It recently came to our attention that I am, officially, taller than my mom. How this happened is beyond me … either I’m still growing at age 36, or she’s shrinking at age xx … but, we won’t go there.

She suggested that we stand back-to-back and get the boys’ [ever so scientific] analysis of who’s taller. We were both barefoot, and there was no doubting that my shoulders were higher than hers, perhaps even a half inch or more.

She mused aloud why this could be, and No. 5 nonchalantly answered, “Probably because Mom’s feet are so big. That means she’s taller.”

Ouch. Obviously. I guess I do tell them often about “how big & tall” they are getting, and it seems that they need new shoes and pants at the same time – and often – so it made sense to him that big feet = tall.

My size 10 feet and I shall meekly leave the room now. (They used to be size 11, but somehow my feet shrunk when I lost all that weight! I should take that as some consolation, right?)

In about 20 minutes, I’ll have a fresh-from-the-oven, low-carb buttermilk pie ready to eat! Yum! I just got in the mood for some buttermilk pie earlier and decided to make one, while I had a relatively free evening. (No evening is totally free from laundry, homework and whatnot, but it’s all relative.)

While I was waiting for the pie to finish, I enjoyed a glass of cabernet split 1:1 with diet tonic water. If you’ve never tried it, it might sound odd, but it’s really good. It turns an ordinary glass of wine into a spritzer. I like red wine, and I like to try new brands that are on sale. Sometimes I discover a new favorite; other times, it’s too tart/bitter for my preference, but I don’t want to waste it. Cutting it with diet tonic water transforms it into something completely new and very yummy! Red wine is normally low-carb, and the diet tonic water has zero calories/carbs, so it’s a nice treat.

I’d better go check the oven timer … catch ya later!

We finished planting the summer garden today! Lord willing and barring the thieving squirrels that we encountered last year, we are looking forward to harvesting our own eggplant (hands-down my fave veggie!), green bell peppers, asparagus, zucchini squash, blackberries, Fall Gold raspberries and tomatoes.

The best thing about planting a garden together (besides the produce savings on the grocery store bill and the valid excuse to play in the dirt) is that the boys are more apt to try “their” crops. We have a general rule that you have to at least try everything on your plate, and there is no “yuck” served for dinner.

We also have a mystery plant from last year that we assumed had died but now appears to have revived and is sprouting, but no one can remember what it is! LOL – I think it might be peppers, but we’ll just be surprised. I also planted watermelon seeds late in the season last year, so there’s a slim chance that they will still sprout, but we won’t hold our breath.

In addition to the edible goodies, the boys and I also spruced up our flowerpots on the front porch with begonias and impatiens in hanging baskets and groupings of marigolds and petunias together in narrow pots on the ledge. It’s so pretty, I may start drinking my morning coffee on the front porch!

I’m really thankful that no one in our household has had the flu this year. We had a couple of cases of strep in the fall, but we’ve managed pretty well with little more than a few sniffles here and there during the winter.

Last week, three of the boys (over the span of about five days) came down with a viral respiratory infection. We tried quarantining the first one at Nana & Granddad’s house, but I guess we didn’t catch it soon enough. The second one started running fever about two days later, then the third one the following day. We repeatedly washed sheets and sanitized game controllers, faucet handles & doorknobs all week long!

Like I said, I am glad that it wasn’t worse — and I’m going to sound like a terrible parent for this next remark — but I found myself kinda wishing that it would be something like strep or an ear infection … something the doc could give medicine to fix. A virus is a terrible diagnosis, because not only do you just have to wait it out, but you can only treat the symptoms (and what kid likes the taste of cough syrup?! – gag!), then you are supposed to wait 24 hours post-fever before they can return to school! Between you & me & the blogosphere, I will admit that we don’t always wait 24 hours. If he’s already missed two days and is feeling better at bedtime and isn’t running fever in the morning, then it’s back to school time.

Another thing I often wonder is how we can have antiseptic wipes, antibacterial/antiviral hand lotion and disinfectant spray, yet we haven’t figured out an antiviral medication? If they can kill the germs on contact, why can’t they kill the germs in our bodies? We have all but eradicated polio and smallpox, yet we can’t cure the common cold or influenza.

Why not? (Asks the journalism major who would’ve studied something really useful like virology or genetics if she’d not been turned off by the nauseating smell of formaldehyde in Bio I in high school and had stuck with the advanced-placement science track like she was capable of doing. But, I digress.)

*TMI alert, but I don’t know how else to explain it: I think I must have PMS. I can’t be certain, thanks to my hallelujah-hysterectomy two and a half years ago, but my face has suddenly broken out like a teenager AND I gained five pounds in one day. ONE DAY! What the heck? How is that even physiologically possible? This is why we are told to only weigh once a week, because the scale can fluctuate, but seriously — 5 lbs?! Oi vey.

And don’t even get me started on break-outs. Grown women should be exempt from blemishes.

My BFF is getting married in three months, and my goal is to buy a size 12 dress to wear as her Matron of Honor. I figured another 10 lbs should do it, since my size 14s have been a comfortable fit. My surprise on the scale yesterday morning was very disappointing, to say the least.

I’m not going to let it overwhelm me, though. Five pounds up or down is not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It’s just frustrating to realize that my body has a mind of its own sometimes. I’m going to stick to my eating plan and try to carve out some time to be active (note: not necessarily “exercise,” but go for a walk/jog, etc. I’m more likely to do it if it doesn’t sound like punishment. “Exercise” sounds like punishment.)

Do you hear that, Scale? I’m warning you. Game on.

Bacon and eggs for breakfast is a low-carber’s dream meal. If I don’t have time to fix bacon & scramble eggs in the skillet, I usually whip up a smoothie in the blender or I microwave a quick Egg Beaters omelet with shredded cheese & whatever leftover meat I have handy. Today, I thought that I would be clever and make boiled eggs, but I was a bit pressed for time and didn’t want to have to fix them on the stove.

How I usually boil eggs is to place them in a pot of water on the stove and bring it to a boil, let them boil for a few minutes, then turn off the heat and let them finish cooking internally in the magical way that eggs do.

If the stove is good, then the microwave is better because it’s faster, right? Wrong.

Did you know that if you try to boil eggs in the microwave, they can explode with such force that it blows open the microwave door?

I’m surprised the force of it didn’t break my Pyrex dish. Water, egg glob and shell covered the entire interior of my microwave, as well as a pretty big splotch on the kitchen floor. It would have been a cool science experiment if it hadn’t been my breakfast, and I was already running behind. The older two will be disappointed that they missed the explosion; they had already left for school.

Needless to say, I had a smoothie this morning.

I finally got up the nerve to face the music and submit Before/After pictures for a contest that Medi-Weightloss Clinics is running this month. I’m not at my ultimate goal weight, but I’ve lost 79 pounds to date, so I figured I’d go for it! Here’s the text of my entry:

I’ve always been strong; even at my heaviest, I could still bench press 110 lbs and inverted-leg press 730 lbs (yes, that’s a seven! 😉 ) Unfortunately, I packed on so much weight during my childbearing years that my energy level was totally zapped, I couldn’t exercise like I wanted to, and I was embarrassed to play with my kids because – let’s face it – I jiggled like Santa Claus.

After going through Medi, I’ve lost 79 lbs and fit into clothes that I haven’t worn since college! Better yet, I love being able to play basketball & football with my five boys!! Mom doesn’t jiggle anymore. 😉

And … here are my Before & After pics:

Ang Before

The finalists will be featured on Medi’s Facebook page, and the winner will be featured in their magazine. Runners-up will receive gift cards for use at Medi clinics. Whether I win or not, it has already been a fulfilling experience because of the encouragement that I’ve received … some from total strangers who saw my pics on Medi’s Facebook page (all entries have to be posted there). My overall FB settings are very strict privacy-wise, so it was a stretch for me to put myself “out there” like that. If someone else can see my progress and find it inspiring, though, then it’s worth a heaping dose of humility on my part.

Ang After

We had a hoot at dinner tonight. Most of the boys have tried using chopsticks before (it’s part of their family heritage, after all), but only No. 2 has really mastered the technique. They had beef lo mein for dinner (no recipe to share, sorry – it came from the frozen section … Yours Truly had leftover grilled fish & green beans), and I taught them one of the few sentences that I can still remember how to say in Chinese: I want chopsticks. Wo yao kuaizi. I offered them a pair of chopsticks to use if they asked me for them in Chinese. :p

Everyone was a good sport, but it’s funny to see how their individual personalities surface even in a silly task like using chopsticks.

• No. 2, of course, was more than happy to show off demonstrate the proper use of chopsticks. He is very competitive by nature, so this didn’t surprise me.
• No. 3 lives on No. 2’s heels, always wanting to be in the same place, do the same thing, get the same privileges, etc. He would have sat there until his food got cold, because, by golly, he was going to figure it out! He did get the hang of it after a while, and he beamed with pride.
• No. 1, Mr. Independent, tried a couple of times to use the chopsticks, but he opted for a fork because it proved to be the best medium to shovel copious amounts of food into his mouth in the least amount of time. (His appetite now makes me cringe to think of what all five of them will be like as teenagers!)
• No. 4 pouted when his food fell between his chopsticks, so he resorted to poking/stabbing the food and being generally silly until I suggested that he eat with a fork. The desire to eat won out over any desire to achieve. :p
• No. 5 does not seem to have quite the same competitive streak as Nos. 2 & 3, but he definitely wants to hold his own. He also wants attention, so when he figured out how to do it, boy, the whole room knew! LOL

Dad demonstrated how to hold the chopsticks, and although he’s explained it before, I thought it was particularly helpful this time because he described it in ways they could really understand:

1. Make a Spock sign with your hand.
2. Rest one chopstick between your fingers (where the Spock sign splits … or the Mork from Ork sign, if you aren’t a Trekie), and let the other end rest in the crook of your thumb.
3. Hold the other chopstick like a pencil.
4. Use your pointer finger to squeeze the “pencil” chopstick but hold the other one still.

He had their rapt attention at “Spock sign.”

Not to be outdone (they did inherit their competitive streak from somewhere!), I had to brag a little and show them that I could eat salad with my chopsticks. Teeheehee.