Interrogation Techniques Revealed!

The CIA's list of interrogation techniques was leaked to the papers:

"The techniques sought by the CIA are: induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation; a technique called "the attention grab" where a suspect's shirt is forcefully seized; the "attention slap" or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the "belly slap"; and sound and light manipulation."

...and?

I mean, seriously, my kids subject me to 6 of the 7 on a semi-daily basis. They have never, however, induced hypothermia. They're more likely to make you sweat to death. On top of those other 6 techniques, they do other fun things. I think we'd get a lot more information out of the terrorists if we made them nurse a teething baby. We could hold a tube of lanolin just out of reach!

(Nursing is going pretty well, but she gets a little too, uh, enthusiastic. Like her brother was...)

Oh, right, I had a baby!

I've had it pointed out to me that I, uh, sorta forgot to mention that I
had a baby!

She was born on August 4th, after a relatively easy labor. Thank
goodness... Her brother was not an easy birth, and the recovery was
awful. (With him, my husband had to stay home for 4 weeks just to take
care of us!)

She is a happy pretty pink pudgy little piggy. She makes the cutest
little grunting noises and already sometimes lets me sleep 5 hours
straight at night. (Her brother had colic.... So I'm shocked and pleased
that I sometimes get sleep, instead of a baby screaming from midnight
until 3 am...!)

By 2 weeks after she was born, she was already a pound over her birth
weight! She's a very good eater... Or I have really powerful milk, or
something. :D

Now, if only I could get the house cleaned up before I have to go back
to work. (*sigh*)

I'm Back!

Sorry, just had a baby. It was a little busy there for a while... and I hadn't been doing a lot of cleaning, so the idea of posting was, quite frankly, very depressing.

I have been recovering pretty quickly though, which is great! I had a very slow, long, horrible recovery with my son, so I was expecting this all to take longer. Happily, I'm already doing a lot of chores and starting to declutter again. I don't know when the place was last vacuumed, though. :( I have a ton of catching up to do.

Of course, today I feel pretty horrible. I don't know if it's allergies or what. My abdominal muscles are still incredibly weak (thehy were stretched really thin!) so I usually have a sore back, and I have to wear an abdominal binder or I feel like my guts are going to fall out. Some days they still feel like that anyway!

So, right now, the goal is to keep up on the daily tasks like the dishes, laundry, etc.. and start decluttering the den. I really need to get my son's toys all cleaned up, because right now they are all over everything in every room, and he can never find anything he's looking for! I'm hoping to bo some up that he isn't using, and put some others up on shelves so that there's some actual floor space available. Then I start migrating to the other rooms to fix them. I know I'm supposed to go to a new room each week, bt without hte den cleaned up, I just don't see how I can clean up any other room!

Yesterday I got some shelves out of hte garage and cleaned them up and started putting the fisher price little people toys on them. Just with a little cleaning like that (and getting dh to move some boes out..!) it's already a lot better. I just wish I felt better and oculd run in and do it all in one day. I've been living in mess and dirt too long, and I'm worried about the fact that we haven't vacuumed or dusted enough, in a house with lead paint! Ugh... I hate this place.

Murphy's Law Strikes Again

That darn Murphy came to get me. Just as I was happily updating that while I'm not perfect, everything was going along pretty much, with much improvement.... my uterus had other ideas.

Yes indeedly, just about 6 hours after my May Update post, I found myself at the hospital in labor & delivery being checked for pre-term labor! Everything's okay -- it's not pre-term labor, just an awful huge honking pile of unpleasant, yet non-productive, contractions. The doctor put me on bed rest for a week. Now, it's nice to get to have an unexpected vacation from work.... but the house just fell apart! My regular OB says bed rest isn't shown to prevent pre-term labor, but (on the other hand) when I stand up, I'm dizzy, short of breath, and my contractions worsen. So I'm still on self-imposed bed rest. With minor exceptions (I let myself do a load of laundry every day. I'm not even folding it! But at least everyone will have clean, though wrinkly, underwear).

My dad's coming over to visit later. I'm trying not to freak out over the dirty dishes in the sink, and the mess everywhere. I think I will bother to go take a shower and put on some pants, though. ;)


DH fed us three meals a day, kept The Boy in clean diapers, and went to the grocery store. The Boy cleaned up the toys on the floor of the living room each night. But most of the other chores did not, in any way, get done. It's hard to watch the house fall apart like that, but there's nothing I can do about it.

Oh well. A little set back. It's still not as bad as it was 5 months ago, and it will get better again. Baby steps.

How Am I Doing on Those Virtues?

I did stop actively journaling about my attempts at improving myself as Franklin did, by trying to improve myself in a different virtue a week... but that doesn't mean I haven't improved at all! I'd say I've just been focusing on the few virtues that I'd really like to get more focus on right now, and save some of the other ones for later. So lets see how I've been doing on those virtues for the past six months or so.

Temperance

Doing very well here, I'd say. I'm pregnant, so my caffeine habit is at a minimum (I drink one cup of coffee a day), I drink half a glass of wine maybe every couple of weeks. I don't generally over-eat because it just feels too uncomfortable with my already huge stomach. I've been eating low carb, trying to avoid another diagnosis of gestational diabetes (and I did it! No GD this time!). I cook dinner almost every night, and it tends to be something tasty and pretty healthy. I'm having a lot more salads, too.

Silence

I'd say I'm about the same here. I mean, I don't really have time for much "trifling conversation" but I don't think I've done anything in particular to weed it out.

Order

I'd say this is right up FlyLady's alley! I'm working on finding a place for everything (even if that place is the trash or goodwill, or whatever!) and finding a time to do all the important things I have to do. Those times might not be specific hours and minutes, but certain parts of the day. Very FlyLady, and I'm making a lot of progress here.

Resolution

I'd say I'm also improving here. Instead of making lists that I never follow, and then get guilty about not following it, I do more of the things I resolve to do more often. Still, like all other things, there is room for improvement.

Frugality

We are certainly more frugal in one very big way -- grocery store shopping! Fewer trips, less wasted food, less eating out. I think DH has cut down on some of his spending, but we could certainly work more here. But I do notice the grocery bill difference for sure!

Industry

I'd say this is definitely improved. I do spend more time working and less time resting. However, some people might say that isn't necessarily a good thing in a 29-week-pregnant lady. ;) I really do need to improve in this, though I have improved some. I do still spend a little too much time "waking up" in the morning. Heck, right now I should be getting work done and instead I'm journaling.

Sincerity

Okay, probably not doing so hot here. I'm pregnant. Things just spill out.

Justice

Probably about the same as before. I don't think I have much of a problem with this.

Moderation

Eh, once again -- I'm pregnant. Not an excuse, but it isn't something I've been able to manage to curtail. I do harbor resentment, and I am allowing things to get to me.

Cleanliness

Much improved!!

Tranquility

As far as my son is concerned, I think I'm mostly better at this, though when I'm in a mood, I'm certainly not that great. My patience sometimes flies out the window. With dh and at work, I'm probably far worse. It's been hard, and I know I'm letting to beat me up inside.

Chastity

...still none of your business. ;)

Humility

Oh lord, it's hard to be humble.... and I'm not.

End of May Update

Yes, I know, I need to update more often... I just don't seem to have the time!

Lately I've been really bogged down by the fact that I feel like no one helps me. Dh has noticed the work I've been doing, and gives me a really sincere thank you from time to time. Of course, that's nice and it feels good! But working full time and being 29 weeks pregnant, I'd like it a whole lot more if he would pitch in! Or, at the very least, not criticize our 3 year old son when he tries to help me. I swear! :P I know he's trying to be helpful, but I just want out son to not be traumatized by helping mommy clean.

Anyway, I'm doing pretty well keeping up with daily things. I just can't seem to find time to clear hotspots or declutter, which gets a little frustrating and tempts me into thinking I haven't gotten anything done. But hey! When I got up this morning, the dishes were done, the sink was clean, the living room floor was picked up, I could find the tv remotes!, and the dining room table was mostly clear (one end is a hotspot) and clean. It was so nice to be able to sit down and eat without washing dishes or being disgusted. Oh, plus there were plenty of clean clothes (I still need to work on laying the out, but at least they're all clean, folded, and mostly put away!)

I've come so far! I hope ill be able to get some more decluttering done before the baby is here.

Oh! And I go grocery shopping only once a week (plus dh goes to costco once a week for meat, cheese, and bread) and make dinner almost every night! :) sure saves time and money, and its tastier and healthier too!

I'd say I'm doing pretty darn good. :) So, it's not perfect. No one's perfect. I'm getting better, and I'm doing pretty well. And that's good enough for now.

Babysteps to Flying

Okay, I think I've confessed this before, but I've been a "FLYBaby" for oh... 6 years? I don't know, how long has she been doing this? :D And I'm still not very good at it. I just didn't "get" it for the longest time. I'm way too stubborn.

Anyway, I've been trying to slow down and do baby steps. I'm really not good at that. I find it too frustrating in the beginning, because you know, we're alreayd at this point because things are so messy we can't stand them one more minute. So I can't handle that I may not get the place looking "cleaner" until 8 months from now.

I think I finally started getting it last year, but then we all went on vacation, got sick, and I got pregnant! I totally "fell off teh FlyLady wagon" and had to get back into it again. I wasn't all that good at it to begin with!

Anyway, I'm going through her 30 baby steps now, trying to take my time. I just got a little upset that I was only on about step number 12. After getting back on the wagon for two months. So I decided to see what the rest of the steps were, to see how much more work I had to do to really get fully into what I was supposed to be doing. Well, to my surprise.... I'm doing most of the later things already! I really only have about 5 more things to add to my routine, it looks like. (Though I still need to get more solid on the things I have there now). But it isn't another 20 things, and that's what's important! I'm already planning dinner, checking calandars, eating well, and doing my laundry every day! GO ME! Those were all tasks to add in the coming days. I really, really only have 5 things to add, eventually. I think on top of those, I have another dozen (maybe?) in mind I want to add, specific to me. Like cleaning out the pet cages (ugh!).

Still to add:

• Kelly's daily missions (not adding those until everything is decluttered enough somewhere that I can actually DO them)
• Make bed (Actually, does anyone have a recommendation here? My husband and I have our own sets of sheets/covers/blankets/etc because we really aren't good at sharing, plus I always want to be super-toasty warm, and he apparently sleeps better when he's freezing to daeth. How do you make a bed with two sets of everything??)
• Look at Ask Flylady every day
• Complete Control Journal
• weekly pamper mission

Not too bad, huh??

Just yesterday I was getting really upset again that I felt like I wasn't doing anything right. But I managed to make some dinner, straighten things up, keep the laundry going, and all that with a bad sinus headache! While I was working from home, watching my son, helping DH with homework, and I managed to clean up the front yard some.

Yay me!! I like making lists of accomplishments. It seems ot always make me feel better. I think having a really super long to do list just makes me really scared and upset. But I really am doing a lot! I just have a lot of demands! (Maybe we can find a way to declutter those too!!)

Well, so much for that

Have you ever noticed, how once something is working for you, the second you mention it to other people, it all falss apart? It's happened that way when my son slept through the night, when he was momentarily potty-trained, when I was sure my morning sickness went away... and now it's happened with FLYLady.

I was doing so well. Past tense. I have managed to keep up with some of the simpler routines, but certianly nothing resembling decluttering this week. It's too bad, too, because I was really looking forward to this week, in the bedroom! It's just been a bad week. We did actually get other important things done instead, I guess. DH did mow the lawn yesterday. I did pruning outside on Wednesday. I've gotten to the store and made dinner. I'm kept up on laundry. I've even gotten to bed earlier, and gotten up earlier so I could have a little alone time in the morning. That's helped a lot, because I can get some nice work done at home in the morning when I'm at my most constructive.

We also have had The Boy out play play for over an hour every day, which he hasn't been getting a lot of before now, due to rain. But with all the being outside, it doesn't make it easier to clean inside! We also spent a fun time last night with the neighbors looking at stars. I guess we have gotten a lot done. Just different stuff, really. The living room isn't that far out of control, and the den is almost unchanged since it was cleaned, since The Boy hasn't really even been down there. I've kept up my swish & swipe in the bathrooms, too.

Okay, I guess I'm not doing too bad! Just missing out on my zone decluttering and my hotspots. I wish I laid out my clothes every day, but really it's not as big a deal when you have the laundry done and folded away, since it's so easy to find clothes!

Wow. I feel a lot better now. Thank you for listening, internet!

Trust

Now that I think of it, I think that was problem all along. I mean, I've been trying to follow FLYLady for what -- five years? Six years? How long has she been around?!

But I have a big ego, and tend to think most people are, uh, not so useful. Ben Franklin would yell at me for that, though he was exactly the same, now wasn't he? ;)

On top of that, there is the ever-present issue that if I try something, it means I could possibly fail. We perfectionists don't like that! So if I don't really try, then I can't really fail. But hey, you also can't really succeed, now can you? So I guess I sabotage myself before it even has a chance to work.

At the very beginning of the past 3-4 weeks of FLYing, after my first big day where I really noticed a change, it totally freaked me out. The living room was CLEAN. Vacuumed. No toys on the floor. Clean! It was wonderful. And moments after I realized that, I thought that now I was going to have to work to keep it that way. It made me happy, it made my son happy. And how could I deny my son happiness? But I doubted I could keep it up because, after all, I never had before. So that clean room managed to inexplicably make me feel like a failure and a bad mom! How crazy is that? But I do the same thing to myself all the time.

But I've gotten past that, at least for now. I managed to push through and get these routines more settled. The beginning must be the hardest. When you have no routine to build on, it's hard to get traction! But I finally did. I have routines! And they are already getting so much easier. I have laundry practically on autopilot now. The living room and den have been decluttered every night to make sure the floor is clear and toys are put away. It's so nice to get up to a cleaner house.

But the really hard part was the first leap of faith, to do the work and get to here. It's so, incredibly hard. I don't have enough trust to do it, usually. I think the only reason it worked this time is because I'm pregnant. What's that, you say? Pregnant? What does that have to do with it?? Well, basically, I'm in the second trimester. That means that we're past the first trimester exhaustion. We're past morning sickness. We're not quite to the point that you feel like a huge beached whale and that moving isn't possible, much less cleaning. And, to top it off, you have extra energy provided by the need to nest. It's like being possessed by some sort of cleaning demon! And that extra energy and drive and craziness gave me just enough oomph to finally get off my rear end and get some stuff done! Thank you pregnancy hormones!

Thank you FLYLady.

Progress report for march

Okay, okay, I haven't been keping this up to date at all! The good news
is that I have begun FLYing! Maybe that's why I haven't found time for
hwre yet.

I'm nowhere near "perfect". But I have been trying to follow my routines
in good faith for several weeks now. And you know what? I don't need
complicated progress reports to know I'm improving. I know because my
house is cleaner! (Duh!)

I've almost finished my first month, and its just making so much more
sense now. My problem was that I could never see how her way could
result in a cleaner house. It seemed like their weren't enough zones for
all my rooms, so I spent all my time trying to invent new zones, or
squishing more in. Crazy! Now I'm just happy because a few rooms are
clean, from zone decluttering. Ill get to the other rooms in time. I
know I will. I can't believe how well this works but I just never
manages to keep at it for a few weeks to find out!

And really, I still have very simple routines and sometimes even miss
things in my routine. Yesterday I didn't manage to do a 15 minute
decluttering. Mondays seem to be hard days for me. But my other rooms
still got picked up, and my.sink is shining. What a great feeling!

Weekend Flyer

This weekend was much better. We were still all sick, but we managed to clean up the kitchen and the living room a little, and I did at least half of my Flylady chores. (Yeah, I know, I did like 5, maybe.... But that's better than 0!)

Here's hoping this week will be better. I think we're mostly over the intestinal illness of doom.

Week's Progress

This week shows little to no progress. I've been sick with some sort of allery/sinus infection, feeling my morning sickness, and (thanks to enjoying a child birthday party at one of those "play pizza places") everyone in the family is ill with one of those fun digestive system viruses.

Now, I know Flylady would like me to still get up and do 5 minutes here or there, but hey -- I'm pregnant, throwing up, dizzy, headachy, and have all the joy that intestinal distress can bring you.

A Kinder, Simpler To Do List

Maybe I tried to jump in too fast. Maybe I'm just too tired. I know it would be nice if I had all my routines figured out and I could just use them to clean up the house -- but they're not set yet. I think I need to add each thing in my routine a little more slowly, so I don't just have a list of tasks, I will have a hard-coded series of steps I always perform.

I actually know this, deep down inside. When I was yonger, I know I always forgot something when I was getting ready for school in the morning. I'd forget to brush my teeth, or forget my deoderant, or something equally horrible and embarrassing. So I developed an entire bathroom routine. It took some time to get all the steps in the right order, but I put each one in the easist place for it to go, and for over a decade now, I do the exact same thing every morning. For example, I brush my teeth before my shower, because I hate minty mouth taste, and that way I can use the shower water to rinse my mouth out over and over while I shower. I make sure to brush my hair and put on deoderant before I use lotion, because lotiony hands can't grip anything. ;) But it takes weeks or months to figure out exactly where each step of something even as seemingly simple as a morning shower routine should go to make everything run as smoothly as possible. And I think I tried to take on too many steps at once.

So we're going to try for a more simpler routine. I'm having a lot of trouble not making this a much longer list! I think partly because at one point I was doing a much longer list. :(

Morning:
1. Get up and get dressed right after breakfast.
2. Empty dishwasher.

Afternoon:
1. Five minute room resuce.
2. Make dinner.
3. Laundry.

Evening:
1. Do dishes and shine sink and take dirty cups downstairs.
2. Lay out clothes for tomorrow and take dirty clothes downstairs.
3. Plan tomorrow's dinner.

Like a Phoenix...

... I rise again!

Yes, I've deleted some posts. I realize that blogs really have to be more focused to be useful. So this one is now all about home life (cooking, cleaning, etc.), self-improvement, and so forth.

I was doing pretty well last fall, but somehow over Christmas (and vacation, and getting pregnant!) everything fell apart. Gotta get back on the wagon! I'm 16 weeks along as of today.

So it's off with lists, lists, lists, and more lists!

Done in by Caramel Cupcakes

My son loves eating muffins. He likes to have one for breakfast. He's absolutely adorable when he picks up an enormous Costco muffin in his tiny little hands. It's gerbilesque in its cuteness.

So, yesterday, when The Boy was despairing that his daddy wouldn't be home when we got home (he takes night classes), I suggested that we make some muffins. Because we were out of Costco muffins, and I already foresaw the tantrum he would throw in the morning. So why not kill two birds with one stone? This tantrum and the next one? And heck, it's good family cooking fun, too.

So The Boy agreed that muffins would be a good idea, and his tantrum was averted. He was giddy and excited about cooking muffins. He loves cooking, he loves muffins. He really likes to "taste" the ingredients. Often. Especially the sugar.

His favorite muffin is the poppyseed muffin. Oh, he eats so many of these, that the lucky person changing his diaper can tell for days that he's been eating poppyseeds. But I have no poppyseeds at home, so I suggested we make apple muffins. Apple! That's almost healthy! And he agreed, apple muffins. When we were nearly home, the evil radio had a commercial featuring chocolate. At which point The Boy declared he wanted to make chocolate muffins with chocolate chips. Oh dear -- that's not quite as healthy as I had planned. But... no matter. We will make chocolate muffins.

We returned home, and I looked for a chocolate muffin recipe, and couldn't find one! I couldn't even find one on the internet that looked appealing, or that I had all the ingredients to. So I looked in Fine Cooking. I adore that magazine. Everything is so yummy. Though I still could not find a chocolate muffin recipe that didn't involve an ingredient I did not have (white chocolate, raspberries, etc) or that I didn't want to feed my son (espresso!).

So I settled on something similar that I knew would appeal -- the caramel cupcake. Okay, we're veering more towards unhealthy here. This is no longer a muffin (and frankly, they're just little cakes) but a full fledged cup cake, complete with icing. Oh well, The Boy approved (he adores caramel!) so we made those muffins. I have an adorable little mini muffin tin, so I thought what better way to make sure I don't eat too many, than to make tiny muffins!

No. Does not work that way. Instead, the tiny, scrumtious, little caramel cupcakes just caused me to need to eat many of them. So cute. So tasty. And so the reason I lost a few marks for temptation and moderation!!

But I think Ben* would have liked them.


(* -- Franklin, silly.)

This is What I Mean When I Say So Many Studies Are Flawed

I recently got a link to this article from a friend of mine, who knows that one thing I hate is how awful some supposed "research" is these days. There are people using data to justify conclusions that aren't remotely supported by their evidence. They misuse statistics left and right, and leave enourmous gaps where there should have been follow up studies. They use really awful data sets. Bad samples. Here's an example of all of the above!

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB112850855225260475.html

I've never read The Number Guy's column before, but I just signed up to get an email when there's a new one! Excellent column.

Is That A Typo??

... you might wonder. No, I really am giving myself a "12" for both tranquility and sincerity. I was an angry little cloud of doom yesterday. Work was frustrating, home was frustrating, and while I was trying my best to rise above it, my mind kept going back to how wronged and angry I was. 12 is either my best estimate, or I just lost count.

Not a good day.

It made me work less, I gossiped a bit, it was just an all out crap of a day.

Week Two: Do-over!

Okay, you may have noticed I just sort of disappeared off the face of the earth. Well, what happened was that we had nine people in from out of town at work this week -- several of them from two different vendors! So, I basically spent 9-6 in meetings. All day. Every day. After that, I was exhausted and everything was a mess.

I did cook dinner (or reheat healthy delicious leftovers) every night.

Today I'm staying home. I'd planned on cleaning, and I have done a little, but I'm feeling guilty for not doing more. But most of all, I got a little chance to just sort of relax. There's no littler person demanding time, no meetings to go to, no deadlines, no desperate THING that needs to be done. We have groceries. We have dinner. We have the little errands done. And I'm taking a well-deserved rest. I need to rest.

Of course, I'd be resting more if my husband wasn't in the other room going a tad bit melodramatic over his homework. If he swears and screams one more time... well... I'll have to go hide upstairs or something. This is my day off. I'm supposed to be relaxing, not cringing every time he gets upset. I can't help it. It puts me on edge, and makes me jump, and makes me just... nervous. I want to fix it. But I can't do his homework for him (I mean, it's wrong, besides the fact that I don't know C++ that well.)

Anyway, I didn't really have time or energy to clean or try to improve myself last week, so I'm declaring a do-over!

Week Two: Silence

So, every Monday I will recap the last week, and then introduce this week's virtue.

Last week was temperence. I'd say I did a pretty good job. I cooked dinner every night, and did a pretty good job of not stuffing myself silly even though it was tasty food. I was moderate on the caffeine, though I would like to continue working on bringing it down to a lower level. I had one drink all week -- a margarita at dinner on Saturday. Mmmm! (Note: Not to imply I have a drinking problem or anything; just verifying that I'm observing moderation in food and drink as my buddy Ben prescribes.)

Week of 10/10 - 10/16: I don't have a table of marks against me by virtue this week. I only came up with the idea partway through the week, so it wouldn't be very useful statistically.

This week's virtue is Silence:

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

Now, this doesn't mean I stop working on the other virtues, this is just the one we'll focus on, to see where we might violate it and where we might improve.

Benjamin Franklin invented a fictional woman named Silence Dogood when he was 16. He began writing letters under her name to the New-England Courant, ridiculing all sorts of things, from drunks in the street, to bad fashion, to Harvard. (Amusingly enough, even then it was considered a place ruined by corruption and elitism). I wonder if this counted as trifling conversation or not.

A nice Franklin quote about silence:

Silence is not always a Sign of Wisdom, but Babbling is ever a folly.

Saving Dinner

So, as a part of my improve-myself-and-not-feel-like-a-complte-loser-athon that I'm on, I also signed up for the Saving Dinner Menu Mailer service. It basically a friend of the FlyLady who wants to help people get back to cooking dinner by providing a week of recipes and ingredients, so you can just follow the instructions and have dinner. I'm pretty picky about recipes, but a friend said they liked it, so I decided to give it a shot.

So far, I'm not very impressed. I mean, I like that she has different options -- after looking at the sample menus, I skipped over the "regular" mailing menu and went for the Low Carb one. It's more meat-and-potatos sort of meals, as she describes it, and more like the sort of thing I'm used to eating. (Of course, that's probably because my Dad used to be very meat and potatoes and my mom grew up in a house with a diabetic, so we all sort of learned to cook very diabetic-friendly meals. Which isn't so much meat and potatos and meat and veggies. But close enough. Meat is certainly required, and the normal mailer wasn't always giving you a good hunk of animal protein). Also, since I am trying to both lose weight (not in the dieting sense -- just eat well, excercise and watch a pound leave every once in a while) and get pregnant (which requires a lot of protein). And even more, last time I was pregnant, I had gestational diabetes, so I figured I'd plan ahead and try to get a bunch of low-carb recipes, and I'd be ready in case I got diabetes again.

Anyway, to make a long story even longer... I have so say, so far I'm not terribly impressed with Saving Dinner. She tries to make the recipes too simple. I don't have a problem with simple, but you have to pick the right kind of recipe -- don't just make every recipe simple.

And example: Last night I tried the "Crustless Quiche" (though I bought pie crusts so we could have real quiche. I'm not a carb Nazi.) but part of the way through the recipe I just could not do what she was asking. She wanted we to just put the cheese, bacon and raw onion (?!) and flour (?!?!) into it, pour egg over and cook it. Raw onion? Is she nuts? Flour in a quiche?? Why?? So I just gave up and opened up Julia Child's How To Cook, and finished it with her instructions. (YUM!)

The other recipes I've tried involved cooking pork chops and jsut throwing orange slices on top, hoping to make a sauce (it was a bit bitter, and not really that exciting), and something that I guess was supposed to be teriyaki shrimp, but her sauce called for 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar, and 2 tbs of brown sugar. I have to say, it was pretty vile once you threw a pile of shrimp in it.

The one recipe I was okay with was the "Burger Salad", but I added buns, and really, it was jsut hamburgers by then. And I made the salsa, but added mangos (I love mango salsa!). And I think I changed a few other things...

I guess it at least gave me the idea of shopping for a week of food, making the menus, and making dinner every night, just like my mom did when I was growing up. And it inspired meto cook things, even if it was never the actual recipes. I also put together a little XML system to track the recipes, complete with ratings, notes, and such, so I can assemble some sort of cookbook at a later time. I'll just gather recipes now -- later I'll assemble the database, maybe a front end, and render it all out as a book and mail it to people or something.

I have cooked every night for a week, except for Saturday -- that's the day we see my parents, and we ended up eating out that night. But that's ok. Just as long as it isn't every night, you know?