Detox: Day Fifteen (Hyper Halloween Edition)

Breakfast: roasted pears sprinkled with Jamaican allspice
Snack: three mandarin oranges
Lunch: 5 oz tuna, one mackintosh
Snack: a few pieces of chicken breast, a handful of blueberries
Dinner: roasted butternut squash, onion, and carrots tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper (ridiculously delicious and autumnal)

Happy Halloween!

(of course, for some of you it's already All Hallow's.  Sorry about that mom...)

Ah yes, once again we return to my Mostest Favoritest Holiday.  Not being able to surreptitiously snack on candy had cast a bit of a pall on the day, but that pall was completely blown away once evening came.  And why is that, you might wonder?  Trick-or-treaters!  At long last, I had actual trick-or-treaters come to my door, and I got to give out candy, and it made me so happy I was making joyful squee-y noises every time I closed the door behind them.  Seriously, every time the doorbell rang I opened it with my heart in my throat until I heard the magic words-

"Trick or treat!"

-and spied the bevy of adorable little faces just waiting to get enough sugar to turn into little demons that I wouldn't have to deal with.  And my heart melted into a dribbly smile all over my face.  Awesome.

In fact, I made so many happy noises that Nathan said, "You like Halloween way too much."

"Pish tosh!" said I.  "It is impossible to like Halloween 'too much'," and then I went back to watching The Vampire Diaries.

What was particularly amusing to me was that not a single kid knew what I was, something that hadn't even occurred to me.  (My favorite response was from a little girl about six or so saying, "You're pretty!" pause "What are you?")  Quite a few parents got it,  however, so I was soothed by that.  Well, okay, to be completely honest they "got" that I was from Star Trek.  They did not get who I was, because I was missing my most important accessory:

Bold.

Yes, the Riker to my Troi had secluded himself on the holodeck, as it were.  But the man had already hosted a five+-hour HalloWarming party for me, so I gave him a buy for the Actual Evening.

And now for some of those promised photos of me carving the pumpkins:

Gutting "Nathan's" pumpking

Little did these seeds realize the horrible, non-edible fate that awaited them!

Why yes, I DO glow with a holy light during Creative Moments.

And the pumpkins themselves!

Also I learned that it doesn't matter WHERE you put the pumpkin- some kid WILL trip over it.

Hard to tell from this photo, but that leaf in the middle glowed, too.

Seeking out new civilizations!

 I also tried to get a shot of the paper mache pumpkins I set up in the window all lit up (they got a lot of, "Oh wow!  Look at all those pumpkins!" from the kids, which was pretty gratifying after all the time and effort I put into the damnable things) but my poor little phone just couldn't handle the dark, and so you must extrapolate from the Daytime Photo:

There are like twelve paper mache pumpkins in that window, and I ASSURE YOU, they looked awesome at night.

And finally?  Tribbles.

The sign we had up during the party.

Are Trouble.

And sassy.

Especially when they mutate into four-limbed critters.

"I'm sensing... great confusion!"

Detox: Day Fourteen (or: Couch Day)

I got up earlier than I thought I would this morning, and spent a couple of hours finishing the post-party clean up.  Then I sat down on the couch to play a video game... and stayed there the rest of the day.

I wasn't playing video games that whole time, mind you.  In fact I only played the game for about an hour, before Nathan came home and I turned it off so we could eat lunch.  But at that point my memories of the day's timeline start to get a little confused.  Suffice to say, I know I spent the next seven or so hours on the couch, and at various points I was either trying to read, or napping, or contemplating the structure within the space I could see outside our front window (or the fall of light in the crafting nook), or watching whatever movie Nathan put on.

I was not feeling my best.

On the upside, I have finally seen Strictly Ballroom, and I loved it.  And now?  A pre-nine-o'clock bedtime.  We'll see about work in the morning.

Breakfast: five pieces of bacon and three pieces of apple fried in bacon fat
Lunch: lamb burger on romaine
Dinner: roasted pear slices dusted with cinnamon, and roasted sweet potatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepepr

Detox: Day Thirteen (or: Jenny O is a Masochist)

(yeah yeah yeah- the party went past midnight so the time-stamp/tense on this entry is a lie, but whatever...)

Today was... dear holy stars, today was.

I can't break my menu down for you, because I didn't really divide my meals up into what anyone might consider "meals".  Instead I steadily grazed throughout the day on leftover strips of flank steak, baby carrots, and (once the party got started) entirely too many green apple slices.  Oh, and pears, because some of my lovely guests made it a point to bring something I could actually eat, the darlings.  I told people not to bother worrying about my diet (after all, I was one of like twenty people, and if I wasn't catering the party menu to myself- which I most adamantly was not- there was no need for anyone else to do so) but I must say it was nice to have a change from the apple slices...

Setting up for the party was torture.  Such torture.  I opened the bag of candy-corn and it was like I'd opened a portal to heaven and allowed its scent to come wafting out into the mortal realms.  And I'm not even a particularly big fan of candy corn!  The gummy worms, of which I am a huge fan, were even worse.  Warming up the caramel?  Which happens to be one of my most favorite things in the universe?  Yeah.  I wanted to lick the spoon so badly I was on the verge of tears.  But I persevered in the face of all these yummy things...

Of the things in this picture I think I can perhaps eat the toothpicks.

...and in those that came out later.  The sausages Nathan grilled?  My stomach started up a protest march that we weren't allowed to eat any.  "It's meat!  We're allowed meat!" yelled my stomach.  "Yeah, meat!  Gimmee!" cried my tongue.

"But its meat with stuff it.  Sugar stuff," I explained, partially wishing I hadn't read the ingredients.

"We don't care!  Give it!"

But "give it" I did not.  I remained strong throughout the entire evening, although I may have over-done it on the mulled cider... and really it was a lovely time, with more people coming than I had expected, and such clever costumes!  Here is a small sampling:

Watson, Holmes, The Lady, The Pirate

Unfortunately I did not get a lot of photos (I don't even have one of me and Nathan!) because I was too busy playing hostess.  Ah well... there's still Halloween itself!

Detox: Day Twelve (or: The Beef, and Where It Can Be Found [Hint: My Belly])

I gleefully cut out early from work today... so that I could come home and work on cleaning the house.  Ah, adulthood: such are your questionable pleasures.  I've gotten a good portion done- still need to scrub the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen counters, and then do all the floors (my biggest dirt-pet-peeve)... but I'm thinking the kitchen and floors can wait until tomorrow.

Nothing particularly interesting happened today, and I didn't have anything particularly remarkable in the way of food, which leaves me with a dilemma:

What to write about.

Hmmm...

 Fortunately, I remembered that I'd been wanting to talk about my recent uptick in bacon consumption.  Actually, more to the point, the uptick in my meat consumption in general.  I believe it is safe to say that in the past two weeks  I've eaten more animal flesh than I'd eaten in the entirety of the previous two months.

No, I am not a heavy consumer of animal proteins (or, at least, I wasn't).

See, I went mostly-vegetarian right not too long after college.  This decision was not born of any health or moral concerns- no, I stopped eating meat because I was poor and meat was expensive.  It wasn't a particularly huge sacrifice for me- there wasn't a lot of meat that I actively enjoyed, anyway (bacon being the obvious exception to this- but  I was too poor to eat out much and damned if I knew how to cook my own.)  Not to mention the fact that any time I have beef that's too fatty it... does unpleasant things to my digestion.

My meat-intake went up a bit once I moved to Birmingham and introduced Nathan to a grill.  In fact, once we were married it was very easy to tell who had cooked dinner by checking for whether or not it had meat in it (keeping in mind that that I don't like to handle raw meat).  But even so, I'd say we had meat no more than three times a week in an extravagant week (remember the part where it's expensive?)

So this meat-every-day, sometimes-twice-or-thrice-a-day thing is a bit overwhelming for me, and there are times when I feel pretty rebellious about (admittedly most of those times are when I get a gander at our butcher's bill.  Meat in general is expensive, yes, but the price of grass-fed beef makes my inner miser shriek in mortified agony) .  But it's important that I get protein, and right now meat is the only way I can get it.  In another nine days I can have eggs again, which will help (especially since I freaking love me some easy-to-prep eggs).

In the meantime, here's what my meat-thrice-a-day menu looked like:

Breakfast:  half an avocado mashed up with four strips of bacon (and I have to officially say that Trader Joe's, much as I love that store, sucks for avocados)
Lunch: 5 oz of tuna, mackintosh apple
Snack: baby carrots out the wazoo
Dinner: grilled flank steak with steamed broccoli.  A lot of broccoli.  Tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Detox: Day Eleven (or: I Miss Being Lazy)

Remember how yesterday I was all, "Oh blah blah blah, positive attitude, yay!"?

Yeeeeaaaaah.

Today I was a Crankasaurus Rex (or Regina, if you will), and although it had nothing to do with my diet restrictions, it sure did make me feel Put Upon in the Extreme.  I'm tired of not being able to be thoughtless with my food.  Everything is so planned out, and I can't just come home and go, "Snacking on whatever I feel like, la la la."  I came home starving for a snack, and the only thing available to me (without further prep) were some baby carrots.  Which, don't get me wrong- I am a person who enjoys baby carrots, but I'm getting a bit sick of them.

I don't know what my deal was today.  I was just irritable all around, and ridiculously hungry even tho' I was eating perfectly reasonable amounts of food.  Check it out:

Breakfast: bacon
Lunch: 5 oz tuna (for real in water this time), mackintosh, mandarin
Snack: baby carrots 
Dinner: grilled fish with fennel-and-avocado salad
Late Snack: more of my salad, and three pieces of bacon because I was craving it so badly

Salad Fixings

My strangely unsatisfying dinner.

My after-dinner activity of the day was to carve our pumpkins, and make pumpkin seeds for the party.  (Nathan took some photos of me carving, so you'll have to wait for him to process them- but it will be a nice change from all my phone-snapshots!)

I DID take a picture of the pumpkin guts.  Did you know white pumpkins have green guts?  And that they smell like honey dew melon?  Yeah, neither did I.

...now that I think about it, this little tableau is kind of twisted...

The pumpkin seeds were an utter failure, by the by.  It sucks not being able to be my own taste-tester.  It sucks even more that I spent several hours laboring over them.  Ah well- life goes on.

BURNED! (the spices, I mean- not the actual seeds)

Detox: Day Ten (or: Punching Temptation in the Throat)

I have to say that my naughty-food cravings have, by and large, disappeared.  What I mean to say is that they are not longer causing obsession.  Yes, I will still occasionally think, "Man, I could really go for a piece of dark chocolate right now," but then the thought passes and I'm fine.  So what better moment to really push my limits?!

This evening I made popcorn balls for my upcoming HalloWarming party.  There was not a single component of those balls that I could eat.  Not the popcorn,

It is shockingly difficult to find just PLAIN popcorn for the microwave.

not the butter, not the vanilla extract, and especially not any of what this guy was pushing:

Hello my old friend.

I came thisclose to automatically licking the honey from the jar-seal, but I remembered just in the nick of time, and was hyper-vigilant for the rest of the evening.  And let me tell you, this stuff smells so heavenly, vigilance was required.

Caramelized honey.  That's right.

 
But I did it!

Trying not to let any drool drip on them.

(Although to be completely honest, those were the only popcorn balls that got made.  The rest of it refused to go into ball form, so there will be a bowl of candied popcorn next to the bowl of candy corn...)

I'm pretty damned pleased with myself- not just for resisting completely The Naughty, but also because... I don't feel bitter about it.  Which means that my Attitude has become Correctly Aligned.

(now I just have to ignore the four bags of candy I bought... at least it's all gluten-free!)

Breakfast: 2.5 piece of fried ham, .5 cup blueberries
Lunch: leftover spaghetti squash with beef
Snack: two mandarin oranges, .5 cup blueberries
Dinner: fennel-encrusted pork with roasted sweet potatoes, carrots, and onions

(and no popcorn balls!)

Detox: Day Nine (or, How to Imbibe the Repulsive)

After much trial-and-error (and rinse-and-repeat, sometimes literally) I have finally settled on the best way to take my horrific medicine.

First, pour a teeny bit of orange juice in a shot glass.  Add the scoop of RepairVite (I'd say apx 1-2 tsp), then top with more orange juice and stir with a tiny implement.  Pour about four to six ounces of orange juice into a separate, untainted glass.  Inhale deeply, exhale fully, and throw the disgusto-shot back, quickly followed by a mouthful of pure orange juice to be swished around in the mouth and swallowed.  Then (still without breathing) take another mouthful of orange juice, swish and swallow again.  Allow oxygen to return, try to ignore the trace of gross aftertaste in your  mouth as you finish off the last of the orange juice from the glass.

Objects in the photo smaller than they appear...

I've got this down to a fine art, I tell you.  And I owe it all to my parents who, when I was a child, taught me the wisdom of taking medicine without breathing.  Thanks Mom and Dad!

Breakfast: half an avocado mashed up with lemon juice, salt, pepper, and fresh cilantro; apx one cup of fresh blueberries

I know, I know- there is a distinct lack of protein in this picture.

Lunch:  Leftover beef-and-spaghetti squash
Snack(s): one mackintosh, one mandarin, one piece of ham, about half a cup of leftover sprout slaw
Dinner:  gyro meat, bacon, and avocado on a bed of romaine and spinach.

Because my Katie is clever and chose a restaurant that I could get Approved Food from.  And dudes- it was so effin' good.