It’s Mother’s Day. I wanted to wait to start until Monday because of Mother’s Day. I wanted to be able to keep the tradition of my kids making and bringing me breakfast in bed. My kids are 7, 5, and 4, so it’s a lot of Derek making me breakfast and finding jobs they can do to help right now. My brothers and I always did this for our mom, and I’m the youngest. My oldest brother is 7 years older than me, and I don’t really remember the days when my dad had to direct it, but man oh man do I remember Wesley in there trying to direct his three younger siblings on how to make Mom an edible breakfast without wrecking the kitchen or setting the house on fire. He’s so stressed in my memories hahahaha, it’s probably not that funny, but he never let me do anything but make the toast hahahahaha. My mom talks about some of the early days when she’d be chomping into little bits of egg shell in her scrambled eggs. Ah, love. Anyway, back to the present day. I had thought that I’d want to wait, so that I could eat my own badly prepared but filled with love breakfast and maybe get some takeout on Mother’s Day, but then I decided I didn’t want to wait. I can’t say exactly that I was excited to get started on this food, but I was excited to get started on the weight loss, and I thought–I can still make breakfast in bed happen. So! Last night, I reminded my husband that I’d like him to get up with the kids and make it happen, and he did!
1st Fueling: Golden Chocolate Chip Pancakes
Derek gamely got up with our three sweet, excited early risers and made the pancakes in the Dash mini waffle maker per my instructions (DON’T FORGET TO SPRAY IT!!) last night, and they brought me two steaming pancake waffles with a drizzle of sugar free syrup and a hot cup of tea. I had him put a splash of half and half in it. It’s Mother’s Day, after all. Happy Mama.
2nd Fueling: Strawberry Shake
I got 4 different shake flavors in my box, and the strawberry was one of them. I love strawberries and lots of strawberry flavored things, but I was a bit apprehensive about this flavor for a nutritional shake. Rightly so. It wasn’t bad–I drank it all, but I didn’t love it. It was very artificially strawberry tasting, and I felt like I could taste the vitamins hahahaha
3rd Fueling: Caramel Delight Bar
My mom called to tell me that she and my dad and my brother would be able to come to our house for a cookout after all, so I needed to eat something quick so that I could get out the door to the grocery store and pick up a few more ingredients. I’d also looked up some recipes for my lean and greens this week, and have a few items I need to get to make those happen. I ate the bar right before I left the house, because I for sure didn’t want to be hungry at the store where I’d be looking at real food. This one tastes kind of metallic, too. That seems to be a theme with the bars. I have so many bars… So. Many. Metal. Bars.
4th Fueling: Chicken Flavored Vegetable Noodle Soup
Oh my gosh. This not quite chicken, not quite vegetable soup is not quite edible. I mean, it was so weird. The texture was extremely off-putting. It was clinging to my teeth. Ew. I couldn’t finish it, and I was hungry! I got through about half of it, and then decided that I would rather be hungry than eat the rest of that gloop and dumped it down the sink. I had a chat with my coach and her coach tonight, and the head coach did not approve of this. This is an extremely calorie restrictive diet, and I guess it’s really important to eat all of your stuff, even if it tastes like hot garbage. She said, “if it’s that bad, throw it out and get a different one, but put the rest of them back on the shelf to try again in a month. Your taste buds will change.” And I was grumbling to myself, “You mean they’ll DIE.” My coach said she didn’t like it either, and she does some complicated process to turn it into weird looking little “chips” that she uses to eat her guacamole. Soup chips. She sent me a picture.
Lean and Green: Italian Dressing Marinated Chicken, Grilled Asparagus with Lemon, Roasted Zucchini Chips with Parmesan
Dinner was delicious. My family also had corn on the cob and my mom’s famous baked beans, and I snuck one single, solitary bean that fell onto the table. It felt like heaven in my mouth, but whatevs. It’s fine. My asparagus was good, too. I had big plans for these zucchini chips and making enough for all 8 of us, but…they were the last thing cooking, and after realizing that one whole sheet pan was basically going to be my serving, I decided (with my family’s encouragement–they were all waiting for me at the table outside with their plates fixed haha) that one sheet pan was enough and I’d just let everybody else have a couple to try. They really were good, and even my very picky vegetable eater dad ate a couple. Everybody liked the asparagus, too, because grilled asparagus with lemon is pretty darn tasty. My children ran around like crazed monkeys and posed for an insane but true to life picture with me with chocolate all over their faces courtesy of the mini Klondike bars they had for dessert). Lily had somehow gotten marshmallow creme in the back of her hair earlier in the day, and so baths were a necessity. My mom helped us with getting everybody dried off, pottied, hair brushed, teeth brushed, and pajama-ed while my dad took his electric trimmer things to my wayward front bushes. I don’t know what my brother was doing during that time. Probably playing Ruzzle on his phone. Good day. Good night. Good dinner.
5th Fueling: Honey Mustard Onion Sticks
After everyone was asleep (children) or on their way home (fam), and Derek had called his own Mama, we sat down to play Stardew Valley together, and I chose these as my snack. They have a pretty good flavor, actually, but the texture is a little wrong. I mean, I’m sure it’s fine, but it was a little like eating EXTREMELY old and stale honey mustard and onion flavored pretzels. I’ll eat them again, though.