Happy New Year! And Another Acceptance

Aoife's Kiss, a print magazine, has accepted my story "Going West."


The editor said:

Good call. A very good story for Aoife's Kiss. I'm accepting "Going West" for the December 2010 issue, which is the earliest I could get it in.

It's probably all in a day's work for an editor, but for a writer it's a lovely way to begin 2010.


Cheers,


Breanna

Day Two Plan

DAY TWO


7:30 - A glass of warm water. A ginger tea I'm having coffee, spank you very much (Ha! Ace Ventura reference)

7:45 - Brisk 20-minute walk To where?  It's been below zero every mornign for a week.  We will just "shake our sillies out", a la Miss Boo

8:15 - A bowl of soaked prunes Erm.  I think I'll just have a couple unsoaked Dried Plums, if it's all the same.

8:45 - Soaked muesli or as we like to call it in this house, "two fried eggs and a bowl of oatmeal".

10:30 - A small handful of mixed seeds

12:00 - A brisk 20-minute walk or "chase the children and try to keep them from killing each other with the toy trucks while you construct lunch"

12:30 - Bean soup (made yesterday) with a green salad I have no bean soup made yesterday, as we had tuna melts; but I DO have a lovely new bean soup recipie from Mothering magazine that calls for, among other things, a chipotle chile.  Which I don't have.  But I do have a can of them green chile dealies, so I'll use that.

Mid pm - Bean dip (made yesterday) with vegetable crudités Also no bean dip made yesterday, but I have some storebought hummus that will work just fine to dip my baby carrots in.

6:00 - Skip or rebound for 15 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of stretching Again, this is dinner time, so I won't be exercising here.  I'll once again be trying for belly dancing in the early afternoon; if all else fails, I will throw on VH1 Classic and Miss Boo and I will dance around to the Totally 80s video show, while Brother yells at us from the pack n' play.

6:30 - Salmon with herbs, peas and red cabbage, sesame and spinach blanched As I mentioned in the previous post, this will have to be, in reality, "chicken-bean-and-rice enchiladas, sesame and blanched spinach, and corn".

9:00 - A small pot of yoghurt

Put some apricots, nuts and seeds in soak for tomorrow morning

Breanna's note: does "a pot of yoghurt" sound exceedingly gross to anyone else?  Don't they have cups or bowls in Britain?
 
Cheers,
 
Breanna

How Did The Plan Go?

Eh.

("Gasp!")

My plan went fine; I didn't even try to follow Gillain McKeith's.  (See this?  Wasabi Sauce.  My new best condiment ever.  We had it on burgers last night and I didn't even tell you.)

(This is the burgers in the process of becoming.  I don't put any crumbs in, just an egg, onion, salt and peppa, and Worchestershire sauce--the sauce is un-whole foods of me.)

It's not that Gillian didn't have a good plan, and it's not that I won't try to do "day two" tomorrow on what is actually day three.

(Oven Fries.  Mmmm.  Weight Watchers oven fries, so there.  They are crispy and good.)

The lesson is to be flexible.  We didn't have anything today that was unhealthy or unreasonable--just because I didn't have the time or sanity to stick to my 7:30 lemon-water dealie, doesn't mean I had to give up and eat M&Ms for lunch.

(OK, I am ridiculously proud of getting a picture of the steam curl rising off the burgers.  Like in a cartoon, yo!  Now I just need to make a round cake, ice it, and put a cherry on top, and make one of those eight-inch high sandwiches with swiss cheese and an olive on a toothpick.  Oh, and swallow it whole and have it hold its shape on the way down my esophagus.)

(Toddler version of last night's meal.)

I stuck with the things I know are right: it's better to eat breakfast, even if you don't get to it until 10am.  It's better to have protein at meals.  It's better to eat real food and not frozen/delivered/unwrapped food.

(My plate last night.  Note spinach!  For that matter note the cocktail in the glass next to my water... tsk.  Bad.  But if you ever want to have a cocktail, ask for a Cuba Libre--rum, Coke, and lime juice.  Very delicious.  And what I needed last night to still my aching back quicker than a speeding tyelenol.)

(I just took this picture because I thought it was funny that my folded cheese wrapper says "Mook.")

We managed, even though I still haven't belly-danced this week.  I haven't weighed yet, of course, so maybe all this optimism is sheer self-delusion, but I think we will work out ok.  I just took today and followed my own plan instead of Gillian's, that's all.

(Sadly this is the only picture I remembered to take of tonight's dinner, which was Lime Pepper Chicken, Mexican Black Beans and Rice, and Broccoli.  Note the Cool Steamer Thing I was given as a wedding present.)

A lesson is here somewhere for perfectionist-types: internalize the reasons why you are choosing the food you are choosing.  (Note: "Because Bob from The Biggest Loser said so" is not a reason you can internalize.)  I.e., so you're eating cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes--why?  Because you need cruciferous vegetables to bring down your cholesterol?  Because your mashed potatoes always include a half stick of butter?  Because the simple starch in mashed potatoes sends your blood sugar whirling?

(The lentils are sprouting!)

If you know the Why of your food choices, you can roll with it a lot better than if you are just trying to blindly follow a list of Thou Shalt Nots and Thou Shalts.

("Ah, you've reassured me greatly, Mama.")

Then you can rest assured that your lunch of skinny tuna melts on whole wheat (use half yogurt and half mayo in the tuna and lots of celery, and thinly sliced cheese) is probably just as healthy for you as Gillian's planned lunch of bean soup and green salad.

("Mama, I'm a crawlin' dinosaur!" -- actual quote)

It's all about flexibility, at least in my house, where the two-year-old pretty much decides whether she'll allow me to shower that day.  I'm not sure whether the Geneva Convention knows that I'm being treated like this, but I'm pretty sure even people in POW camps get to shower.

("Mama, I'm a STOMPIN' RUNNIN' DINOSAUR!" -- actual quote)

When your house has been invaded by extinct reptiles, it would seem flexibility is a virtue, in diet as well as in other things.  The other huge help in Deciding What to Eat When the Plan Goes to Crap is the whole Just Don't Buy Crap strategy.  I.e., if there are no M&Ms in the house, you can't easily have them for lunch.

("Buddy's a dinosaur!  Buddy's a crawlin' dinosaur! Big silly dinosaurs! Yaaaaaaaay!" --actual quote)

Of course, sticking to my aforementioned schedule should make it so that tomorrow, Another Day, is a day when I can stick to an eating plan.

Except, of course, now I need to have chicken-bean-rice enchiladas for supper tomorrow, because of the leftovers from tonight.  They're actually very healthy enchiladas; not a bit of sour cream in 'em and a very moderate use of cheese.  I'll try to take a picture.

("DINOSAURS IN THE HALLWAY!" - actual quote)

Cheers,

Breanna

A New Day

In which Breanna decides that it's better to become the Schedule Nazi of the house again.

First of all, here is a funny year-in-review by Dave Barry.  Since it's the season for year-in-review, and even decade-in-review stuff.  So make yourself laugh, so you won't want to punch all the other decade-in-review people who can only remember things that happened in the last three years.  You've got to love anything that includes the paragraph:

"In the Middle East, hopes for peace soar when Iran announces that it will allow U.N. inspectors to visit its nuclear-enrichment facility. Hopes plunge soon after when the inspectors report that they were taken to what appears to be a hastily abandoned kebab stand with a hand-painted sign that says ``NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT,'' as well as what the inspectors describe as ``numerous health-code violations.''"

So, getting to my day--we are on track, mostly, with our diet, although we had eggs with no porridge for breakfast because I didn't get us out of our jammies until 10am.  Which brings me to the main point of the blog today: schedules.

I like them a lot.  I just sometimes forget to like, actually use them.  I normally have a functioning Non-Written-Down Schedule, but occaisonally that all goes to crap--like when we are returning from a week-long trip, all sick, and used to flinging toys with wild abandon around Grandma's house.

Here is my schedule.  For now.  I think it probably needs to be tweaked.

Cheers,

Breanna

It's 3:28 - Have I Belly-Danced?

No.

In fact, I'm altering Da Plan wildly as I go, since today has turned out to be a Logan's Run sort of a day (i.e., move as fast as you can, hoping only to achieve bare survival).  We did eat quinoa porridge for breakfast, though.

(Toddler version--with a fried egg on the side and a quarter of a pear.)

--BUT I added to my quinoa some maple syrup, since I think it is gross without a flavoring of some kind.  I should have used applesauce, but I only had one hand to do anything with.  I also ate half a pear and two eggs, because I was hungry as a horse.  They were all healthy foods, however.  I do not regret them.

(Baby version-- an old, washed-out scoop from the laundry soap.)

We had "Tuscan Bean Soup", also somewhat wildly altered, for lunch--we threw in spinach instead of cabbage, extra pepper, and celery because we like celery.  And we used the cleverly repurposed carrot slaw from last night as the side.

At like 2-something I had a piece of cheese for a snack.

Water all day, except for a cup of juice I made myself drink at 11am because the plan said to.  I don't like juice.  (Miss Boo would say, "No Mama!  Don't say I-don't-like-it!  Makes food very sad!"  Everything has feelings now, we're finding, from food to the dog to the fridge to the pillows on the bed.  The inanimate objects are frequently offended.  Perhaps this is why my house is never clean.)

For supper we are having hamburgers on whole-wheat buns with veggie trimmings/sides and oven fries.  See?  I told you I was wildly altering; the hamburgers were supposed to be for later in the week, but I switched them to today because I have the beef thawed and I don't have any chicken thawed.

Fails today? Belly dancing--no, vitamin--no, although I'll try to take it before bed.

Sucesses? On track with the food, lentils seem to be sprouting instead of rotting, I called and argued with the insurance company (who has been sending things to our old address), and I filled in a bunch of forms for our HSA that have to be turned in before the end of the year.  Phew.

I chalk today up as a win, even sans-shimmying.

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S. In passing, I realized I do this.  Who knew it was, like, a method?

Today's Plan

(A very old picture.  This is just here to get you to read about food.)

...I'll be posting pictures and updates as we go.

Da Plan:

This plan was adapted from the "You Are What You Eat" menu plan favored by Gillian McKeith, Food Nazi Emetrius.  I think she goes too far, but then she has extreme cases to work with on TV.  (Non-extreme cases on TV would be boring--like watching your neighbors out the kitchen sink while you do dishes.  Not that I ever do that.)  Here's the plan:

DAY ONE


7:30 - A glass of warm water with lemon juice. A nettle tea
7:45 - Brisk 20-minute walk No, I won't be doing that
8:15 - One pear
8:45 - Quinoa porridge. For two servings, into a saucepan put 1 cup of quinoa, 1 cup of rice milk, 1-2 cups of water and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon then cook on a medium heat with the lid on until all the liquid is absorbed I think I'll just eat the pear WITH the porridge
10:15 - Vegetable juice.
12:00 - Brisk 20-minute walk Won't be doing that either
12:30 – White bean soup with grated carrot salad. Make enough soup for tomorrow
Mid pm - Bean dip with vegetable crudités. Make enough dip for tomorrow
6:00 - Dance for 20 minutes to loud music This is dinner time.  I think I'll actually belly dance around 2pm
6:30 – Sauteed chicken with barley and steamed vegetables
9:00 - A small handful of almonds
Put some prunes and muesli in soak for tomorrow. Soaking the muesli makes it easier to digest
Soak some chickpeas, alfalfa, mung beans and lentils for sprouting I think I will call them "dried plums" because "put some prunes in soak" sounds very dreadful.


I also changed the food a bit--she called for Nut Loaf or something for dinner and, as I am carnivorous, I changed it to chicken.  I think it's easier to get high-quality protien from meat than from weird nut/soy-based meat analogues, anyway.  I'm using whole milk instead of rice milk, because I have nothing against dairy (though if lactose bothers you, you could consider rice milk).  And, while I like nettle tea, I'm going to drink coffee.  Because I like it and I can.

Also: for Pete's sake, the times are suggestions.  I'm not spending my day going, "Oh no! Now it's 8:15--I haven't had my lemon water yet!"  To me, it's more an order for things to be done in than a strict schedule.

A recipe from Gillian (why is it that food Nazis are always called Gillian/Jillian?):


Tuscan bean soup

Ingredients


1 tbsp gold of pleasure oil* or olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
half a savoy cabbage, finely shredded
2 carrots, diced
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 can of borlotti beans, drained and rinsed
1 can of butter beans, drained and rinsed
0.5 litres vegetable stock or 2 tsp vegetable bouillon
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp tamari
nori flakes


Method

Heat the oil in a large pan and sauté the onion until soft. Add the garlic, bay leaf, cabbage and carrots and sweat them for 5 minutes.

Add the beans and the vegetable stock or water and bouillon. Bring to the boil, add the herbs and tamari and simmer for 10 minutes.

Remove the bay leaf and serve. Season with nori flakes.

(*What the heck do you suppose "gold of pleasure oil" is?)

How I would change this recipe:
I'd use dried beans (pintos or navy, most likely)
Regular green cabbage
Olive oil
Salt instead of nori flakes
And chicken bullion cubes/water, unless I had chicken stock laying around for some reason

Anyhoo this is the soup I'm going to make today.  I imagine I'll add a few more specific spices, too ("dried mixed herbs"?  Maybe she means "Italian Seasoning"?  These Brits are soooo confusing sometimes...).

Cheers,

Breanna

A Short Political Foray

Apparently PBO doesn't please everyone who used to hate us back when Bush was President.

I'm just sayin'.

Cheers,

Breanna