Birthday Treats of Yumminess

In my department at work we have a rule: if you want treats on your birthday you bring them in. That way no one can be butt hurt if it’s overlooked or forgotten.

With my birthday fast approaching I decided to make my specialty: brownie-bottomed cheesecake in cupcake portions. This time I added a twist and topped them with seedless raspberry jam. I posted the following pic about it:

Since a couple people are after the recipe I decided it would be quicker and easier to share via a blog post than messaging and such. The recipe lives here http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/philly-brownie-cheesecake-88973.aspx and I will also list it out below along with the tweaks I have made to make in cupcake portions instead of in one big pan.

Brownie-bottomed Cheesecake

What You Need

1 pkg.  (19 to 21 oz.) brownie mix (13x9-inch pan size)

4 pkg.  (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese, softened

1 cup  sugar

1 tsp.  vanilla

1/2 cup Sour Cream

3  eggs

2 oz.   Semi-Sweet Chocolate

How to Make It

HEAT oven to 325°F.

PREPARE brownie batter as directed on package; pour into 13x9-inch pan sprayed with cooking spray. Bake 25 min. or until top is shiny and center is almost set. Instead of doing this I use a cookie scooper like this one (picture below) and plop one scoop of brownie batter into a standard muffin tin lined with those little paper cupcake liners and bake for 10 minutes and then let them rest for another 10 minutes. Last time I made this it made 35 cupcakes (yesterday).

While the brownie bottoms pre-bake a little (and in my case rest for a bit), beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl with mixer until blended. Add sour cream; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each just until blended.

POUR cream cheese mixture carefully over brownie layer in pan. (Filling will come almost to top of pan.) In my version, I again use the now cleaned cookie scooper and plop one to two scoops of cheesecake batter into each cup (tends to be a scoop and a half); batter should come pretty close to the top of the cup – mine tend to be rounded like little mounds of cheesecake battery awesomeness. They smooth out as they bake and rarely overflow while baking.

BAKE 40 min. or until center is almost set. Run knife around rim of pan to loosen sides; cool dessert completely. Refrigerate 4 hours. Okay, this is where a big divergence happens in the process, especially if you top them with jam/jelly. Still in a 325 degree oven, I only bake them for 35 minutes. This makes them come out PERFECT. Once out of the oven I let them cool on the counter for about 15-30 minutes before I carefully pull them out of the muffin tin one at a time (I DO NOT DUMP THE MUFFIN TIN OVER!! You will wreck half of them at least if you do) and place them on a platter. Then I top each with a teaspoon of the jam/jelly/fruit of my choice. Or nothing at all, these are great as is.

MELT chocolate as directed on package; drizzle over cheesecake. Refrigerate 15 min. or until chocolate is firm.  I have never done this step. If you want to, go for it. That’s why I left it here for you.

Now enjoy! I like making them in the cupcake portions for so many reasons:

-          -Easier to share at work without the mess

-          -Great for portion control

-          -See the nutritional facts:

-         

             

-          16 servings using the big pan method    

       nutritional info per serving

Calories  500

Total fat  33 g

Saturated fat  15 g

Cholesterol  140 mg

Sodium  330 mg

Carbohydrate  46 g

Dietary fiber  0 g

Sugars  36 g

Protein  7 g

Change this to roughly 32 servings and you halve those scary numbers to the following:

Calories  less than 250

Total fat  16 g

Saturated fat  7 g

Cholesterol  70 mg

Sodium  165 mg

Carbohydrate  23 g

Dietary fiber  0 g

Sugars  18 g

Protein  3.5 g

Still not super healthy, I know, but for Pete’s sake it’s brownie and cheesecake in one. Just go with it. Skip the frappe that day and you can have two.

Happy baking.

Come, Take a Trip With Me Through a Decade

Okay, so my thirtieth birthday is fast approaching. I feel like an odd outlier on the dot matrix because I am over the moon excited to be moving on to the next decade of my life.

I have a history of having horrible birthdays; whether work or personal life related they have consistently sucked donkey testicles in one way or another. None of it has ever had to do with aging, just crap happened during the day to make it unenjoyable.

It’s no one’s fault, Collin strives to make my birthdays special, but we’re human and such.

This past birthday (29^th) was one of the best, but even it was bittersweet. It was my last day of maternity leave with my jellybean and as I reflect on it I was not ready to go back to work and have her start daycare. I do remember the good parts though: free coffee at Dutch Bros. (you know I will be getting that this year!), snuggles with my tiny one (and man, she was tiny then), sushi for dinner, and birthday cake (carrot, I am a sucker for carrot cake).

My plan for my 30^th- aka the dirty thirty – is to go with the flow. The only thing I am pushing for is a new purse and some new shoes for work. I told Collin the rest of it is up to him. I am tired of trying to make sure I have a good birthday, I just want to enjoy the day with my family and relish in their love and affection (and any happy surprises they should have in store for me). I know the things I want, and what I would love to do but I figure if any of it doesn’t happen I’ll use it as my weight loss motivator in the next month.

The shoes - the reason I need them is because, after a painful evening of limping, I have come to the understanding I need to stop wearing my heels until my left foot is completely healed. Even though wearing them doesn’t cause any pain, they are not allowing my foot to heal properly and, dammit, I REALLY want to start running. Like now. That said, I need to get some cute, work appropriate shoes. Right now I am wearing tennis shoes and praying to god no one says anything until I can replace them….

The purse – Now that my little koala is bigger we don’t normally need too much when we go out and about with her. When we do need to bring extra anything we normally just bring a separate backpack of supplies for her. Or tote bag depending on our destination. So, I am looking for a slightly smaller purse for work and in town outings.

Thirty… I can’t quite put a finger on it, but I think part of the excitement in this for me is that I never saw myself in my thirties. What I mean by that, I have no flipping idea. This will sound totally off the wall, but I am a person who tends to visualize their future. Once I hit my twenties it got harder to do until the last half of it. I don’t know why. But now, I see it all. I can see what I think/hope/dream will be the future. I have a path that I am walking right now, and though I am sure there are a few obstacles and detours, I know where I am headed. This doesn’t mean it can’t all change direction or even destination, but some of the most important things are pretty solid. I find great peace in that.

I feel I really need to recap everything from this amazingly life changing decade I am preparing to put behind me. I don’t think either of us have that kind of time. Let’s journey through the high/low points:

20 – Got married. Yep, it’ll be ten years this August. Nutso, right? Started doing random temp jobs, one of which basically had me reading and crocheting for three months (I answered phones when they rang)

21 – Found a full time job. Began paying off all the bad decisions of my youth and stupidity.

22 – Began to take over the world by climbing the ladder at a small office. Reached the top way too fast and had no intention of taking over the business.

23 – Lost one of my front top teeth to poor care and stupidity. Was at my heaviest weight ever. Moved out of Collin’s parent’s house (had live there since I was 19).

24 – Still pretty huge, began to make little changes; cutting out soda, fast food, etc. Was really unhappy with my job. Decided we didn’t think we would ever want kids.

25 – Began in earnest to try and lose weight and find a better job. I was fat and missing teeth, it was a hell of a struggle until I interviewed with a gal who saw past that. She will never realize what a positive change in MY life her decision made. Broke up with my employer of over four years. Collin’s (unknown) little sister reached out to us, and opened a whole new world of family to Collin; including a bio-father he thought long dead.

26 – Had started working and was looking forward to moving closer to work (we lived sixty miles away). With the move I really became interested in running and joined a group. I had dropped about fifty pounds from my heaviest.

27 – Was down around 90 pounds from my heaviest. I completed my first 5k in August and was continually upping my mileage. Discussed the want to have kids after all. In October we went to Nebraska and met Collin’s little sister, her significant other and her son (Collin’s nephew). We didn’t meet the bio-father but hope to soon, next time we make it out there. Completed my first 10k in November (Thanksgiving day – great way to pre-burn calories before the dinner).

28 – Was down about 130 pounds from my heaviest. Lightest I have been since I was 19. Finally began the process of fixing my front teeth. Dropped another 20 lbs while training for my first half marathon (13.1 miles). One week before completing my first ½ found out I was also expecting my first child. Still finished all 13.1 miles and felt amazing. Broke my foot at my ten year class reunion (first broken bone). Completed the dental restoration. Found out I was going to have a daughter. Had a beautiful, sweet, healthy child.

29 – Decided it was time to move on in my career. Started thinking about our future as a family and needed to make a move to support that future. Stumbled on an amazing opportunity that I had written off and come to peace with not getting. Also received an amazing promotion in the first six months. Watched my infant transform into a toddler who amazes me every day. Collin’s mom passed away after a slow decline in her health. We bought our first house. I am officially down 170 pounds from my heaviest weight as I type this.

The future is so bright I gotta wear shades. I’m telling you.

I have about sixty more to go. I wouldn’t be against losing more, but that’s where I want to be.

I’m kind of amazed at my twenties and the transformation I went through. There is so much more to it than what I listed above, but again, neither of us have that kind of time.

Thank you for taking this trip down memory lane. I don’t think it will be the last post of my twenties, I have some funny fitness things I want to share with you, but the last decade has been weighing heavily on my mind and needed to be shared.  

Bam! Over 1,300 words. (I cheated and typed this up in MS Word…)

A Little Bit of Insanity

As promised (though a day late) here are some random and hilarious snippets of the wonder that is my life.

Collin and I recently saw Despicable Me 2 for the first time ever (we finally bought it for Christmas) and the purple minions were gutbusting hilarity for us.

On the commute home from work one day after watching the movie we came up with this awesome idea to try and get out of a speeding ticket should we ever get pulled over. Not that I ever speed, but just in case we are in a hurry one day and not paying enough attention to the speedometer.

The scenario goes like this:

At all times you must keep the following in your car:
- Purple face paint
- Hair gel
- Alkezeltzer (sp? too lazy to check) tabs
When you know for certain you are getting pulled over for speeding (trust me you know), pop one of the tabs in your mouth, use a glob of gel and try to screw your hair up as much as possible, and finally smear the purple paint over your face as fast as you can. Hopefully you can get this done before the officer gets up next to you.

If you have a passenger they either need to match or be cowering in fear with their eyes shut and shrunk away from you. Then as you roll the window down sit there yelling, "Meh!!", "ahhhh!!!", or any other random exclamation (check out the purple minions for reference).

One of two things will happen; a. you will make the cop laugh so hard he can't help but to let you go or b. the cop tasers you and then you wake up in the psych ward.... It's about fifty fifty. Probably just safer to not speed, but hey, this could be fun if your life is feeling dull...

Now for some parenting tips:

Collin and I have both been trying desperately to curb our use of foul language. Admittedly, my two biggest times for offense are in the car and while watching hockey. I am getting better, but still.... I'm human, I slip. We even try to sensor or bleep ourselves should the flow get there.

Last week while we were going somewhere with the tiny sponge in the car we were discussing something, I can't even recall what, but Collin was going on about the subject and at one point was like, "It's *pause* shit." Kind of sensored the the wrong word there, buddy. Ah, at least we are trying, right?

Some of you (well anyone who reads this blog even 50% of the time knows) I am working to get back on track with my health and fitness goals. I think I am doing great and am feeling greatly motivated. I recently was invited to a group on FB called "We Got This" that was started by someone I went to school with. There are a growing number of people on there; some I have known forever, and some I have never met. It is proving to be a very great inspiration. Most of us have shared our stories of how we got to where we are at whether positive or negative and what our health goals are.

It's weird, because it's not like anyone is looking over my shoulder or judging or anything other than being supportive, but I have found that since becoming a part of this (all of a week I know, but...) I feel more driven to stay on track and not cheat. I see everyone sharing their difficult days and their great days and I am driven to keep pushing. This week has been exactly what I needed. I hopped on the scale this morning full of trepidation and self doubt and was happily surprised to see that I had flushed the ten pounds of bloat from the holidays. Being only halfway through January, I know that it is still very possible to hit the goal I set for myself before the end.

Will it break me if I don't get it? No, but it will make me push just that harder in February. As long as the number on that blue digital readout doesn't go up, I am a-okay. But seeing that I was back down to my November weight made me overjoyed.

No joke though, if I make my goal+ I will probably do a back flip.

In my mind. I mean, come on. I maybe almost half the body I used to be, but I am not a gymnast.

Speaking of, normally when we go to break at work I meet Collin at the foot of the stairs that pop out by his department. Today at lunch time I needed to drop something in the mail room so I came down our main staircase, hit up the mail room and headed back to his department's area. He walked to where we were in each other's line of sight when I was about fifty feet away. Once I got right next to him I said, "In my head I was doing cartwheels the whole way here once you saw me." He just laughed.

I am enjoying watching the third period of our hockey game tonight against the St. Louis Blues. I am so proud of Detroit. They came back from a horrible shots on goal deficit and are almost ahead now, but the score is what really counts. as of right now 2-0 Detroit! It's been an intense game and I'm sure period three isn't going to let me down either. Haha!

Well I am too focused on the game now so I am going to leave it here. After the game it's Gilmore Girls, reading magazines, and some leveling my druid troll on WoW.

Grab the day by the balls and hold on for dear life; most things tend to get pissed when you grab them by the balls....

The Method That Works For Me

I am starting to get it down again.

We made it two weeks doing the vegan routine and then after some deep thinking and soul searching I accepted the fact that veganism is not for me. Even on a quarterly basis. We will still do "light meat" months where there will be very little meat; like once a week or so.

There were some really good recipes I have found and will take away from this experience, but while we are working to lose weight and get healthy this sort of eating just isn't right for us. Now I can truly say I applaud all the true vegans; there is nothing easy about their lifestyle, and full blown vegans can have a hell of a time shopping depending on where they live. So much respect to my herbivore friends.

That said; the reason I felt that this eating style wasn't right for us is because I found myself snacking constantly. At meal time our portions were almost whackadoo crazy, but then my brain justified it with the fact it was vegan. Pasta is not a vegetable, even if it is rice pasta. Maybe if I had looked for more recipes that are pasta free it would have worked out better for us. I know there are plenty out there, next time we do a mostly meatless month we will go that way. I figure when we do our summer month of it we will try to go raw as well (best time of year to do it cost wise).

It could all be mental but the addition of small amounts of complex protein (fish or chicken) really makes me feel more full and have way more energy. Even when we juiced back in October we had some meat at dinner with a ton of veg. That I think is the best formula for us.

The following is the eating model I try to follow the most (work days):

Before Breakfast: water, I consume 32 oz. of water each morning before I leave for work; where I eat breakfast. So before I even leave the house or even eat anything I have half of the "daily recommendation" of water.
Breakfast proper: dairy, protein, fruit, small amount of grains (carby goodness), more water, and sometimes tea.

Throughout the day: water, water, green tea, water, green tea, water, fruit or veggie snack with protein, water, water, coffee (not a blended frappe mocha something, but black coffee with a tiny 1/2 tsp of sugar and a tsp of creamer), water, and did I mention water? I have a 21 oz tumbler at my desk and before I have tea or coffee or anything really I drink an entire thing of water. I average about 5-6 tumblers each day at work.

Dinner: a medium portion of meat, a bunch of veggies, and a small portion of grains (brown rice and quinoa are my go to grains at dinner) and a glass of milk.

Dessert: if I truly can't resist (and I mean I will drink another 64 oz. of water before I allow myself dessert or a snack post dinner) I go for a bit of Greek yogurt with diced apples and raisins in it, or homemade froyo (I just blend equal parts frozen fruit with Greek yogurt and a splash of milk; too runny and we call it a smoothie. LOL) or if I am wanting salty crunch I make popcorn on the stove.

The only difference between this and a weekend day is that we do get our one blended coffee beverage for the week (sometimes two if we are feeling squirrelly and have a lot going on) on our two days off, and we eat lunch. Typically a weekend lunch is a salad with meat and cheese and such in it (better than a sandwich) and fruit or yogurt for snacks as we need.

This is just one of a million healthy methods for eating right and losing weight. Obviously, if you are constantly go, go, go this probably isn't the best plan for you, but if you have a similarly sedentary desk job, such as I do, this works out pretty well. I also use all break time at work (two 15 minute chunks and a half hour lunch) to walk.

As I am sitting here chugging my second post dinner container of water it made me think of how much water I consume on an average weekday... My H2O intake is roughly 230 ounces per day... Just of water... That doesn't include coffee or tea or milk or any other beverage... Wow, that's kind of nuts to think about. But hey, at least I know dehydration isn't an issue... Hahaha!

Okay, for my next post I am hoping to share some random hilarious stories and such from the past month. I was holding back on a certain story until I reach the big five oh in likes on the blog's FB page (if you haven't liked it yet I'm not going to force you), but I can't keep it in anymore.

Now to go level my level 7 druid troll.

Bet you don't hear that every day....

It's Wednesday

How's that for a witty title?

Wednesdays are what I call my "hungry" day of the week. I don't know what it is (probably it's all psychological) but I always find myself hungrier on Wednesday than any other day of the week. Trying to be good and all, this means I am drinking more water, tea and coffee than a normal day. But still, the physical symptoms of hunger persist. It's taking all my will power to type this instead of throwing the laptop down and making a plate of nachos. It would be a small plate, but still nachos sound delicious.

I am thinking Wednesday will be our weekly day off. Collin has his weekly meeting with his best mate over coffee. I still play chase the tiny monster around, but I may or may not count that some nights.

Sucky thing; I apparently injured/re-injured my left foot. I have tweaked the tendon a number of times but this time it is hurting pretty decently. Might not have helped doing Zumba the other night with the minion on my hip. I also believe I may have zeroed in on what was exacerbating the injury beyond the Zumba; my compression socks. The arch support compression band happens to be right over the worst pain. To further aid in the healing I have been wearing the immobilizer shoe the past couple nights. Last night was when I made the connection to the socks. Didn't wear them today and am not in nearly as much pain as yesterday.

Seriously, all I can think is nachos.

Oh, last night I made a delicious pad thai with tofu. It was amazing! I could eat it for a week straight. And it was so blissfully simple. We had the left overs tonight and they were just as good. This line of conversation is not helping with the hungries.

But since I am already on the topic of foods stuffs:

I made my own delicious breakfast muffins Sunday for this week (along with some healthy carrot and oat cookies). They are cranberry orange and wonderful. Here's the recipe (sorry no pics this time):

2 Tbsp orange zest
1 tsp vanilla (use the real stuff it's worth it)
2 eggs
1 C milk
2 to 3 Tbsp brown sugar (notice how little sugar - these are sweet on their own)
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 C old fashioned oats
1 C flour (I used all purpose)
1 C dried cranberries
1 Tbsp chia seeds (optional but a healthy addition)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl mix orange zest, vanilla, eggs, milk and brown sugar. Once combined add in remaining ingredients. Divide batter into a standard sized muffin pan (this recipe makes twelve muffins).

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes depending on your oven. I baked mine for 30 the first time and they came out a little dry, next time I will try for 28 minutes.

Now to chillax and watch Gilmore Girls until I retire to my bed to read more. I'm on book five of the Song of Ice and Fire series (Game of Thrones), and oh the things that are happening. At my stopping point/end of a chapter last night I had to message my brother (he's the one who loaned the books to me) because it was one of those moments when you are reading a book and you HAVE to talk to someone about it. I hate spoiling things so I had no other person to make commentary to about the "holy crap" moment I reached in the story line.

Good night!

A Rough Start But...

Me being me, I already see some things on my calendar chart thing that I want to tweak. The big thing is that I realized the line after 30 minutes of activity is kind of redundant when followed by the what.... But oh well, I am still excited and looking forward to doing this.

We also kind of fizzled on our attempt to do our version of juicing this week. Juicing seems to be easier for us when we are working the normal days and hours, but since we were home most of the week it was harder to keep away from the solid foods.  I am not disheartened. In fact, this gave me yet another opportunity to evaluate what and how much I am eating, and it made me realize I really need to refocus on my H2O consumption. I have not been talking in as much as I had got used to. We'll be making another go at juicing next weekend for seven plus days. I am going to use the strategy I had last time and prepackage my daily mix.

My biggest downfall that causes stalls in my weight loss is snacking. I am sure I have shared that before. It will always be a struggle for me. I am hoping my most recent tactics will help me getting back on track.

The first tactic is that we re did our pantry this week to create more storage space. How does this help? Giving myself more room to store food? This way I can put all of the kiddo snacks (graham crackers, goldfish, etc.) on one shelf, and that shelf is essentially "off limits" to me when I am having a moment of grazing weakness.

The second tactic is to redirect my snacking. Before I have a snack I really want to evaluate if it is just a matter of thirst as opposed to hunger. The deal is that I need to consume an entire bottle of water (my container is 32 ounces) and if after that I find that I am still wanting a snack it needs to be fruit, veg, nuts or dairy (yogurt, cheese, and such). Once the no meat month is over the snackage will also include lunch meat.

The third tactic is kind of a repeat of both the previous two, but still valid. I am only buying snack foods that fall into the categories mentioned above. I still need to keep the cracker type items in the house for the wee one. Unlike me she could stand to gain a pound on her wiry little frame. I just need to not eat them with her. Hahaha!

Speaking of her diet. This little booger amazes me at every step for a variety of reasons. I love how open she is to trying foods and eating things that are good for her. She will eat peas, edamame, and chickpeas before she will eat cereal or pasta. I am at peace that she may not always be like this, but I can hope. Today we allowed her to self feed using a utensil for the first time and she did pretty darn amazingly. Minimal mess considering it was yogurt. And for lunch she did what she could to eat her rice and peas with her fork.

Collin and I don't watch much "normal" TV; we tend to watch shows by streaming or on Netflix. I am not big throwing money at the cable company each and every month for one or two shows I actually watch on a regular basis. One thing I want to try though is the commercial break workout. Basically you do reps of this that or the other thing during the commercial breaks. Kind of a good way to keep the vegetation down a bit. I guess the way to accomplish this would be pausing for two to four minutes when we hit that point where a show would roll to commercial if it was on broadcast as opposed to streaming. I mostly mention this because my plan is to try this out tonight as I watch the Red Wings v. Canucks game (GO DETROIT!!!).

To avoid breakfast burn out I have been scouring my dear Pinterest in an effort to find make ahead breakfasts that I can make in batches, freeze as needed, and have on hand for us during the week. We have been doing slow cooked steel cut oats for a couple months now, and I love them, but I need something different for a bit. As summer approaches I intend to make mass quantities of homemade granola (it's easier than you think) so we can have that with yogurt and fresh fruit during the summer months. I will be trying my hand at some healthy breakfast biscuits and muffins this weekend for the next couple weeks. We shall see how it turns out.

On the topic of fresh fruit. I need to pick a ton more berries this next summer. We are barely into January and I only have a few gallons left of berries. Makes me sad.... July is way to far away. My goal in 2015 is to fill our chest freezer with berries and fruit as they come into season.

We are a officially a week into our no meat month. I am enjoying exploring these recipes and this lifestyle. I know different people are vegan (to varying degrees) for different reasons, and I want it clear I respect any and all who make the decision to be vegetarian. I would like to think I could be a full on vegan if needed (like for medical reasons), but I love fish and poultry way too much. I am trying not to even think about bacon. This first week was harder than I expected. Especially the first few days. I was craving everything unhealthy that had meat on it. It's not as bad now, but still. I am definitely an omnivore. Beyond the health advantages of eating this way, the savings by not shelling out money for meat is awesome in and of itself. This will definitely become a regular occurrence in our house.

The search for breakfast recipes brought to mind these muffins my mom used to make when we were kids. There was something special about the. Like, the batter, or mix or something was special. Something someone gifted to her or something. I don't remember; the last time she made them had to have been some twenty three years ago before she left my dad the first time. Unfortunately the last twenty three year have not been too kind to my mom and her memories (this is of her own doing) so I doubt she would even know what I am talking about. I just remember they had raisins and tasted so good. But I can't remember what flavors were in the batter. Maybe in my muffin adventures I will find something that resonates with this memory of mine.

The breakfast menu for the week will be carrot orange cranberry oatmeal biscuits, peanut butter banana chocolate oatmeal protein cookies, and some oatmeal muffin concoction; all will have chia seeds in them for their healthful properties. I will share the successes as we try them out. This morning I made pancakes in a muffin tin with blueberries on some and cranberries on others, all covered with flaked unsweetened coconut. They were delicious and so very easy. I literally just used the same pancake batter recipe I use every weekend for Sunday breakfast. The only difference was dividing it up into a standard muffin tin (filled the cups around half full) and baked them in a 350 degree oven for 18-20 minutes. So good. Didn't even use a drop of syrup on them, and oh the variations I plan to try with them down the road!

Today's fun activity with the family was a trip to IKEA. We let the toddler help push the cart, and check some things out on her own. She was enamored with the bristled kitchen brushes we normally get from there. To make it seem so epic, the lighting in the area where they were in the showroom seemed a little dimmed with a huge spotlight on the brushes. It was hilarious and adorable. She also loved this bedroom set up because the bed was low and there was a mirror she could stare at. She even went up to the mirror and gave herself a kiss!

She can now blow kisses by the way, and like all that the little monster does, it is mind blowing to me and beyond cute. I am completely subject to the biological imperative that makes me see my child as adorable and therefore tolerable and in need of protection. I wonder if this is how dudes feel about chicks; you know that instinctual drive to protect a female? Or in some cases other males.... Does this apply to chicks that are into other chicks? I mean, I can understand that if a female feels that she is actually a male, but what about when gender identity isn't the drive for coupling with another female?? That was an odd tangent....

Well, I have missed the first period's commercial breaks, but there is still two periods left in the game. Collin (lucky SOB) is at Winterhawks game tonight with one of his good buddies from high school. I was excited for an evening with my little princess, but she decided she couldn't be troubled to stay up past 6:45. No kidding, she practically leaped from my arms into her crib when I took her upstairs for bed after reading each of her books to her twice. And I have not heard a peep from her since.

Now to go do some planking and crunches and various yoga poses. I just updated my profile and the blurb about me that's somewhere over there >>. Check it out!