Time

Sunday consisted of making up for all of the laziness on Saturday. It was a whirlwind of a day and it made me regret being so freaking lazy the day before. Grocery shopping, jogging 5 miles, a trip to SAM’s, laundry, more laundry, and yet MORE laundry, dinner (pesto chicken and stuffed grilled tomatoes), work, and lots of baby-feeding. I am tired just thinking about it. And now we are facing a crazy work-week. I have to travel a lot. I have a one hour meeting that I have to fly to tomorrow, which always consumes the whole day with the pain-in-the-ass airport security mess. I have a trip Wednesday – returning Thursday – for another meeting, and then I have real work on Friday to make up for all of the traveling and not working done.

Today I have to take the boys to the hospital for their first set of Synargis shots. Not looking forward to that. At all. ½ day spent trying to entertain hungry, grumpy babies who are getting shots just so they can observe them and make sure there are no allergic reactions… should be a freaking blast! Then – I have to pick up a sick daughter from her dad’s and another from school and try to fit in work and more feeding of the boys. The time – it goes to quickly.

Yum

Saturdays are full of promise here. We plan lots of activities / chores / obligations and usually attack at least half of them.

Fade into yesterday.
We had not made any plans. We did not discuss doing much more than jogging and watching the UT football game. It is a good thing too. Do you want to know what we did yesterday? It will take but a second to read about it… NOTHING. We DID watch UT barely beat OSU. And that sums it up. We did NOT go jogging (first skipped day all month). We did not do laundry. We did not leave the house with the exception of going to get breakfast (which was NOT on my diet). It was fantastic. I took two naps. We fed the babies a million times. We played Trivial Pursuit. We cooked dinner (oh my god – orgasm inducing dinner – must give you recipe). We watched a little TV. That is about it. Nice.

Oh yes – dinner recipe... Tomatillo Braised Pork with White Beans

1 cup small white beans (I used Navy)

1 Tablespoon thyme
1 Tablespoon marjoram
3 bay leaves
4 thick slices smoky bacon
2-pound pork tenderloin
Salt
3 cups Tomatillo Salsa

In a medium-size saucepan, combine the beans with 4 cups of water, add the herbs and bay leaves, partially cover and set over high heat. When the pot comes to a rolling boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer the beans (partially covered) until they are tender, about 1 hour. Add more water if the beans ever begin peeking up above the surface of the water.

While the beans cook, in a medium-size (6-quart) Dutch oven, cook the bacon slices over medium heat, turning them occasionally, until thoroughly crispy. Remove to drain on paper towels; when cool, crumble. Spoon off most of the fat that collects, adding it to the simmering beans.

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Sprinkle the meat liberally with salt. Set the Dutch oven over medium-high heat, and, when quite hot, lay in the pork. Brown thoroughly on all sides, about 10 minutes total, then pour in the salsa. Set on the pot’s cover and place in the oven. Cook until the pork registers about 160° on a meat or instant-read thermometer–the meat will feel rather firm (not hard) to the touch, and cutting into the center will reveal only the slightest hint of pink (about 40 minutes)

When the beans are tender, season them with salt, usually about 1 teaspoon. Let stand a few minutes for the beans to absorb the seasoning, then drain off their cooking liquid. Remove the pork to a cutting board, add the beans to the pork pot, set over medium heat and season with salt. Slice the pork, laying the slices slightly overlapping on a warm serving platter. Spoon the beans and sauce around the meat, sprinkle everything with the crumbled bacon.

Catching Up

Work is hectic…as usual. Boys are good. Girls are good.

I hear you saying “Tell me something NEW” but there is a lack of newness here. Let me see what I can drudge up thought….

Running Talk: We are still running 4 days a week, which is getting hard to fit in with the crazy work our companies expect us to do. We try to do cross training twice a week, but we are seeing that task wane as time goes by. The priority is the running, and we are ok there.

Diet Talk: I am still on the South Beach Diet. I had planned to be on phase 1 for three weeks, however I ditched it after 2 weeks…I am weak. I wanted carbs. I also had birthday cake after two weeks – so there was cheating there. And it was so freaking good. I am hovering around 125 pounds, with 10 to lose. I need to be more diligent in eating the right things and sticking to the diet, but I just love food…so much.

Baby Talk: Boys don’t know any new tricks, but we are experimenting with their food and formula. Roark has been on Nutramigen and Cole on Enfamil (regular). We switched them both to ProSobee yesterday, hoping that Cole would spit up less and Roark would eat better. So far so good. Roark LOVES the new formula and Cole doesn’t seem to mind – both are happy and there are no bad reactions yet. The other plus? Nutramigen is $25.00 for 12.5 ounces. ProSobee is $12.00. Sign me up for THAT savings. As for solid food, they are eating bananas, apple sauce, peaches, peas, green beans, oatmeal, pears, carrots and sweet potatoes. We tried squash, but it was not well-received. Bananas are a favorite. As is the apple sauce. Then sweet potatoes. Carrots are tolerated, but not well-liked. I confess – I don’t make my baby food. I buy it (gasp) in jars (ohdeargod) at the grocery store (yes, I am going to hell – I don’t breast feed or make baby food).

Homefront / Ear Talk: Things at home are good. Bad day from earlier this week is over and done with and we are moving on. I still feel like crap all the time, but have decided to seek a second opinion and see another specialist on ears. And – DEMAND they freaking fix me. NOW DAMNIT!!!!!! What I need to do is get in quickly to see someone so that I can get this taken care of this year – before my insurance changes and we have to pay crazy amounts of money to fix this mess.

I Can Do Many Things

I can fix a garage door opener without the need to take a visit to our neighborhood emergency room.

I can get grease on my hands that may never ever come off completing above task.

I can ruin one very nice white sweatshirt in the process of fixing garage opening in spite of my husband warning me several times that I was going to ruin it if I kept it on.

I can spend crazy amounts of time and money at Home Depot looking for tools to fix a garage door opener, which we ended up not needing – and which I am NOT taking back because – new tools! How exciting!!

I can find information on just about anything thanks to Google (such as how to fix a garage door opener)

I can spend the better part of the work day not working at all and instead doing home improvement projects that I have no right doing in the first place.

Lack of Motivation

It is Monday morning. I have a full week of work ahead of me. I have zero interest in doing any of it – ever. This is going to be a long week.

Signs That I Have Babies

• Constant white spitup marks on my left shoulder and arm
• My latest perfume – Ode De Nutramigen
• My continual muttering of “Do you smell poop?”
• ALWAYS tired
• Ability to hear a baby crying anywhere within a 3 mile radius
• My inability to concentrate on anything in the presence of above said crying
• Constantly singing stupid songs…about absolutely anything
• Talking nonstop while doing normal everyday things (…and now I am brushing my hair, brush, brush, brush)
• Inability to sit down and eat a full meal without getting up 16 times
• Thinking 5 hours straight is a LOT of sleep

Feed Babies

Typical weekend…up to feed the boys around 5:30 and then I sneak back to bed while my husband hangs out with them. Up again to feed them around 8:30 and my day begins. I love Saturdays. I get to sleep. Thank GOD my husband is a morning person or we would both grump around in a funk until 9. What do you call it when you like to sleep in AND go to bed early? Lazy, you say? Shut up.

My youngest daughter spent yesterday late afternoon with a friend buying a Halloween costume for some party she is going to tonight. Ummmm, if you saw it, you would wonder what she is up to. She came home with a Nurse uniform. Ok so far, right? Let’s ignore the fact that she spent $50.00 on it (if you even can – I am having trouble with that part too). It is a short white dress (goes almost to her knees because she is a bit vertically challenged) and she has paired it with thigh-high white stockings that have little red cross signs on them. It is supposed to be a slutty nurse outfit, but luckily it is a bit longer on her than it would be on say – me. Either way, it was not the scary vampire-type uniform I was expecting. She may be taking it back today and getting something else. Can’t decide how important I think this is…trying to pick my battles.

Both of the girls now have their braces off. They have had them on for about a year – maybe two. They look so grown up without the braces – kind of makes me a bit sad. I hate to see signs of growing up and yet those same signs make me feel good. I am a bit odd that way.

Plans for the weekend:

• Run - we have to run 30 minutes today and 4 miles tomorrow.
• Watch Texas / Texas Tech game (Go Horns)
• Feed babies
• Take oldest daughter Halloween shopping with her friend
• Buy youngest daughter present to take to party and most likely shoes to go with slutty nurses outfit
• Feed babies
• Take pictures of youngest daughter and embarrass her as much as possible in her costume
• Feed babies
• Eat dinner out tonight – not sure where, but that is what is on the menu…would LOVE pizza but that is so not on the diet. Stupid diet.
• Take girls to guitar lessons tomorrow after picking up very tired daughter from friends house
• Laundry, laundry, laundry
• Oh – and lets not forget that I will need to feed babies

Weekends

Two nights in a row of baby grumping. They have been waking up around midnight, 2am, 2:30, 3:00 and so on until I finally break down and feed them –today around 5. I should just feed them at midnight but then they will be up every three hours after that. I am trying to not start the habit of letting them get up all through the night, but what am I to do? They are HUNGRY. When I finally fed Roark at 5 he ate all 130cc’s and then ate an additional 30 before settling down. I have never seen him eat so much – poor little guy. He is usually food-averse. We put them to bed after they ate and then I went back to bed, and slept until – get ready – 10am. Holy shit! I missed three meetings and showed up late for the fourth. Although I was forgiven. As I joined the call I realized that I was losing my voice and everyone felt all sorry for me and sent me back to bed. So that is it for work today – thank GOD.

The girls are coming this weekend! Although my youngest already has plans for the whole time with other people. Halloween shopping tonight with girlfriends, and then a party tomorrow night at the amusement park for someone’s birthday. If I am lucky I will get a few hours with her Sunday evening… I could say NO and make her stay home, but that is what her dad does and then she doesn’t get to spend time with her friends. And – she would totally understand and not be mad. I like that about her… I remember being a teenager though and my friends were much more important than staying home with mom. I miss the girls being little – when I was the center of their universe.

Why do I have a job?????

There are times at work where I disagree with a request or a decision. When this happens I will do one of two things. I will either take a stand, or cave. How do I decide which way to go? I roll the dice. "Really?" you ask. NO. But – that is a good lead-in to explaining half of the idiots I work with…

I have shown myself capable of making decisions based on sound logical thinking most of the time. I try not to get too emotional in the heat of a disagreement, and base my decisions on logic. Although this proves difficult at times, I still keep focused on the goal – do what is right for my company, for this project, for my team. In that order.

There are serious things going on in my job this week. Many important decisions to be made. Many decisions requiring logical thought patterns in order to arrive at sound action plans. And there appears to be a severe lack of any freaking intelligence ANYWHERE. WTF? I would love to lay out the whole scenario here so that your jaw could drop and we could all look alike. I don’t think my employer would appreciate that. So – here is my attempt at explaining the latest fuckup in generic terms:

We have been asked by a potential client to jump through a hoop of fire in order to receive their business. We ask for the rules of engagement for such a jumping activity and upon reading them are astounded. We are told that 1) the hoop is actually not a hoop at all but a piece of rope that will collapse when burning 2) that we must be first soaked in gasoline and THEN jump through the “hoop” and 3) we have to actually PAY to do this activity - a LOT and 4) we are not expected to survive. Once this activity is complete we will all have ice cream and move on to contract negotiations.

Ummmm, yeah.

So – my suggestion was this: Tell the client thanks, but no thanks. Do NOT participate in the hoop-jumping activity. Instead point out the (blatant) issues involved with such (an asinine) request and suggest we move right to the ice cream, followed by negations. Makes sense right? The sales team talked to the client yesterday. They discussed the idiocy of the request. The client then assured the salesperson that this was a worthy activity and asked us to please, please do it – and guess what? Oh yes…salesperson caved and is now singing the “let’s all jump through the hoop of fire” song today.

COMPLETE MORONS

I Can't Even Title this One

Holy shit....who would every do such a thing? I am seriously sick thinking about it.