Blog #179: Whole 28 Day 1

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

And also the first day of my Whole 28 challenge.

I've totally jumped right into it and had some delicious meals as well as spent considerable time, money, and effort on setting myself up to succeed during my first week.

Today I woke up pretty well rested after having given up any notions of having a night out last night (Hashtag this is 30) I went to Hyvee and spent a solid hour looking closely at ingredients. I made a full big breakfast of  eggs with peppers and onions and a banana and half avocado. I though... I can DO it!  I got all motivated and prepped my meals for the whole week. The. I went to meet my family at Power Play and saw, in bright neon signs "FUNNEL CAKES! NACHOS! PIZZA!" I promptly walked back outside with mom and we ate our whole30 approved Hyvee Salad Bar salads and fruit.

It somehow wasn't the same.

Anyhow feeling good on day 1. Here's what happened:

Grocery defeat = 2 trips

Big breakfast with a side of caffeine

Lunch this week - so many veggies

Thanks Hyvee salad bar

I didn't think I'd be hungry at dinner because I did breakfast and lunch so late but I was so I ate one of my premade dinners of ground turkey with onions,  peppers, zucchini,  and squash and a side of green beans and potatoes.  For dessert I had a single serve baggie of frozen berries. I forgot to take a pic but I made 6 of them so I am sure there will be another chance. 

I may already have a sugar withdrawal headache. 

Blog #178: I'm (sort of) doing the Whole 30.

I'm doing a 28 day version of the Whole 30 challenge. It's 28 days because I need to be done by Easter and previous engagements prevent me from starting until tomorrow and if I wait until it makes sense to do it for 30 days I won't have another chance until like August and I'm feeling pretty worn down and stomach achey lately so I would rather address it now. I'm going to try to avoid being all over my social media outlets about it by blogging my experience here. So, if you're curious about how things are going or want to read about my experience as it happens, this is the place.

You can read all about the whole 30 at Whole30.com.

Today is day 0 for me meaning the challenge starts tomorrow, so, naturally today was ALL BETS OFF. I ate a bagel for breakfast, personal pizza for lunch with cookie dessert, and enjoyed good comfort food birthday party including cupcakes. I've also hit the latte train pretty hard the last couple days because dairy is out starting tomorrow and all my coffee will have to be...ugh...black. I am usually the girl that puts a fair amount of snickerdoodle flavored creamer and 2-3 splenda packets in the coffee each morning so this is what I foresee to be the hardest part. I'll still need the coffee though, so black it is.

Tonight was supposed to be all about saying goodbye to all the stuff I can't have but after working 7-3, braving an outdoor mall during the first warm day in KC in weeks, and partying HARD toy instrument style with my niece and 4 awesome nephews I am so spent that my last hurrah is a glass of wine and bed before midnight.  I've taken my before pic and weight and I know how my clothes and body feel now so hopefully in 28 days I'll have some tangible evidence of improved health. Wish me luck!

Blog #177: Annual Defense of Valentine's Day

(Written after eating a heart shaped bagel and while listening to cheesy pop love songs)


It's Valentine's Day! Or, as singles of all ages tend to revert to calling it "Singles Awareness Day". However, I have hardly been aware of my own single status this weekend due to having filled my social calendar to the max with opportunities to spend time loving the people I love. It started with a Valentine's Eve date with the coolest big kids and sweetest baby girl ever to be:

There, glad to get those gratuitous proud aunt pictures out of the way. There will be more after tonight because I have a very special dinner date with my bro & sis in law and 2 favorite single digit boys. "Aunt Riss" is my favorite of titles and the one of which I'm the most proud, despite having done nothing really to earn it. Tomorrow, for a post Valentine's Day celebration, I'm having chinese buffet lunch and seeing a movie with my Grandma. Love is all around.

I feel like everyone has a lot to say about Valentine's Day. It's one of those days that is pretty polarizing. (I blog about it nearly annually) People who DO have that special someone feel an inordinate amount of pressure to demonstrate their love one way or the other and people who DON'T have a significant other feel pissy and hyper aware of their lack of romantic love.  I would like to get down on one knee and propose that we see things just a pinch differently.

While there's certainly nothing wrong with wanting and hoping to have a special someone in life, it's ridiculous to think that life is somehow incomplete until that box is checked. The problem here is in the equating of "singleness" with "loneliness". As one who is currently dateless, I feel the need to point out that I am definitely not lacking in the "people I love" department. Celebrating that love, to me, sounds like fun! Celebrating anything, to me, sounds like fun. If it doesn't sound fun to you, that's cool too.  

It's just a day - not a judgement on your life.

And, if you accept that simple fact, it should be easy to just let it pass without making a point of being negative about it, regardless of your relationship status, yes? 

For the record: yes, it is basically a commercial holiday designed to get people to spend money, much like mothers day, fathers day, halloween, etc. This is not worth pointing out because it's not news to anyone, and it's silly to use such a thing as an excuse to be bitter. Who cares? Life is both short and long. It's too short to waste time feeling negatively unnecessarily. It is too long to develop patterns of negativity to continue for its duration. I'm going to live life being ridiculous and silly and prone to enjoying pointless things because it's much better to be remembered for loving than hating.

If you need me, I'm spending my day at work listening to love songs and decorating cards to hand out to the people I'm lucky enough to have in my life. LOVE IS GREAT.

Roses are Red.

Violets are Blue.

This blog post was long.

Coffee.

Blog #176: I'm not a food blogger I just play one on TV.

That's a lie no one lets me on TV. I've got a face for radio. Well, in high school I was on KHS TV quite regularly as an anchor for our school news program but that just aired within the school. I took part in a segment or 2 of the news magazine our school did that was on an actual cable access channel several times - one of which involved me doing a snow day dance in pajama pants in an episode that aired a few times even after I was in college. Yes, I am the most embarrassing person I know. Thank you.

 But that's not the point. I wanted to share with the internet a thing I did. It might not really be all that original. I didn't bother to do a search to see if anyone else already thought of it. In fact, the very thing itself is really derivative of another thing so by definition it's not original. But I still feel good about it. I sort of made my own recipe for Apple Cake.

 It all started with a recipe in a giant Taste of Home cookbook for carrot cake from scratch that I make every year for Easter. It's always such a hit because it also includes homemade cream cheese frosting so I wanted to find a way to make it work for Thanksgiving, too. But carrot cake is such a spring thing that I knew it would be out of place at a Thanksgiving dinner. So, what did I do? I decided to replace shredded carrots with peeled shredded apples. That makes it a super moist ridiculously awesome APPLE CAKE.

 Here's the original carrot cake recipe:

Yes, it's filthy. A good baker makes a good mess.

And seriously it did not take many tweaks. Replace carrots with apples. Throw in a teaspoon of apple pie spice along with the already called for spices (which is really just more of each spice already called for because that's how spice blends work). I also put a teaspoon of cinnamon in the frosting because it sounded like the right thing to do. I wanted to top it off with drizzles of Pioneer Woman's Caramel Sauce recipe because I'm a bad, bad girl but at the last minute I realized I didn't have enough brown sugar. Yeah, the stores were still open but you better believe I'm not going to the store Thanksgiving morning.

Don't be jealous of my chic baking wear.

Peeling is my least favorite part

Shredded apples!

yeah, I licked the spoon clean. AFTER I was done using it.

The frosting will make it all better

I licked this spoon when I was done too.

One good thing to do is to make the cake while wearing your pajamas and then while it is cooking and cooling you spend time getting into the Thanksgiving uniform of stretchy pants and a loose fitting forgiving sweater.

 Voila!!

Cake got RAVE reviews. So did my hair.

You, too, can be domestic genius. I made this cake while watching the Thanksgiving day parade and dancing in my kitchen to every musical performance. You don't HAVE to do it that way but I don't know why you wouldn't. (Still the most embarrassing person I know. Thank you.)

Blog #175: EVERYONE RELAX

Here's the thing. Nobody cares how "busy" you are. Your stressful lifestyle is not a badge of honor. Having a terrible work life balance is not synonymous with being a "hard worker".

Everyone is busy. I'm pretty sure that's just called life but we're also pretty much just as busy as we choose to be. And some of us like a full calendar and thrive like that while others of us feel maxed out if our whole week is spoken for. I like to be busy but I prefer my busy to involve much more relationally based activities than work activities - at least on nights and weekends.

 True, some jobs have higher demands than others and many of us have passions that put us regularly in high stress situations. True many individuals unfortunately must over extend themselves to feed their families - though they are rarely the ones I've ever heard voicing how busy they are. I'm not against a busy lifestyle per se, but I do take umbrage with the tendency to equivocate being busy with being important. One does not necessitate the other.

This happens a SURPRISING amount in the caregiving and mental health field, where we preach and preach self care but fall into the trap of martyrdom because we think that we must suffer for the cause in order to be legitimate. We tell one another "Take a break! Take time off" while thinking to ourselves quietly "but I don't need to because I'm stronger/smarter/more disciplined"

We should really stop that. You are not important because you are busy. You are important because you are you. Yes, we do important work but we won't continue to be effective in said work if we keep these thin and/or nonexistent boundaries between what we do and who we are. No one is stronger or better for not taking breaks. No one is a harder worker because they answer their work emails from home and take calls in their off time.

 Today I overheard a conversation about someone who was out sick. "What happened before they had back up?" Someone asked. "They never called in sick" was the reply. Followed immediately by "So and so is a hard worker." That doesn't sound like a hard worker to me. Maybe this person is a hard worker but to me it sounds like either someone who was incredibly lucky and healthy or someone who had very poor work/life boundaries.

 I would wager that the vast majority of people who broadcast their stress and busy lifestyles are fully capable of making a choice to simplify and be less busy whether that means engaging in one less sport with their kids or finding an area to delegate. It is not always obvious but it is there, and to ignore the choice is actually an insult to those who really are trapped in a cycle of stress just to survive.

I'm not advocating for laziness or just doing the bare minimum and never going above and beyond at work. Sometimes a job might require a weekend day here and there but there should always be a way to balance it out whether through pay or flex scheduling. And maybe every now and then it doesn't quite balance - because life isn't fair and all that. But can't we all agree to make a concentrated effort to aim for a semblance of balance most of the time?

 There's something wrong when our family life, health, self esteem, and relationships become the collateral damage so that we can provide support to others in their family life, health, self esteem, and relationships. /soapbox

Let's just take a dance break to this song and call it good:

Blog #174: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

Well, likely not my final countdown ever but I really like lists and I really like counting so...And here is a recent photo of me:

GET IT????

Whatever. That wasn't dumb. You're dumb.

Here are some countdowns!

0: The number of days until my next fun meet up event. I joined a couple weeks ago because while I am certainly not afraid to do things alone, I'm still an extrovert and this way I can be entertained without commanding my friends to bow their schedules to my every exploring Kansas City whim. And I've met really interesting people and enjoyed KC more than ever. So it's a good deal.

5: The number of days until I get to move out of my crappy apartment and into one with actual air conditioning with a very great and like minded roommate. I wish instead of packing I could just burn this building down. *

* this is a joke. In the unlikely and tragic event that the building does burn down I'm going to need someone to help me prove to the authorities how I'm so afraid of fire I won't even hold a sparkler or lit match.

9: days until I have "games with grandma" day in Topeka. Basically starting a new tradition. Polishing my Yahtzee skills.

Between 0-30: number of days before I GET TO MEET MY NIECE OMG IM GETTING A NIECE IM FREAKING OUT

(Will be buying variations of this outfit in every size)

41: number of days before I get to travel to Billings, MT for training and certification in the Grief Recovery Method for my job and stay there for 5 nights.

AND number of days before first regular season NFL game AND Bearcat season. (And 45 until the first regular season chiefs game)

66: number of days before my brother and I get to attend MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL AT ARROWHEAD against the fighting Tom Bradies.

68: Number of days until I turn 30 - and I'm not dreading it! I'm excited! Embrace life man. 

83: Number of days until I travel to Portland, OR to visit my BFF to celebrate said 30th birthday. #BFFGNOOMGPDX 

129: number of days before the bro and I attend SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL AT ARROWHEAD against Manning and The Pips.

153: days until Christmas, which means probably 160 ish days until I attempt to make another Austin trek for NYE. Cheers!

Littered in among those countdowns are just a number of other fun things to file under "life" because I've decided that it's just always fun to have something to look forward to and I'm the only one responsible for making that happen for myself.

Thanks for humoring me. Happy Counting!

Blog #173: this magic moment

It's occurred to me that I am in a really special life stage. There are definitely some deficits (I can think of 2 big areas of my life where there's nowhere to go but up) and struggles but they don't feel overwhelming or insurmountable. I have this feeling right now that I'm on the uptick. I feel proud of the work I do, confident in my capacity to do it well, secure in my ability to navigate my social life, happy with my appearance (most of the time), and just feel fairly content overall. 

I'm documenting this now because it's such a nice moment and maybe tomorrow I'll have messed something up and need to remind myself that these moments exist.

In other news, this is technically a playlist but my intention is that it operates as a mix CD.