I'm not a Mom on tv, but I play one in Real Life.

Today started out full of hope and anticipation. I got up when the alarm went off, got my picture all uploaded on the Mommies in the Morning blog, suited up for my workout and hit the elliptical for 45 minutes just as planned. Shower, dress, kids got up on the first wake up call, we even left the house ON TIME! Crazy for a Monday! I did stop on the way in and get a super sized Diet Coke at 7-11. But it’s Monday and I worked through the weekend, so cut me some slack. Even with the side trip, I was still into work right on time. And sitting on my desk was a surprise gift from my sister – a bag of real salt water taffy! My fave (shhh!! Don’t tell the Junior Mints!) Of course, I dug right in! Nom nom nom!

And then it went to shit. People started pouring into my office, asking if I’ve seen the R/C room (radio control.) Why? Because we were the victims of a smash and grab last night. Broken glass EVERYWHERE! Some of our most expensive merchandise gone. The amount of damage was staggering. And they did it all in under 5 minutes! The store has electric gates and is surrounded by a fairly high fence. They pulled out two boards in one of the fences. We caught them on our surveillance cameras and think we might recognize one or two of them. There was some blood smeared (at least one of them got cut, probably when he fell through one of the glass counters he was standing on to cut down some of our super expensive radio control cars. Idiot! Hope he severed something important!) and the police are hoping to get some kind of a DNA match. Chances are this wasn’t their first time and they proved to be less than intelligent, so they’ve probably already been in the system. Fingers crossed we catch these bastards and get at least some of our stuff back. Assholes!

Needless to say, the mood at work was less than awesome. Between the shock of it happening (first time in our 15 years of business!) and the just bummer-outedness of having been robbed, it was a long hard day. And of course, every customer who came in wanted to hear what happened. Since I sit at the front security desk (feeling like a big, fat joke at this point) I was the one who had to rehash it over and over and over again.

Just total crap… and then I got a tummy ache from eating all the taffy noon! I think I’ve mentioned previously that I’m a stress eater.

So the whole baking meat rolls thing tonite? Yeah, that is so not happening. We had leftover Easiest Pasta Dish Ever that Cali made yesterday. Perfect dinner!

She also whipped up some Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins (of which I’ve eaten three!) her very own recipe, so I’ll post that instead! (this is quickly turning into Cali’s Cooking Blog!)

Hopefully tomorrow will be back to it’s boring old self, and I’ll be more in the mood when I get home to do something beyond sitting on my bed gorging on muffins!

Probably not.

Tonite’s post was supposed to be the recipe for Chicken and Rice Casserole in a crockpot.

I got up early, prepped the ingredients, threw it all in the crockpot. I even remembered to make sure it was plugged in and turned on! It cooked on high for about an hour and then my daughter turned it to low to cook for the next 5 hours. Everything went perfectly. The only problem…

No one liked it!

The older kids thought it was OK. The younger ones flat out hated it. I tasted it and I think the problem is it’s just too bland. I put in garlic and onion powder and paprika, but I guess not enough. It could have used some chili or cayenne powder to give it a little kick. I’m going to try it again in a week or so and see if I can’t spice it up a bit (pun fully intended!)

So, while it wasn’t a disaster. It just wasn’t great. Certainly not blog worthy. And I didn’t bother photographing it. Just imagine a bright red crockpot full of beige blandness!! I’m going to add some broccoli too. My oddballs LOVE broccoli. It’s their favorite veggie. Go figure!

Tomorrow night is going to be meat rolls! This is an family recipe that my aunt (haha, she hates being called that since she’s only 5 years older than me!) just emailed me. I have never made it!! But I’ve devoured eaten it over at her house years ago and it is some definite YUMMINESS!! She’s created a pizza variation that we are going to HAVE to try this Friday! I can hear my tummy rumblin’ in anticipation!

So be on the lookout for some culinary awesomeness this week! I also have a recipe for german chocolate cookies with pecan glaze percolating in my noggin’. I’m hoping to get a chance to try it out in the next coupla days.

I can see that I’m going to have to step up my workouts! My elliptical couldn’t be happier!

I haven’t wanted to say type anything just yet, for fear of jinxing it. But I think it’s official.

The headaches are gone! My energy is back. I care again about what I eat, exercising and my appearance in general. In short, my give a damn is working again!

What happened, you ask? Did I finally adjust to my new med dosage? Nope, I did not. I cut it back down. And instantly felt a whole lot better. The new dosage was too high for me. I was o’d-ing. There really is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

I feel back to my old new old self. And it feels GREAT! I can handle laundry, the kids, work, crappy drivers and just about everything else in my “normal” day to day life.

I’m back to eating healthy and exercising daily. I’m waking up at a good hour and wanting to do things. Probably because my first conscious thought in the morning is no longer “OOOWWWWW!!!”

So, there it is. My dosage has been too high and was basically causing all the problems it was supposed to be fixing. There is a limit and we found it.

I’m fixed!

Last night we were minutes away from closing. We’d even pulled the front gate closed and were ringing up the last of the customers when we got the call. Someone desperately needed some of our tiny dice and was driving like mad from Petaluma, which is 15 minutes from here. She’d just gotten on the freeway and wanted to know if we could PLEASE OH PLEASE just stay open a few minutes longer. I said sure, I’ve been there before myself. So I was paying it forward. I’m all magnanimous like that. I let the other employees go home, no use having everyone hang around for a $3 sale.

She walked through the door at exactly 6:14 pm. No problem, she picked out what she wanted, I rang her up, and locked up behind her as she drove away. I went to gather up my personal belongings and noticed I’d missed a call. I checked my voice mail and there was the message no parent wants to hear: Hi, this is Pam. Just wondering if you were going to pick Skye up today. Please give me a call.

OMG. I forgot my daughter at daycare!! She’s supposed to be picked up by 6:15!! I’ve been taking her there since she was two and I completely blanked it. Now, in my defense, the older kids have been picking her up for the past couple of months. And she’d been home the last two weeks. So picking her up was out of my normal routine.

But all I could think was “I’ve just become one of those mom’s who leaves their kid in the car!”

I just kissed that Mom of the Year Award goodbye. Again.

Epic Mom Fail

It’s time to play everyone’s faaaaavorite game: What’s in the Pantry?!

Ok, not really.

But since Elizabeth asked, I guess I’ll post it. I’m a slave to my readers’ whims!

This is not completely and totally all inclusive. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to amounts. And I didn’t inventory the spice or vinegar/oils cupboard because I was running late to work as it was. I know I have olive oil and lots of garlic powder. That’s pretty much all I need anyway!

So here it is, in all it’s sad, pathetic and boring glory:

Fridge

milk
jar of dill pickle chips
chocolate syrup
hot dogs
hot dog buns (yes, we keep ours in the fridge)
grape jelly
tofu, both silken and firm (remember, this is NorCal. It’s required.)
eggs, about 2 dozen
sour cream
thousand island dressing
pickle relish
various condiments (mustard, ketchup, etc…)
jar of roasted sweet red peppers
apricot preserves
1 tube (can?) pizza dough
1/2 box margarine
light mayo
lunchmeat
sliced american cheese
small amount shredded mixed cheese
parmesan cheese
spray bottle of I can’t believe it’s not butter (don’t judge me!)
hamburger buns (they go in there too.)

Cupboard/Pantry
2 boxes of cornflakes (unopened cause no one likes them)
Various high sugar, colorful, completely unhealthy breakfast cereals
1 c. rye
2000 year old cans of Slimfast
1/2 bag of yellow split peas (WTF?)
3 cans diced tomatoes with onions & green peppers
2 pkg brown rice lasagna noodles
2 pkg spaghetti noodles
3 lg cans spaghetti sauce
1 box onion soup mix
1 box yellow corn meal (sounds like we’ll be having a lotta hoe cakes afterall!)
small amount white rice
bag of popcorn kernels
jar of popcorn kernels
jar of “indian” popcorn kernels (they’re like all various colors, not just yellow.)
bag of navy beans
small amount of brown rice
1/2 bag flake coconut
bag of gluten free pancake mix
2 bags of garbanzo bean flour
1/2 bag of sliced almonds
1 1/2 bags (5 lbs) wheat flour
quinoa flour
minute tapioca
1/2 bag chopped pecans
jar chunky peanut butter
1 can tuna (bought some last night!)
4 packets maple & brown sugar instant oatmeal
1 box hemp milk (no, it doesn’t have a picture of Woody Harrelson on the front)
2 lg marshmallows (not 2 bags, just 2 marshmallows)
1 box rotini pasta
1 box bow tie pasta
3 lg cans pumpkin
1 box german chocolate cake mix
1 jar dark molasses
soy sauce
liquid smoke
quick cooking oats
brown sugar
teriyaki sauce
balsamic vinegar
tapioca starch
white rice flour
potato starch
1/2 of a 10 lb bag of white sugar
buckwheat flour
2 packets of microwave popcorn
1/2 box mashed potato flakes
shortening
brown rice flour
powdered sugar
guar gum
xanthan gum (both used in gluten free baking, insanely expensive)

Freezer
1 bag of whole kernel corn
3 packages of hot dog buns (they were on sale!)
Yep, that’s it. Oh, we would have ice cubes in there too, but someone didn’t refill the tray!

So that is the sum-all, be-all of what we will be eating for the next 10 days.

You probably noticed a complete and total lack of meat (well, except for the tuna and hot dogs, but that’s really pushing it!) I have a few dollars set aside for ONE small grocery trip, to pick up another gallon of milk and some kind of meat product that is on an extremely good sale. I hit up Grocery Outlet last night and while I did get a good deal on cereal (box of Frankenberries for $.99!) and tuna (2 for $1) there meat was… uh… a risk I wasn’t willing to take! (plus the prices were no better than a Safeway sale.)

I’m thinking tonite’s adventure in cooking will involve pasta. It may or may not involve meat. We eat meatless pasta all the time, so this isn’t exactly pushing us out of our comfort zone. Tomorrow night I’ll be more creative. Mostly cause I’ll have to be. We can’t live on pasta all the time – I don’t have enough! If I can get my hands on some cheap cheese, we can do lasagna one night. We use the silken tofu in place of ricotta cheese and it is DIVINE! Just ask my kids, who think my recipe for GFCF Lasagna is the best ever!

Ok, well next up: menu planning.

I love menu planning. I suck at menu follow through and execution. Mostly because I am much more ambitious on paper than in reality! Let’s see if I can combine realistic expectations with a pinch of get-off-yer-lazy-duff-ness. It might come together after all! If not, I’ll need to spend those last few dollars on a weeks supply of Top Ramen!