woman no blog

You may or maybe you haven't noticed, I haven't blogged in a while. It's nothing personal, I just don't spend a lot of time thinking lately in any real capacity, it's all just work related thinking, which isn't something I want to explore in depth. I have been subbing, it's usually fun except I like best when the teachers have some actual work for the kids to do. I don't like this "they have choice to play math computer games, read, draw, do homework, blah, blah or blah" ... No. That is basically just a free day, not planned. It's too chaotic. I have started not giving the choices if the choices don't work out good in the first class. I hope nobody minds. Well no, I hope they understand that I do mind.

I have recently developed a huge attitude in general. I am tired of how other people are and how other people do whatever they want but I am constantly making sure I'm doing what other people want. What about what I want? I don't have time to see if anybody will mind. I don't know how to explain that.

Before, I had all this time, and I had patience, basically I had quality of life, even though I didn't like where I lived, I actually had time to appreciate my life. Now I have a great house but no time to enjoy it because I just work. I would love to blog about how I am going to paint faux bois on the downstairs laundry cabinets. I would have to actually get time to do it. I might have time Sunday actually.

I got up at 5:45 this morning, showered, got one boy and myself to where we were supposed to be. Another boy was supposed to get himself and the other boy to school but I learned today that isn't going to work, at least one of them was late. And one of them is often late on purpose to get a lunch detention so he doesn't have to eat lunch with anybody. Well. That's another blog, but still, it's not like he needs to be late just cause what I thought was me having my act together ended up a flop. On my way to my first job, the school called and asked if I could stay all school day instead of leaving around 11:20. Well I had things planned for the noon-ish till 3-ish time frame so I had to do them at 4:00. The two jobs of going into 4 different stores and merchandising their magazines and greeting cards, I did two stores today after school. Then at 6:30 I went to the bookstore just to pick up my paycheck and write down my schedule and discovered I was actually on the schedule for 5:30-9:05. So I just stayed till 9:15. I was supposed to be off at 9:05 but this one lady and her mom and kids would just not leave. Hello. We closed 10 minutes ago. Buy your stupid Shelf Elf and take the whiny kids home. So I can quick run to my other job and get some stuff I left. Because everybody does four jobs in one day right? I wish I had made time to go get my prescription. But if I had really been a no-show, I bet I would have gotten some sort of reprimand. But then, at less than $8 an hour, do I really care? Here with the attitude again. Yes I care, no it would not make that much difference.

Oh and we had a cat in the vestibule. I think someone abandoned the cat in our vestibule but everyone else thinks the cat just walked in. He was a great cat, I called my friend who runs a cat rescue. Her daughter actually came out to catch the cat and bring him to her mom but by then someone had taken the kitty. He was such a nice kitty.

I think the store has started positioning me at the street checkout because that way I'm beside the cookbooks. I love cookbooks. So they know I'll buy cookbooks. My most recent acquisition was Mad Hungry (How to Feed Men and Boys) by Lucinda Scala Quinn who somehow knows Martha Stewart (of course, that's why she has a book deal and TV shows) and also I have the Clean Eating Cookbook by Tosca Reno. I found Tosca Reno, I'm not sure how I was led to her but I found her on the InterWebs over a year ago and loved the eating clean concept but I had no intention of buying cookbooks then, and had no real kitchen. Now I have a kitchen that I absolutely love. The oven goes right to the temp I tell it. The microwave doesn't blow out the whole upstairs just because the air is on. Plus, now I have the employee discount so a nice cookbook is only like $14. I got the Clean Eating Diet book too, which I was sort of expecting to be more book less graphic organizer, but hey, whatever. If I eat clean, I lose 2 lbs per week without trying. Eating clean is not hard. If I could completely eliminate snacky stuff, which we enjoy together while I cook dinner at night, and if I could quit sharing J's beer at night, I would probably be way ahead. Thanksgiving set me back about 2 lbs. but that's still good. I should also quit with the white rice. I know better, but J. likes it so I've been putting it into recipes.

I am just so refreshed to see a pound go away and actually stay away, and I have a huge breakfast every morning, oatmeal, an egg and a ton of whites. I'm supposed to eat every 2 hours but really who lives, has a job, and has time to shove food in their mouth all day? I can usually manage to scarf down some almonds during those intervals. I need to work on planning that whole cooler thing. Tosca Reno has these cooler plans, where you bring a cooler with you for all your planned eating, and if you go hard core, it works wonders. I went soft-core and wow. I was amazed at how fast I was losing weight, it was like every morning was an awesome morning on the scale. Very refreshing and not like being deprived.

Next on my cookbook list is going to be the America's Test Kitchen Slow Cooker cookbook, because I really want to use my slow cooker and not need to cook every night. Except really the slow cooker just redistributes the work. And I'd love a cookbook with the concept of making one meal, which lends itself to the next meal. For example I cooked rice the other night for John and ended up using the rest of that rice in two other meals. Cooking up some chicken or some home-made ground turkey sausages or whatever, generally ends up making enough "leftovers" which can be put in my next recipe. I'm working on having it all planned that way, so that at least a few of the night's meals are going to cook quickly. Martha Stewart's WebMinions have figured out a few such menus.

Okay I just cut Miss Patch the dog's toenails and she looks way better. She just has one tappy one left, I can hear it on the wood floor but the rest of them are padding back to normal. Poor thing. I changed the fish water yesterday and it is still alive. Poor fish. And it is 11:29 and I honestly need to get to bed. I work again at 9:45 tomorrow morning till freakin' 6 PM - I hope I get to spend the day with the fun kids instead of all by myself at the street cash register.

Here's a picture of my boys at Thanksgiving. We had a lot of sun that day so they're all squinting.
Okay Patchy Ann and I are going to go get under the covers, it's too cold and late to stay up any longer.