Dear Friend,

My heart goes out to you tonight!  Tonight I was given the news that you are alone.  Tonight you are one.  Where once there was two, you now are just one.  One heart, one soulmate, one life.

Tonight I was told your partner took his life last week.  Tonight I am so sad for you.  Tonight I wonder if you are ok.  I am finding I can’t stop thinking about you.  I can’t stop thinking about the love you both shared for each other.  It was always so apparent in the way you spoke about him.  Although I never met your partner, I know how much he meant to you in your words you shared with me time after time.  And in the memories I saw captured in your photography.  I can’t imagine what you are going through.  I can’t begin to imagine what would drive your partner to take his life.  The grief you must be feeling must be suffocating.

I want to see you.  To be there for you.  To talk to you.  To take you in my arms and hold you tight.  To wish I had the right words that could make your pain cease.  To assure you, you are not alone.  You have so many people who love you and support you.  Yet I know it would not be enough.  Nothing could be “enough” right now, at this moment for you.  “Enough” would only be having your partner back.

I extend my sincerest and deepest sympathy to you.  While it will still be a few weeks before I wee you in person, know that I love you.  Know that my thoughts and prayers are with you.  Know that you are not alone and your partner will not be forgotten.  Know that no matter what he loved you.  Do not doubt that for one second.  He did not do this because of you.  Just know that.  It will take time to heal.  Time to find some peace with what you have been through in the past few days.

My friend, I am here for you.  I am praying for you.  I am thinking of you.  I am thankful for you and for your life and us being put in each others paths so I was able to become friends with you.

Loving you,

LFM

Note: I don’t think my friend even knows about my blog to begin with so chances are he’ll never read this, but I needed to get this out because hearing about this tonight saddened me for my friend.  Just please pray for my friend too.  He has a long road of healing ahead of him.  He did not deserve this at all, and is just one of the nicest guys I’ve known.

Last weekend we went to the Bridgewater Country Fair.  I suck because I left my camera at home along with my cell phone.  That made it impossible to both take pictures and twitter.  How did I survive?  I’m still not sure.  But it was fun.  While I didn’t have my camera, my mom did have one, but it was only intermittently working.  This was one of the times it did work.  Li’l Foot is having a blast playing in the cornbox!!!  There were two of them.  She was unstoppable.  She also loved the animals, but the most fun was spent playing in the corn.

She was busy sweeping away the corn to reveal the bottom of the box.

She’s totally thinking, “kid, I own this piece of corn real estate, don’t even try to take a single kernel!!!”

I was strictly not involved with putting corn on her head!!!  No really, I had no part of it.  There was a kid right behind her with the parents standing over him and when they saw the corn on Li’l Foot’s head and asked me if their son had done that to her.  I had to fess up at that point and tell them I did it because I just couldn’t let an innocent bystander get in trouble for it.

In the last few months or so Li’l Foot has discovered hse can open the refrigerator door.  She knows where things are located in the refrigerator.  She has a weird fascination with pulling out the jar of sardines from the door (note: I only have this in my refrigerator because it’s part of a Caesar Salad dressing I have made…about 3 years ago, so yeah they can probabaly get chucked).  She knows the third drawer up contains her Polly-O string cheese.  She has been known to open that drawer for herself and pull out the whole bag of them.  She’s also been known to take one or more out and munch right on the plastic without asking for help to open them.

This past week, she’s discovered more things she can take out on her own.  I opened the fruit drawer one morning this week so I could take a peach or plum to work as a snack only to find that TWO of the peaches in the drawer had small type bite marks in each one.  And I’m not just a little row of broken peach skin, I”m talking, she took a BITE out of each one and put them both back in the drawer.  A few days later LFD went to make hot dogs for dinner and when he took them out of the drawer he discovered this:

Yeah, so…LFD’s dogs were accosted by his own flesh and blood.  He sure did cook them up though and he sure did give Li’l Foot that one right there on the end of the package.  She was none the wiser, since I cut it up into pieces for her.

For Summer Fun Photo Contest over at 5 Minutes For Mom.

Photo taken July 12, 2008.
Scene: Hot, humid afternoon. One driveway. One hose. One toddler.
Photo by Pocklock

A coworkers made a copy of this recipe from Barefoot Contessa.  I was super excited when I saw the picture and saw how easy it would be.  It is actually called Scallops with mushrooms and spinach.  I made it tonight for dinner.  And I thought I’d share the recipe with you, since I’m just that nice!  It is super easy to make..so grab your skillets kids…and then once you’ve made it come back and tell me how much you love me and the fact that I shared this to die for recipe with you.

Here goes:

Gather your ingredients…

20 Scallops

salt and pepper

olive oil

1/4 cup flour

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup chopped shallots (3 shallots)

8 ounces mushrooms, thick slices

1/2 cup dry white wine

8 ounces baby spinach

2 table spoons grated parmesan cheese

lemon wedges

Got all that?  Well if you have all that, it should look like this (or kind of like this):

If you have all that stuff…you might be missing one thing…here..I’ll show you…you’ll ned one of these too:

A helper…and you can’t have this one…she’s mine…get your own!

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.

Take out your scallops and pat them dry with paper towels…

Heat up 2 table spoons of olive oil in a saute pan:

Flour the scallops while the oil heats up:

Shake any residual flour that you can off the scallops:

The recipe says to do half the scallops at a time but I didn’t.  I did them all, and flipped them half way through cooking.  Cook the scallops for 3 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the second side.

The recipe also says to put salt and pepper on the scallops before your flour them…but I didn’t, because I forgot, so I just put it on after they were in the saute pan and it was fine…trust me…

See? Just fine!  And no, that’s not real Corona bottles, they are salt and pepper shakers we stole one time from a Mexican place..shhhhhhh!

Once you’ve browned the scallops…NO NEED TO COOK THEM COMPLETELY, they should be pink inside, place them in a oven approved platter type dish. I used my Pampered Chef Stoneware bar pan.

Place these in the oven to keep them warm while you cook up the rest of the ingredients.

Now…in sauce pan place half a stick (also known as a 1/4 cup) of unsalted butter:

While the butter is melting, chop up the 3 shallots:

I used my Pampered Chef Food Chopper because it is awesome like that!

Toss the shallots in the melted butter an let cook for 2 minutes over medium heat.

Intermission so the cat can say hi:

I don’t recommend you use her as your helper…what with the cat hair and whatnot! She was also very busy bathing herself!

Next, (I bought presliced mushrooms because I’m lazy like that tonight) cook the mushrooms down for about 4-5 minutes until they are browned:

Then once they are browned, add in a 1/4 cup of white wine:

Note here…the smell is so wonderful…just take a moment to bask in it.  This would be the moment you wish the interweb had sniffer capabilities…alas it doesn’t, so you’ll just have to go make this on your own…

YUM!

Cook down the wine for 2 minutes.

Rinse the baby spinach…and don’t be a dope like me and buy the regular sized spinach…I adjusted accordingly by cutting the bigger spinach into smaller pieces and it cooks down anyway, but baby spinach would’ve been way easier:

I also dried my spinach off a bit…

Add the spinach in a little bit at a time, as it wilts more room will free up to add a little more, repeat as necessary until you’ve added all the spinach:

That huge bag of spinach cooked down to nothing.  For such a wonderful vegetable it sure doesn’t offer much when cooked:

Recipe calls for 2 grated tablespoons of parmesan cheese, but I love cheese so I didn’t actually measure…

I love this gadget…so easy and fun to use…

So now you’ve cooked up the mushrooms and spinach and the scallops are warming in the oven.  Now take the scallops out of the oven and place the mushroom/spinach mixture over the top of the scallops:

Sprinkle the grated parmesan cheese on top of the scallops, mushrooms and spinach:

Then put it all back in the oven for 3 minutes.

Once you’ve baked it, take it out and sprinkle it with pepper and drizzle some fresh squeezed lemon on top:

I used a spatula to take it off the stoneware, only because I wanted the upside of it, up.  I didn’t want to toss it about, even though it would’ve been fine if I had.

Next step?  Well this is possibly the most important part of the whole entire thing…are you paying attention?  This will either make or break your meal!  It is imperative you pay close attention!!!  This is the difference between a meal that you can enjoy and a meal gone terribly interrupted and wrong!!!!  Actually there’s another step after this that I almost forgot that is equally if not more important than this one so listen up!! Ready?  Observe!

See that? That’s an ice cream cone.  See that kid in the background?  That’s a toddler who defines perpetual motion!  If I made this meal and she interrupts it…we’re gonna come to blows!!!  If she ruins this dinner and she disrupts it so help me I’ll take that paddle there on the right hand side of the picture, hanging there on the wall and paddle a canoe across the lake!!!  So continue to observe…

Now THAT is a happy kid!!!  A HAPPY kid who will let me eat my dinner in peace!!!  A HAPPY kid with an ice cream cone strategically supplied with just the right amount of ice cream for me to eat my food.

And yes, she polished that whole thing off.  It was only one scoop of ice cream, but the cone really made her day!  I could tell!

Put dinner on the table and say grace:

But WAIT!!!

Now…that final step which I mentioned I almost forgot…watch…

The time out moose was ready and waiting for something…I don’t know what…Li’l Foot doesn’t go to time out (yet!) so he’s just observing and supervising!

He’ll just throw penalty flags for drinking the wine too fast or something…

And then watch as someone else takes a bite first…to make sure it’s ok…

And then pat yourself on the back when his plate gets to looking like this…

This was a super easy recipe.  Not too many ingredients.  Easy prep! Easy cooking! It maybe took me an hour altogether to cook it from start to finish (but that also included picture taking and washing hands every five seconds so I didn’t goop up the camera!  And that’s it.  It’s really easy.  Now go make it, I promise it won’t disappoint, nles you don’t like scallops……or mushrooms…..or spinach…well, then you’ll just have to wait another couple years until I find another recipe that I liked enough to blog about it!

Last night we took Li’l Foot to the city to see the Walking with Dinosaurs show at Madison Square Garden.  We had an awesome time.  The show was so well done.  We were cautious and bought seats far away and up in the arena.  As in, we were the next to last row from the very top row on the upper upper upper tier.  We really couldn’t have been any more cautious.

As I mentioned in the poll post about whether or not to go on this adventure, Li’l Foot loves the commercial for the Walking with Dinaosaurs.  The knows if she’s in another room and it comes on the tv, she hears it and comes running to see it.  And then knows we have TiVo so she makes us rewind it and play it again and again.

We couldn’t have made a better decision to go.  I am so happy we went for it.  Li’l Foot had so much fun and her attention was held the entire time, except during the 20 minute intermission (which wasn’t really necessary).

Of course I took a bunch of pictures with the new camera and I think I’ll need to really learn more about taking pictures in dark places, but I did get some good images of the dinosaurs.

On the way home hubbie referred to me as P-Rex…and this morning called Li’l Foot C-Rex.  He’s found new pet names for us…how sweet.  When I mentioned his name didn’t really work with the whole Rex theme…because really S-Rex doesn’t really do it for me, he said, “sure it does…Sex!”  To which I replied…”am I supposed to add god after that?”

Anyway…here are the pictures…

Jurassic Garden waiting for the show to start…

The triassic period…

Trippy…

We haven’t heard from the fur balls of the Li’l Foot Family clan lately.  So I thought I should let them reach out to all of you and give you a nuzzle…are you ready?

Keoki…

Guinness…

The cat is scared of the toddler yet Li’l Foot is the one who insists on making sure we feed the cat, and the dog hates when the toddler tries to ride him but loves food dropped on the floor from the high chair!

Also titled…

I accept your challenge, day 1!

This morning I went to the gym.  It felt SO good!  I enoyed every moment!  I was there for an hour and a half.  I touched on each of the three challenges presented to me thus far.

1. running: my timed mile this morning was 11 minutes 42 seconds.  My goal for 4 weeks from now is to do a 10 minute mile without touching the treadmill handle bars.  Today I touched them every once in a while and I hated having to, but I did.  I wound up doing two miles this morning in 27 minutes.  I speed walked the second mile. I burned about 300 calories.

2. biking: I used the incumbent bike this morning after the treadmill.  I did 5 miles in 20 minutes.  I ranged my speed and resistance throughout the bike ride.  I burned about 200 calories.

3. music: i have not yet bought a pair of iShoes, I hope to, but I have to wait for a pay check.  It’s not in the budget at this point.  But I was asked to by one of my challengers to show my play list for work outs.  I seriously am lacking in this department.  I need workout music…deseperately.  I started out hooking up to the treadmill and watching the Today Show, but then that ended and I turned on my iPod.  At the point I turned my iPod on, the song over the loud speaker in the gym was “Dancing Queen”  the first song that started playing just because the iPod didn’t know what to play so it started at the top of my play list was “Dancing Queen”…freeeeeakyyyyyy!!!  I soon changed it though. That’s hardly workout tunes.  I settled today for Billy Joel which is hardly workout music either, but I love working out to the song “Pressure”…I get so motivated hearing that song.

So a productive day.  I came home, weighed myself before sowering and was 2 pounds less than yesterday morning.  14 pounds to my goal for Hawaii.  But I haven’t eaten for the day, so that could be why.

As reward I get to go visit little Lexi and the proud new parents!!!

Tonight we go to the Walking with Dinosaurs at Madison Square Garden…I’m sure the memory card will be full of pictures tonight.

Edited to add…If your ust tuning in I posted this earier this afternoon, and I guess I was in a rush to go visit baby Lexi because I realized on my way down that I totally neglected the main point to this post.  Kidney stones!  Ok, no, I didn’t pass any more.  After the gym this morning I went to the car wash right in the same shopping center.  I decided to get the “express interior” package.  Note t self: when they say express, they don’t actually mean less than 10 minutes.  I gave them my car, and sat on the sidelines waiting.  When I finally had my car back, thing were out of place.  I have this little cubby hole for my Purell and my blistex.  In that little cubbie was a rolled up piece of tissue.  In that piece of rolled up piece of tissue were these:

Well, not the pea (that was just for size reference when I took the picture), but my kidney stones from last year around this time of year.  I just never took them out of my car after showing them to the stunned urologist at my appointment.  Well, today, they are no longer in my possession.  They have gone to the big car wash vaccuum heaven in the sky.  That’s right…those turds who “express interior” cleaned my car, THREW OUT MY KIDNEY STONES!!!  I am beyond upset!!!  I know they hold no value, but darn it, I PASSED THEM ON MY OWN…and that’s a feat in and of itself!!! Oh well, I can think of worse things, but still…they were mine and I can’t believe those turds at the car was threw them out!

Pre-cursor…this post does not have everything to do with breastfeeding…read far enough down, you’ll understand it’s real purpose!  And it is a very important purpose!!!

It’s no secret that I breastfed Li’l Foot.  It was a wonderful experience, including and not limited to the fact that it helped me get back to my pre-pregnancy weight within about 2 weeks postpartum.  Exactly my pre-pregnancy weight!!!  No joke!  That was a great benefit, I have to admit.  I breastfed her exclusively (which to me includes pumping and bottle feeding) and she never once had so much as an ounce of formula.  By about 6 months or so (I know it was last summer time), I did give her water, but just enough to acquaint her with the sippy cup, so she knew the bottle and the cup.  And at about 9 months or so, she was drinking whole cow’s organic milk in addition to what I was able to pump.

I held off that weight while I was breastfeeding and pumping and when I left my old job just before Christmas I stopped pumping.  I didn’t see it as appropriate to ask Human Resources at my new job, for a room on my first day, so I could pump.  (For the record, there is an exclusive mommy’s who pump room at my new job, so it would’ve been fine, but still I couldn’t ask.)  So I stopped pumping.  By the end of pumping I was getting about 10 or so ounces each day, pumping once or twice a day.  I Still nursed Li’l Foot in the morning and before bed time and occasionally when she wanted it when I first came home from the new job, but that nursing session was sporadic.  It was fine with me (not saying I didn’t have feelings about not having that bond, but still fine).  We were working together and mutually agreeing that weaning was on the horizon.

By the time March and April rolled around, I figured, how much can she possibly be getting from me once in the morning and once at night.  My boobs were not exactly perky, if you know what I’m sayin’!  So I cut off the night time feeding.  Up until this point she would nurse to sleep, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, up to this point.  I loved it, and she was comforted and after a day of being apart it brought us together in a very special way, and she would stay asleep when I transplanted her to her crib…so we had an understanding.  So, night time feeding, be gone.  All that was left was the morning feeding.  Now we’re right around April/May.  Around this time I noticed when I stepped on the scale that I had put on 13 pounds.  In the conversion from breastfeeding to weaning I hadn’t compensated the amount of food my body was needing and just kept eating as if I was eating to produce milk.  I didn’t realize my hormone levels were readjusting and my body was readjusting, and I kept eating.  So let’s go back to the nursing thing for a second.  We both weren’t really needing the morning nursing session at all, it was more of a convenience thing for me so I didn’t have to shlep down stairs to get her a cup of milk or water in the morning, when there was still so much to be done upstairs (i.e. shower, get dressed, change her, etc.)  So this past month, as I mentioned in her monthly upgrade post, she offically weaned.  We are so close, and have many very special, beautiful moments together, and she doesn’t have to be attached to me to give me the feeling of “she really loves me”!  She offers kisses and hugs and our relationship is so special.

So now, what to do about that extra 13 pounds.  Well, I haven’t gotten the energy yet to go to the gym, but I have been losing weight.  I had great success before getting pregnant with Li’l Foot on Weight Watchers.  So I decided to give that another whurl…sans meetings and writing in a eating journal.  Not that I’m opposed to either one of those things, I just don’t have the time or the money for meetings right now and if I knew where my old WW journal was, I’d write in it…St. Anthony is working on this for me.  I am going to Hawaii in a month and a half.  I want to be able to wear my bathing suit without feeling self conscious…or relatively non self conscious.  I’ve challenged myself to lose weight.  i do best under pressure.  When challenged by someone telling me I can’t do something, I forge on even more determined to complete a project, just to prove them wrong or to show them what I’m made of and that I mean business.

I challenged myself to lose that 13 pounds by the end of July.  And guess what, I weighed myself this morning, I am happy to report that as of this morning I have lost 12 pounds.  THAT’S TWELVE!!!  Cut me a little slack, last week I was visited by Aunt Flo…that b*tch…always finding the most inopportune moments to drop in!  The one thing I am in awe of, when I challenge myself or am challenged by others, is that overwhelming feeling of accomplishment at the other side of it all!  Now I am far from done!  I would really like to lose another 16 pounds by the time I go to Hawaii for vacation.  I have 47 days until Hawaii!  16…47…carry the one…use the pinky toes as extra counting appendages…That’s 2.6 or so pounds per week!  I KNOW I can do this!!!  I’ve done this before.  When I was on Weight Watchers before, I lost 25 pounds in 10 weeks (I think it was 10 weeks? something like that! I KNOW it was 25 pounds…in a very short time).

So here’s my statement to you!  Challenge me!  Give me things you want to see me do in the next 6+ weeks.  I will blog about each thing you give me to do, and give you the appropriate credit.  I am willing to do almost anything.  I am getting my butt back in the gym next week because I’m convinced this sinus thing I have is strictly air conditioning induced and will not end until summer ends, and is not contagious and is not going to keep me from going to gym for fear of spreading it to other gym goers.  I just don’t care anymore about them…it’s time for me!  I’ve paid for the last 7 months of gym membership and used it a total of maybe 10 times, if that!  Pathetic!  That’s what that is!  NO MORE!  I’m dead serious about this now.  Something has to be done.  I’m tired of watching The Biggest Loser, feeling inspired by all the amazing things these people have done and sitting on my ass eating a bowl of ice cream to celebrate THEIR victories!!!  I will be the one who claims VICTORY, but I need your help interwebz…

So hop to it.  Consider this your call to action.  Challenge me.  What…you…got!!!  I won’t limit you by giving you any examples of challenges you can give me…I legitimately want your challenge, without being influenced by examplees I can give!  There’s nothing you can’t dish out that I can’t take (shutters thinking what you could possibly dig up for me to do…yet READY TO TAKE YOU ON!!!)!  And hey, if you want to be challenged, maybe you’ve felt inspired by this as well!  And if that’s the case…well, then?  Your welcome!!!

Challenge me!

Disclaimer: I reserve the right to adjust your challenge to fit my schedule and/or fitness level, but I WILL try my best and promise to GIVE IT MY ALL!

Another disclaimer: this challenge does not end in 47 days…I want to lose more than 16 pounds, but that is my short term goal for right now.  When I get back from Hawaii, the challenge continues and ultimately I would like to lose a bunch more weight, but I will only give small numbers as I go, so as not to feel overwhelmed.

Yet one more disclaimer: If anyone offers free fitness/personal training, either in the NY area or virtual, I’ll totally promote you here!