is it called a MeMe?

Im not really even sure what these things are called---but Ive been tagged with one.

Which started me thinking that it might be fun--by way of introduction/re-intro.--to have any blogger here who wanted to participate do the same.

So feel free to consider yourself tagged!

And, because Im never one to follow directions, Ive decided not to answer the questions as some would have gone on & on...


My route? listing only the answers that would *surprise* people who know me.

Im such a boring open book my MeMe thing is brief.


*Jobs I Have Had*
Sunday school teacher
Aerobics instructor (zero rhythm here)
Hamburger patty maker (please to think ginormao vat of cold bloody ground beef & me chanting in my head I NEED MONEY FOR SPRING BREAK. I NEED MONEY FOR SPRING BREAK)


*Places I've Lived*

oxford, england

*Foods I Love*
plain air popped popcorn and a SHAKER of salt.
sad but true. I lovelovelove plain chickenbus.
a close second? a vat of plain oatmeal.
third? BOXES AND BOXES of plain ole chocolate poptarts :)


*Places I'd Rather Be*

(cue sappy music) nowhere else but wherever I am at the moment. It has taken a lot of work to get to this place (both where I am & appreciating it)


*Movies I Love*

(everyone around me knows I love low-brow. the lower the brow the better)
The surprise answer? Born into Brothels and the Shawshank Redemption.


*TV Shows I Watch*

sadly nothing surprising here. Love? James Spader & William Shatner’s friendship on Boston Legal.
Adore? Julia Louis Dreyfus on the New Adventures of Old Christine.
Eddie Izzard on The Riches? Amazing.

*Books I Love*

many many many many.
Today? Eat Pray Love.
Tomorrow? Perhaps The Year Of Living Biblically or Foreskin’s Lament.
Always? Steinbeck.





Anyone else wanna jump in?

Desperate Housewives.

Is there one in every crowd? The other woman who always tries to one-up everyone else. The one that is on the edge of the stalker cliff, ready to jump full fledged into crazy stalker status. The one who makes the new neighbor on Desperate Housewives seem mild and makes you feel like Bree? I do try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.......but I admit, I can hold a grudge like a jaded elephant. Some how I got caught up in some sort of a stay-at-home turf war. I expected politics in the work arena.....but seriously.........politics as a mom?? It's nuts. I went from mild mannered minivan driving mom into "oh hell no, not her AGAIN!!" HELP!!!!!
Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't post this..........................

Favorite Site

Hi ladies! It's me again. I just spent some time on my favorite website: Found.com and wanted to let you know about it.

Aunt Stephanie

I became an aunt (again) yesterday! My little sister (if you can call six feet tall little) had her first baby. I'm so happy for her. I'm so glad that she finally went through labor. I'm so glad that everything she ever thought she knew about parenting will be put to the test. I'm hopeful that she will stop filling my daughter's room with useless junk. I'm so glad that her days of being flighty are over and that she will learn that if she wants her old body back, girl, you're going to have to work.
Did I just say all that? Am I really that mean?
Why, yes. I am.
Congratulations, Sister. Welcome to the jungle.

What kind of inheritance did I give them?

For the past three days I have been catering to a sick little girl whose illness was allergy induced.

I have twins (Thing 1 & Thing 2 for the purpose of this blog and a "shout out" to Dr. Seuss) and they have inherited my lovely allergies. Of course, I am not completely at fault. I put some of that blame (oh heck - I'll just give him all of that blame) on my father. A good man by all other accounts, but he has one heck of an allergy issue. This - my dear internet friends - is what he decided to pass on to me. Not his ability to run hurdles in track, not his great athletic prowess (I'm athletic, but not great by ANY means) - his allergy issues (and his freakish outgoingness - is that even a word?). And I have passed this gloriously annoying trait on to my children - lovely.

Their father? - not an allergic bone in his body - seriously. You could shove him in a room full of hairy cats, hand him a large bouquet of ragweed and make him guzzle peanut butter (can't leave out those food allergies) and he wouldn't bat an eye. Why - oh why couldn't they inherit these "non-allergies" from him.

So, as I sit here with my daughter's head in my lap as I type I consider all the traits I may or may not have passed on to these beautiful girls. I just hope the good traits outweigh the bad.

Of course - I do give myself credit for how gorgeous they are :-). Now, if I can just get my parents to let me know when I'll inherit that trust fund I'm convinced they have set up for me. I'm still not quite sure why they laugh when I ask them about it.

My Mommy is faster than your Mommy

Yesterday my 9 year old son told me he had the oldest parents in his class and he was not looking thrilled about it. I'm 43- husband is 48. I was gleeful and asked him, "ah hah, but can those young Mommies run 26.2 miles or 10 miles for that matter? Can those Daddies run as fast as your Dad? Of course I could have gone into us finishing grad school and starting careers while others had babies or that I did not meet your Dad till I was 28. Running was the first thing that jumped in my head-- I never ever feel old-- I feel wise for running. I feel strong. I feel capable and yes, I've got lots of lines on my face and all the other funny little things that happen every 5 years (I get slower and weight is harder to keep low). My 10 month old daughter is probably going to have it worse. I may need to go back to sky diving to keep up with the latest young Mommies.

8k This Sunday

This Sunday, I am running in the Star Kid 8k which benefits the Pediatric Heart Program at INOVA Fairfax Hospital for Children. The race takes place at George Mason University. I was wondering if any of you MD/VA/DC moms were participating. If so, it would be fun to meet you!
Information on the race can be found on Washington Running Report.

completely frivolous

I laugh that blogs are kind of like the intimacy you feel when you sit next to someone on a plane and assume you'll never see them again.

You reveal stuff you might not tell your realworld friends or your family or even your husband.

back in the day anyway.

Ive learned that if I am going to have a blog about our daughter then I need to keep that thing pretty well sanitized (for my protection :)). There is a *lot* going on in my head that I seriously doubt my mother in law could handle as she swings by for her morning granddaughter fix.

Also my amazing husband reads my other blog & there are certain things I dont wanna burden his pretty little head with either.

(Dooce? anyone? I heart her blog. HOW DOES SHE DO IT? all the snark & no one seems to get their feelings hurt! anyway, I digress.)

My revelation? Im getting my teeth whitened tomorrow.

I realize you dont know me but this is a fairly big beauty step in my world.
I own no make up, havent had a haircut that wasnt courtesy of supercuts in years, and possess an old comb instead of a real brush.

it's just who I am.

I blame the teeth-issue on my daughter.

about 1 year ago I started obsessing that my teeth were no longer white and I couldnt figure out why it had suddenly become a "thing" with me.

I bought crest white strips (didnt work. for me anyway.).
I started using straws when I drank my (trying to only have one a day) diet coke.

It all be came clear when I brought my daughter home to visit my parents.
My mom's first remark? SHE'S SO BEAUTIFUL & HER TEETH ARE SO WHITE!!

That's when I put it together. Her teeth are exceedingly (toddler) white.
I hadnt consciously noticed but, as evidenced by my bathroom trashcan brimming with strip-wrappers, subconsciously I had.

Flash forward to my 6 month cleaning last week when I said (CASUALLY): I might whiten my teeth.

And the hygenist (who is a close friend so she wasnt up-selling me)didnt miss a beat and responded: OH GOOD YOU NEED IT.

So there you go.

tomorrow at 920 am I shall be the proud owner of some kind of whitening tray configuration which shall supposedly take years off my face.

I hope not.

I like my years.

I just dont wanna have bottom teeth that mightcould soon resemble baby corn.

now you.

any whitening horror stories before I make my mold?

Let's Dish!

I was just reading about how Deceptively Difficult Deceptively Delicious seems to have turned out, and I remembered my own little trick for healthy eating: Let's Dish!
It is one of those prepare-your-own-food places. I have no desire to prepare food for 2 hours, but they also have "Dish and Dash." They prepare the food for you, and you cook it. It's fabulous, and not expensive. It's a $15 fee for them to prepare it, but even with that, it figures out to $4 a serving. The food is fresh and very good. I had them divide the 8 serving dishes in two. My husband and I shared the 4 servings with the 3 year old who eats nothing and actually managed to still have 2 servings left over, so they don't scrimp on size. Check it out. It's awesome!

Hustle and Bustle

WHEw- what aweek so far...still no running in. Early morning work day Monday ( 5am start-which meant I had to hop out of bed at 4am....who gets up at 4am...OH I do !) Worked 6-1pm, then ran home to pack for an overnight....I had an overnight WORK trip on Monday night to Ft. Wayne, and just returned home, and went to dinner with my husband and our daughter. I am feeling like a slacker....my hubby and I talked about making a routine of going to the YMCA....I am better at it than him....but we both need to do it. Next week it what he said...I said we have to...b/c winter is around the corner and we will neve start a routine in winter...I think this is starting to sound like random thoughts from my head....but isn't that what we all think us the MULTI_TASKING MOMS!
I plan to run tomorrow....notice the plan...I think it will be short and sweet 3-4 miles. It will have to be after my 5am- 12 work schedule....another day of getting up at 4am.... Well that is the "hustle and bustle" of my life.

Mission Accomplished

Eleven year old daughter came home from middle school. "Lost my cell phone." She said. Just like that: plop, the truth, deal with it. My first thought was that my husband was going to have a coronary which was immediately followed by the realization that my husband was going to have a coronary.

He didn't have a coronary, though his face (handsome, muscular, jaw like George Clooney's) did soften with disappointment. The truth of the matter was that we were as much to blame as anyone. "Get your cell phone", "Do you have your cell phone?", "We got you a cell phone for a reason." Yada, yada. (Are you as sick of the words Cell Phone as I am?)

Two days later, when the phone still hadn't surfaced, I did what I do best and that is to take masterful control of the situation because, dog-gone-it, how in the heck else is anything going to get done about it?

"I'm taking you to school tomorrow." I told her. "And we are going to find that phone."

Her face fell. I mean, fell.

"And the baby?" She asked, meaning her seven month old brother. Nightmarish visions of her mother (gasp!) pushing a baby stroller through the halls of her middle school were, I'm sure, dancing tormentlingly through her head.

"Oh, he'll be there." I assured her. I mean, it wasn't her fault that the phone hadn't been found, but I had a job to do.


The size and scope of my mission increased the next morning with the discovery that my husband had taken the checkbook without leaving a check for her french horn tutor.

(That's all right. Shake it off. I've handled more than this.)

We all load into the car, drive across town and buzz the buzzer to get into the school. The secretary let me in, but she also let me know that no one was allowed into the school until 7:15.

I thanked her for the information but, as I was on a mission, nothing--not even a little protocol--was going to stop me.

So, with a 21 pound baby on one arm, a french horn under the other, I retraced my daughter's steps with her. No luck. Until we happened to run into her math teacher who tells us that although she found a phone, it couldn't possibly be Susanne's because the name on the phone was Suzy-Q.

Apparently being a math teacher is a far cry from being a rocket scientist because it was indeed my daughter's phone.

"What do I do now?" She asks me.

"You begin your day," I tell her, my face aglow with accomplishment.

Back in the car, I venture farther into the Burbs and through several school zones to my husband's golf course. He gives me the checkbook, kisses the baby, tells me he's got to get back to work, so long.

By this time, the baby's had it. Nothing about the morning even resembles our routine. Nothing. And he's not afraid to tell me about it.

After turning at the wrong turn and going the wrong way at the school's one way, I trudged, victorious, into the school office.

My daughter was paged and the look on her face when she came into the office and I put the check in her hand and she had witnessed, once again, how mommy had single-handedly wrestled the world into order, was GOLDEN.

Mission Accomplished.

You can do what you want to me, you can say what you want about me, but you cannot stop me.
--Anastasia

Update: Deceptively Delicious Review

Deceptively Delicious arrived on my doorstep on Saturday. I immediately began pureeing veggies in high hopes that this was going to be my ticket to getting healthy eaters! So what's my verdict? Unfortunately, not so good.

First up, the Brownies with spinach and carrots. The biggest trick, she says, is letting the brownies cool off all the way before serving them otherwise the spinach taste may still be detected. Fine, sounds easy enough. I jumped through all the proper hoops, (even separating an egg, something I have never attempted before...I'm not exactly a legend in the kitchen.) but when taste time finally came, I was very disappointed. The brownies were very dense. Flat. So dang heavy! I put them in front of the kids whose eyes lit up and squeals of "You made brownies!" rang through my kitchen. My husband took a bite and had to leave the room. I took a bite and immediately felt the need to apologize to my kids. They ate half a brownie each but I think they only ate that much because it took them a few bites in for their taste buds to catch up with their excitement. Even my 4-year-old who will eat anything sweet had a look on his face that I can't quite put into words. So what happened? I have no idea. My best guess is that I had to use semi-sweet baking chocolate and unsweetened cocoa powder and no (zero!) white sugar. There was a bit of brown sugar involved but nothing quite replaces the good 'ol white stuff I guess. They had that fake chocolate taste to them. In other words, it wasn't the carrots or spinach, those were totally hidden in both site and taste, it was the basic brownie recipe that failed. My husband, when he was finally able to join us again, asked the most simple question, "Why can't you just put the veggies in a boxed brownie mix and call it a day?" My man is smart like that. So that is what I am going to do today, wish me luck.

Second attempt: chicken nuggets with spinach puree. This one actually tasted really good but it was a bit tricky to make. I used chicken tenders for this one. Basically, you mix spinach puree with an egg, coat the chicken in all that green goop (and I am here to tell you, goop is a nice way of putting it!) then coat it in a mixture of flax seed meal, panko breadcrumbs, Parmesan and some seasonings. The first problem was that the spinach goop would not stick to the chicken so it was just kind of glopped around on parts of the tender, (somehow I don't think I'll ever get a job writing reviews for cookbooks with words like 'goop' and 'glop' but you get the point) then I tossed it in the dry mixture and began the cooking process. You cook these on the stove top in a bit of olive oil. Lesson learned here: flax seed meal cooks very, very quickly. I had smoke! I had burning smells! I quickly yanked them off the pan and put them in the oven to finish cooking. They were not pretty when they came out so I naturally assumed no one would touch them, especially since they were still shaking from the brownie experience. But, much to my surprise, they both ate it. It was good too! You could see the spinach and the coating kept falling off but they ate it and no one said "what's that green stuff?" Next time, I think I'll cook them in the oven and skip the stove all together.

Feeling pretty sure of myself because I was 1 for 1, I decided to give another recipe a go: Yellow Cake. This starts with a boxed yellow cake mix so I figured I couldn't fail. Sure enough, this was a huge hit. It calls for 1 cup of canned pumpkin and 6 ounces of nonfat yogurt, I used vanilla. It was rich, very moist and sweet. Very delicious. This one I will for sure make again. The kids loved it.

With all that confidence, I began to puree again yesterday. I made the macaroni and cheese with 1/2 cup butternut squash puree and the mozzarella sticks with 1/2 cup cauliflower puree. The mac and cheese was really good, very creamy. My 7-year-old liked it but my 4-year-old was a bit harder to please. He is very easily swayed by how things look and this simply didn't look like his favorite boxed mac and cheese so he was a real stinker about it. I managed to get 3 bites in him, hoping to change his mind, but he wasn't budging. On to the mozzarella sticks. What to say about the cheese sticks.....gross, nasty, too good for the trash can, smelly, just plain disgusting....that about sums it up. This used 1/2 cup cauliflower puree. First of all, have you ever pureed cauliflower? It isn't fun. And it stinks. You take that cauliflower and mix it with mozzarella cheese. Then you form it into "logs" and dredge it in whole-wheat breadcrumbs and flax seed meal. Again, the coating just kept falling off so I was left with a cheesy-cauliflower mess of a log. The boys were very excited about the idea of having cheese sticks in the middle of the afternoon so again, trusting me, they dug in. Again, the silence. Again, those faces and again, that overwhelming felling of the need to apologize. Into the trash with the brownies they go.

So basically, I tried 5 recipes and had success with 2. I wouldn't be upset about those numbers if it were not for all the work that goes into these recipes. So what's next? Refusing to give up, I am going to put pureed spinach in a boxed brownie mix today and then I'm going to check out The Sneaky Chef by Missy Chase Lapine whose book was out before Seinfeld's and who simplifies these ideas by adding purees to boxed food. I think this may be the way to go. So it's back to the kitchen I go. I'll let you know how those brownies turn out!

Oh, and in case you want to know what some nutritionist think about Deceptively Delicious, check out this article from the Washington Post today.

In Need of Advice

I have heard that schizophrenics often behave like toddlers, but my toddler is behaving like a schizophrenic...and it would be unethical to medicate him! Harry is 3.5 and goes from being a perfect angel and model human one minute, to a deranged freak the next!
He started preschool FT after Labor Day, and is expecting a baby sister, which he is looking forward to, so these could be stressors. I just can't figure out what is going on in his head. He cries at the drop of a hat for no reason. Saturday he took off running through IKEA screaming "No!!!!" What to do, what to do???

Half of me was impressed with his running, and his ability to avoid pedestrians. The other half was thinking "What the *&%$?!" He's normally a great kid, and a happy kid. Has anyone experienced similar behavior? How was it handled?

IKEA may be a one time deal, but the overall crying-at-the-drop-of-a-hat is throwing me for a loop! And it can happen at any time. Any words of wisdom?

Okay, I'm jumping in!

I'm brand new to blogging and have been a bit nervous about getting started, so I'll just jump in with a brief introduction:

I have a full-time job in higher education administration, have two wonderful daughters (ages 2 and 3 1/2) and am starting my own freelance graphic design business. Oh, and I try to fit some running in too! I live in Portland, Oregon with my husband, daughters, golden retriever Molly and cat Toby. Busy life!!

I look forward to getting to know everyone and share in this amazing journey!