Constant Commentary

While I don't plan to count the days like I did last time.  Today is day 4.  It's been tough to get back into it.  Sugar does NOT fuck around.  It knows how to find you in your weakest moments and just whisper sweet nothings in your ear. I am still shocked that I didn't give in to my sweet devil on Tuesday.  I had a long, crazy shift, with no time to eat.  When I finished up with what I hoped would be my last client at 9pm, I dreaded going home and having to prepare something for supper.  I{ was STARVING, to the point of being shaky and irrational.  So I used a lifeline.  I called Lonnie and talked to him on the phone because I knew if  I was talking to him when I passed McDonald's, I wouldn't pull in.  It WORKED!  Not only did it work, but I felt empowered enough to take the time to stop at the grocery store and pick up some salad stuff.  ( I LOVE salad!!! ---no sarcasm!  I LOVE IT!) When I got home, I was all ...

When I wasn't working and doing fun stuff, I spent a good part of 2015 going back and forth about grad school.  I even applied to a couple.  But ultimately decided that I just don't feel right adding to my already enormously high student loan mountain of debt.  ...that is already growing since I am helping Jessi pay for college.... and interest of course.  I would love to get my Master's.  I LOVE school and I would also love to be more marketable once we starting planning our move from Maine, and I have the time for it with the job I have now.  So if I could just win the lottery......    I have few regrets in life as everything I have lived through has made me the bucket of awesomesauce that I am today,  but I definitely regret spending all that money and time going to Husson University to get my teaching credentials.  I could have my graduate degree, and instead I have nothing since I didn't finish the program by doing student ...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!  And I say this not to avoid saying MERRY CHRISTMAS, but because Thanksgiving AND Christmas have so far been HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY! We have our ghetto-fabulous-little-tacky-tree and we have our perfectly decorated silver and gold tree. There are actually WRAPPED PRESENTS under the tree already!!  My kids can attest to how groundbreaking this is as last minute shopping/wrapping is usually how I roll!  I HATE wrapping presents!  Well, I THOUGHT I hated wrapping presents.  Turns out that I just hate wrapping presents alone with no help!  When Lonnie dove into the pile with me, it was actually FUN!!! I have a pile of projects that I need to get to work on! (I may have bit off more than I can chew in the project department...lol) On Sunday we are making gingerbread houses!  (OK...we are going to attempt to make gingerbread houses...lol) Black Friday was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!!  Lonnie and I had a great time, got all the deals we w...

Instead of blogging, I have been................. working working working!  Things are busy in crisis-land these days!  (and so much of my job is writing, the LAST thing I want to do on my downtime is write some more!) hiking a little --very little-- running getting a kitten (who is right now adorably distracting me by playing with a piece of fuzz) celebrating a kid turning 20! teaching the other kid to cook learning new recipes turning a coffee table into an ottoman--- still a work in progress playing with my camera and Lightroom watching football on TV ...and in real life, GO MAINE! reading dabbling in Scrapbooking  planning our next vacation researching places to live when we move in a few years!  (Right now Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Texas, South Carolina, and Richmond, VA are the top contenders) sleeping til noon (Hey... it's genetic!  I can remember staying with with my Nana and Grampy and waiting... and waiting... a...

I am going to start this post with advice about allrecipes.com, my goto site for all things cooking.  The number of stars is the first thing I check, but if a recipe has 4 or 5 stars and only 10 reviews.... a further looksie must be taken ;-) Once I have checked the star rating and glanced at the recipe itself and the photos.... I think even more important than the recipe itself is to scan through the comments.  There are often glaring themes of changes that people made to the recipe in order to rate as highly as they did.  Case in point... our newest "staple" recipe, Sweet Sticky and Spicy Chicken  (and by staple, I mean we make this weekly and it's noticed if we don't!)  The recipe does not call for the chicken to be dredged in flour before cooking.  A zillion people in the comments mention this and how without this additional step... they may as well take "sticky" out of the title.  It's completely different and soooo much better.  The one...