pleasure, here's a list of things that I don't feel happy about:

• I'm sleepy. I went to bed at 8pm last night, but then got suckered into watching that stupid show, The Hills on MTV. After it was over, I couldn't go to sleep. Then, once I did fall asleep, I had a weird dream--but I know that I wasn't totally asleep--and somehow ended up obsessing about aliens coming into our bedroom (thanks, Ashley, for that one). I finally talked myself into going back to sleep because there's clearly not enough room in our backyard to land a spaceship.
  
• Our baby monitor broke. Technically, it still works, but the volume down button doesn't work, so it's either off (and I can't hear the baby at all) or it's FULL-ON VOLUME--which means that I hear EVERYTHING the baby does all night long.
• The internet is slow today. Grrr.
• The supposed cool front that the weather people have been enticing us with all week is stalling, which means no relief from this disgusting weather.
  
• Our cats ate one of our more healthy, pretty plants. They tend to take out their aggression toward us by eating our plants. We must've really pissed them off yesterday. Oh, and then they yacked plant parts on the floor.
  
• I've been eating leftover pasta everyday for lunch and everyday it gives me heartburn.
  
• There's nothing good on tv and I've now officially seen every episode of What Not To Wear and Vacation Home Search. Bugger!
• I've got a weird rash on my legs. Once I start to itch in one place, it travels and then my whole body gets itchy.

It's ok if you don't "get" these...

Don't know if you have to own a cat or if it just appeals to my sense of humor (or both!). I think these are really funny.

Atrocities of Spelling

I saw two signs that made my head twitch, within less than half a mile of each other today. One was at Joe's Crab Shack and the marquee out front read:

Come try our roccin' grilled shrimp!

Is there a play-on-words or slang-thing there that I'm missing?

And then, a few doors down at Pappasitas:

Now interviewing for compesant managers

Surely they meant COMPETENT? Maybe they should instead be interviewing for compesant marquee writers.

You can't HANDLE the cute...

Imagine that title spoken in Jack Nicholson's voice and you'll totally get it

We painted and just generally spruced up our laundry room last weekend. The paint is called "Lettuce Alone"--that was 99% of the reason I chose it. I love clever names for my paint colors, as well as my nail polish. The shelf brackets that you see were a generous hand-me-down and really make the room look put together. In the top of the pic, you can see the rod that we hung so that I can hang clothes to dry. I can't wait for cooler weather so that I can open that window and let the clothes dry in the fresh air. I've become so domestic, it's really not even funny anymore.

Quick Update...

As the fruit of my loins is in the process of waking up from a good morning nap and will get progressively less and less patient...

Operation Kitty Boot Camp has gone smashingly. I have really enjoyed not having to sweep kitty litter out of our bed before making it each morning. Also downright delightful is the fact that, each night, after getting in bed and putting on my super rich hand cream, I can pull the covers up and not get cat hair stuck to my moist hands. Kevin and I are sleeping better and the cats seem to have adjusted well. I also personally witnessed Wynonna using the litterbox the other day! (That's HUGE progress, people).

The new housekeeper is undoubtedly Heaven-sent. She cleans parts of my house that I didn't even know that I had. She 's so awesome. I heart her.

Anna Claire is pretty much officially crawling now. She also has quite a taste for dirty flip flops, so the destination she's usually seeking in her crawl is one of our shoes.

Lastly, I'll reward your reading all of my naval-gazing drivel with a cute pic of the baby child. This was taken a couple of weeks ago at Berryhill. I was about to put her in the high chair, when I noticed that there was spilled margarita all in the bottom of it, so I had to sit her on the table while I mopped it down. I can't even really wrap my brain around how margarita got in the high chair. I'm thinking that we're missing out on "Baby Happy Hour" or something. I must look into that...