Thursday, February 28, 2013

Losing It

Nope, not weight.  Sadly, after losing about a pound to a pound and a half per week, this week I lost nothing.  But, that's pretty par for the course I think.  It's not unusual for me to go a week or so without any loss and then the next week I'll lose more than normal.  I'm hoping that's what happens here.  My rings were really tight yesterday when I weighed myself so I know I was retaining water.  That never helps.

What I am really losing is my hair!  This is one of those things no-one tells you about what happens to your body after you have a baby.  For me, during pregnancy this wonderful thing happens, I stop losing hair.  The volume of my hair practically doubles.  I'm never picking hair balls off the shower drain.  My hair is thick and luxurious.  It's wonderful.  And then there's what hits about two to three months after birth.   There is some serious shedding going on.  Brushing my hair results in not only a small hamster size ball of hair being pulled out of the brush, but so much hair in the sink that I need to wipe it out because washing it down the rain would inevitably result in a huge, hair ball clog.  After just having paid a plumber to fix our kitchen sink (did I tell you that my Valentine's Day gift was a new garbage disposal?) I don't want to have him back anytime soon.

Hopefully, at some point, my hair will stop falling out and the weight will start falling off.  A girl can dream, right?

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Biopsy Results Back

My doctor called me last night.  Nice of him to call me at home after hours but way to freak a person out.   Anyway, it's not all good news and it's not all bad news but really, I wish there wasn't any bad news at all, but there is.

The biopsy of the worse of the two lesions actually came back totally clean (good news).  He thinks the first biopsy actually took all the bad cells as there was nothing wrong with any of the tissue he took on Monday.

The biopsy of the "better" of the two lesions came back NOT showing clean margins (bad news).  We're left not knowing if there are any bad cells still there.  When they take the tissue they cauterize the edges and my doc said he moves out even further than necessary to try and make sure to get any and all bad cells but you can't know if you got them all if there aren't clean margins.

So, I'll have another pap in three months.  There's nothing that can be done now since my cervix has to heal before they can tell anything more.  Hopefully that pap will be good and I can move on and start thinking about hurrying up and doing a frozen embryo transfer.  If my pap is bad though then I'm in trouble.  My doc said he'd do another Leep to try and preserve my fertility but that his honest opinion would be that I should get a hysterectomy.  Ugh.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Leep Completed

I was told that a colposcopy hurts more than a Leep.  I was misinformed.

I showed up to the office at 9:25am for what was supposed to be a 9:30am appointment (yea, like that was ever going to happen.)  The nice counter lady told me to report to the lab where they proceeded to do a pregnancy test.  They wouldn't just take my word for it that there was no possible way I was pregnant (not having sex tends to make one pretty certain) so they did a test and confirmed what I already knew.  After that, a nurse came to get me, weighed me and took my blood pressure.  As if I wasn't feeling bad enough the whole getting weighed thing just made everything worse.  I've actually lost weight since having Maren, but I'm still not at a weight that I want staring me in the face.  On the bright side, my blood pressure was excellent.

Then I waited.  I waited in an exam room and then was moved into the procedure room where I waited even longer.  I was nervous and then just plain bored.  They didn't even have magazines in the procedure room.  Like an idiot I left my cell phone in my purse and just knew that the minute I jumped up half naked from the exam table the doctor would come in.

Finally, the doctor and two nurses appeared and we were ready to go.  There was a shot meant to numb my cervix, it pinched.  Then another shot meant to numb it some more and that pinched even more.  Last, but certainly not least, was a yet another shot meant to super numb things.  That one contained epinephrine which shot through my body like bolt of lightening.  Holy cow, I've honestly never felt anything like that.  My heart felt as if it was going to beat out of my chest, my arms and legs started shaking and I felt the biggest head rush I've ever had.  Even more than eating a super cold bowl of ice-cream super fast.  For just a second or two I was afraid I was going to faint.  Now that I had been adequately numbed (or had I????) the doctor began the actual procedure of removing the lesions.  He took a wire loop and with electricity running through it, he looped away cells from my cervix.  I pondered, out loud, if I was supposed to feel that.  The doctor seemed a tad shocked and as he continued I continued to feel what he was doing.  It wasn't an unbearable pain, but it did hurt.  Once he moved down to the lower of the two lesions I couldn't feel things as much and that was a relief.  Apparently, my body takes a longer time to get numb than most.  I'm an over-achiever that way.  I just wish I had known all this prior to the doctor looping sections of my cervix away!

Worse than the procedure itself is the waiting.  The two sections of tissue that were removed will be sent off to a lab where they will tested to make sure I don't have invasive cancer.  I'm hoping to hear that there were clean margins and, obviously, no invasive cancer.  If that's the case I will return for a follow-up pap every three months for at least a year.  I really, really, really need things to be okay.  And, right about now, I really, really, really need some more Advil.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Quinoa

I know it's trendy but honestly, I hate quinoa.  There, I said it.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Leep Scheduled

My Leep procedure is scheduled for Monday morning.  Can you tell how excited I am to go and have parts of my cervix looped off?  I've heard that the procedure itself is not really painful so that is good news.  I've also heard that smoke is involved.  Ummm, I don't know about you, but I don't like the thought of smoke emanating from anywhere IN my body.

My anxiety has lessened a little bit but not completely.  I'm still worried, mainly about the biopsy not coming back clean, second only to my fear of the follow-up pap test coming back still showing abnormalities.  The problem is, of course, the hpv which will never completely be gone.  Once infected, the virus remains in your body, going through periods of dormancy and activity and there's no way to fully rid yourself of it or it know when and if it is activated again.  In my reading, the theory is that the virus is more likely to become active during times of high stress (hello, six pregnancies in seven years, including two miscarriages, infertility treatments, working full-time, the husband finishing up graduate school, etc etc etc.) and also during times when the immune system is compromised (hello, six pregnancies in seven years which naturally suppresses the immune system not to mention that in my  last two pregnancies I took dexamethasone to help prevent miscarriage along with receiving intravenous intralipids in my pregnancy with Sully.)  I am left to ponder if by trying to prevent miscarriage did I put myself at a greater risk to have the hpv become active and reek havoc?

During hard times my default position is to develop a plan.  Even for things which are largely out of my control, I still develop a plan in some odd attempt to feel as though I have gained some scrap of control over the situation.  For my high-grade, CIN III cervical abnormalities, I've chosen a plan of massive vitamin supplementation.  I researched and found that is evidence that taking certain supplements can, indeed, help the hpv to return to dormancy.  Despite all the vitamins I took while pregnant, the list still seems a bit daunting.

Here's what my daily regime will look like:

Mixed, natural carotenes (beta-carotene/vitamin A) - 25,000iu 
Vitamin B6 -  50mg
Vitamin B12 - 1mg
Folic Acid - 5mg
Vitamin C - 2,000mg
Vitamin E - 400iu
Selenium - 200mcg
Zinc - 30mg
DIM - 400mg
Curcumin - 500mg
Green tea extract - 300mg

It actually adds up to taking more than 11 pills a day since some of the vitamins are impossible to get a high enough dose in just one pill.  But, after years of downing pills, and injecting myself with medications, I can certainly handle this.

There are also some recommendations about using Vitamin A, Green Tea and herbal suppositories starting three weeks after having a Leep performed but I haven't made any decisions on those yet.

I'm just hoping that whatever my course of action is, that it works.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

PB and O (Peanut Butter and Oatmeal)

What? You've never had peanut butter and oatmeal before?  Have you always just stuck to instant maple and brown sugar or the ever so popular, apples 'n cinnamon? There's no better time to break out of the traditional oatmeal rut than tomorrow morning!

Because my mornings get pretty hectic I try and make a serving or two the night before.  I use McCann's Quick Cooking Steel Cut Oats.  It cooks up in as little as five minutes.  Sometimes, to make it a bit creamier and add a little more flavor, I add a banana while I cook it.

Just boil a little water, add your oatmeal, and banana if you want and let it simmer away.

The banana will soften as it cooks.  Once it's all smooth, pour into a bowl and enjoy or into portable containers.

Now, time for the peanut butter.  A little goes a long way so I use a scant tablespoon.  My trick to getting it out of the measuring spoon and into a container without making a big mess is to spray the measuring spoon with a little cooking spray before scooping out the peanut butter.

The end result is an easy grab 'n go, healthy breakfast that is easy to eat at your desk.

Of course, it doesn't do any good unless you actually remember to take the PB and O to work.  To help with that, I give you the sticky note.

Tomorrow's sticky note will say "don't put cell phone in the freezer" but that's a story for another time.






Monday, February 18, 2013

Out To Lunch

A big happy birthday to Presidents Washington and Lincoln.  Oh heck, happy birthday to all the presidents and thanks for letting me have the day off.  In a battle between hanging out with Maren all day, heading out to lunch and slumming on the internet or actually cleaning up the front entry way, sorting through more clothes, or really, doing anything useful, the former will always win out.  So yea, I pretty much wasted my day.

Despite having the day off, there was no sleeping in as Shannon and Quinn still had school.  And, no big surprise, Maren was up before the alarm went off.  Last night was the worst in a while.  She actually slept through the night (meaning she fell asleep sometime between 8 and 10 pm and woke up sometime between 2 and 5 am to eat) a few nights last week but last night was a disaster.  She slept on the husband's shoulder for a few hours but when he attempted to put her in the bassinet she woke up and was WIDE AWAKE for easily the next two and a half hours.  Ugh.  She finally fell back to sleep around 12:30 a.m. but had a few episodes of stirring during the night that were loud enough to wake me up.  I'm hoping to move her into the nursery sometime during the next month but right now her sleep just isn't consistent enough and I don't want to deal with not only having her not sleep through the night but deal with her waking Sully up as well. 

I got the call from my doctor's office this morning scheduling the Leep procedure so after getting that out of the way I thought it would be fun to take my mind off things by going out to lunch.  I sorted through my vast array of Groupons and found just the perfect thing - beer and cheese.  How very fitting for Wisconsin.  The husband, Maren and I headed downtown to the Uber Tap Room inside the Wisconsin Cheese Mart.  Our Groupon got us a cheese sampler plate and a beer flight.

I obviously haven't been drinking enough lately because halfway through these beers I was flushed and even a tad dizzy.  Yes, I'm a light weight, at least in the drinking department.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Normal, Mild, Severe

It took me 12 weeks to get in to see my ob for my 6 week post-partum check-up.  I just sort of spaced on making the appointment and truth be told, didn't really think it was that big of a deal as I have been feeling fine since having the baby.  My biggest issue is tiredness but there's no cure for that at the doctor's office.  Last Friday I went in and as I've had at the start and end of each pregnancy, I had a pap test done.  The one at the beginning of my pregnancy came back normal, as have all the ones prior (so 20 years worth), so imagine my surprise when the nurse called on Monday to say that not only was the result abnormal, it was highly abnormal - high grade cervical dysplasia I believe is what she said.

Right after I had Shannon, my pap came back positive for HPV but a follow-up six months later showed it had cleared up on it's own and I had no cell changes.  Given that everything since has come back normal I was stunned by things not being just a little abnormal now but as my doctor would later say, severely abnormal, like a 9 on a scaled of 1 to 10.

Since the pap test is only a screening test and not truly diagnostic, I had to go in on Wednesday for a colposcopy.  A colposcopy is where they examine the cervix with a microscope.  A solution is put on the cervix which makes the bad spots show up more clearly and then a biopsy is performed.  Now, I've had a ton of weird and somewhat invasive procedures done along the road to having my children, and all have been fairly manageable with regards to physical pain so I was a little surprised by how much having the biopsy hurt.  I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that someone clipping off pieces of tissue would hurt but I was surprised none the less.  While doing the exam, my doctor said that the lesions didn't appear as bad as the pap results indicted but he could see two lesions and so I had a biopsy done of each.  He also scrapped some cells from the inside of my cervix just in case something was hiding in there where he couldn't see.  The little tissue pieces were then sent to the lap.

Yesterday, my doctor called with the results.  Was him calling me at work a good or bad sign?  Surely he wouldn't call to tell me I had cancer while he knew I was sitting at work.  And yet, surely he wouldn't get such bad news and then not call me right away either.  It's amazing how many thoughts can run through your head in just one or two phone rings.  As it turns out, the news wasn't all bad or all good.  The cells from inside my cervix are completely normal.  The cells from one of the lesions are mildly abnormal and the cells from the other are indeed, highly abnormal, and left untreated have a high potential to turn into cervical cancer.

My doctor recommended I have a LEEP procedure done which will remove the lesions.  After they are removed, they will be tested to be certain that there are clear margins and that there isn't some hidden invasive cancer.  Sound a tad scary?  It is.  Despite the odds of cancer being less than 1% there still is a chance and in every statistic there are those people who fall on the wrong side.  There are women who against all odds get pregnant after being told they never will and then there are women who despite seeing a healthy heartbeat and making it past the supposed magical 12 weeks still go on to lose their babies.  There are always winners and losers.  In this case, I want to be a winner.

I will have the LEEP performed in about two weeks and then lots of follow-up pap tests to make sure there are no more changes.  The hope is that as the cervix recovers from the LEEP the cells that are created will all be normal.  But, even if they all are, my cervix will obviously never quite be the same.  Having the LEEP procedure done will put me at a greater risk for cervical incompetence, miscarriage and premature labor in any future pregnancies. Back to playing the odds, logically I know that the odds of my getting pregnant again are low but hey, this time last year I was thinking the same thing and now I have Maren.  One just never knows and we do have our frosty to think about.  I'm letting my worry get ahead of itself by wondering what will happen if the frozen embryo transfer works only to have the pregnancy lost due to a weakened cervix but it's my nature to worry and to worry about things I shouldn't even worry about until I have a real reason to worry about them but hey, what fun would that be?


Tuesday, February 12, 2013

A Tale of Two Squashes

Every other week I get a huge bag of organic fruits and vegetables delivered from Brewers Organics.  It's a convenient way to get quality produce without having to go to the grocery store, where I would inevitably buy things like chips 'n dip, and it's a way of forcing myself to eat more fruits and veggies because I hate to see things go to waste.  But, what to do with a butternut squash and a spaghetti squash?

I actually have a couple of recipes using spaghetti squash and sometimes just like to eat it with pasta sauce so the real challenge was the butternut.  A while back I had pinned a recipe for Parmesan Butternut Squash Gratin from Betty Crocker so I decided to give that a try.  Wow was it ever good.  Even if you don't think you like butternut squash I would still say to try it out and see if this recipe changes your mind.

Don't be intimidated by the mighty butternut squash.

All you have to do is cut off the end:





And then peel with a veggie peeler:

Next, cut in half, scoop out any seeds and then slice into about half-inch slices:



Arrange the slices in a 9x13 dish that you've sprayed with cooking spray:
Next, make the super yummy sauce to go on top.  Melt half a stick of butter and add to it two cloves of chopped garlic.  Let cook of low heat for a few minutes to infuse the garlic into the butter.


And for even more yummy, mix 1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs with 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese and then add one tablespoon of the melted butter to it.

Brush the melted butter onto the squash and then sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture over it.
Finally, pop the dish into a 375 degree oven and start enjoying the wonderful smell.  After about 35 minutes crank the temperature up to 425 and let bake another 5-10 minutes.  This will allow the breadcrumbs to brown and get nice and crunchy.  The recipe calls for finishing it off with chopped parsley but I'm not all that fancy.  Mine doesn't look as nice as the one on the website, but it sure tasted great.





Next up, the spaghetti squash.  This one was a little ugly looking.  I decided to make a Tex-Mex Spaghetti Squash Boat.

 I've always found it easiest and quickest to cook them in the microwave.  I just prick it all over with a fork, set it on a few paper towels on a plate and cook it for about 10-20  minutes depending on how big the squash is.  This one I nuked for 15 minutes.

When it comes out it will be hot so be careful slicing it in half because hot steam, hot steam, hot steam.
Just like with the butternut squash, you'll want to scoop out all of the seeds.  Then, using a fork, gently scrape the squash out of the shell.
Mix the squash with a cup of shredded Mexican shredded cheese, 1/3 cup of chopped red pepper and 2 slicked green onions.  I was out of green onions so I used regular onion.
Load it all back into one side of the empty squash shell and bake in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes.
Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of bacon bits, let bake about three more minutes and you're done!




Monday, February 11, 2013

Return

We now return to our regularly scheduled broadcasting.  I'm back at work full-time as of today.

The morning actually went very smoothly.  We were all up, dressed, fed and out the door by 7:20 a.m.  The husband took Shannon and Quinn to school and then brought Sully and Maren back home while I headed off to work.  Being back in the office makes me feel almost like I was never gone.  I just fall right back into my same routine, just with more work to go through the first few weeks when I'm trying to play catch up.

I held Maren for a little bit before leaving this morning and I'm holding her now.  She's so sweet and sometimes I wish I could just hold her all day, but I know that doesn't happen even when I am home.  And so, I'm actually really good with going back to work.  I'm lucky that I love my job and lucky that I have a husband with a pretty flexible schedule and family who watches our kids when the husband and I can't.

The day was busy but typical.  Getting home now I'm tired, but again, nothing unusual about that.  I had thrown some chicken breasts and baby potatoes into the crockpot this morning and it turned out fairly well so we even had a "real" dinner.  Now if only everyday could go so well.  Tomorrow is the night the husband works late so I'll be doing pick-up, dinner, homework and bedtime on my own.  To try and make that easier, I've decided to take a few hours of vacation time each Tuesday until the husband is done teaching in May.  This way I figure I'll have enough time to leave work, get home, maybe hit double coupon day at the grocery store and get dinner ready before I even need to go pick the kids up.  And, I could also pick Shannon up   earlier than normal and bring him home to do his homework before I get the rest of the clan.  Things are so hectic when we all get home together so it might help him to be here by himself to work on his homework.  He's only six, so it's not like he's working on algebra, but, he's easily distracted so every little thing helps.  I'm hoping just this little extra three hours will really help my week go smoother and well, honestly, help keep my sanity intact.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Easy Peasy, Quick Healthy and Meatless Dinner

I know there is a movement out there called "Meatless Mondays" where you obviously make meals on Mondays that don't contain meat.  Sounds a lot to me like what Catholics have been doing for centuries, except we eschew meat on Fridays.  This week we did a meatless Thursday, dining on a quick and easy dinner of salmon, brown rice, peppers and spinach.

I added a little oil to hot pan, sprinkled the salmon with a little salt and pepper and started cooking it.

At the same time, I was cooking the rice.

While the fish and rice cooked, I chopped up half a red pepper, half a yellow pepper and half a orange pepper, along with one small onion.

After about four or five minutes, I flipped the salmon.

Once the fish finished, in about four more minutes, I put it on a plate and added the peppers and onion to the pan along with a little bit of water.  I covered the pan and let everything simmer for about five minutes and then cooked it uncovered for another five minutes.  I like my peppers well cooked so I let them just sit while I steamed some spinach.  For that I just poured an entire bag of fresh baby spinach into a bowl, covered it with plastic wrap, stabbed a fork through the wrap to vent the bowl and then stuck it in the microwave for three minutes.  When it came out it was wilted and what was once a full bowl of spinach was now just occupying the bottom of the bowl.

Plated it all looked like this:

Overall, I really liked the meal and liked how simple it was to make.  One thing I wouldn't do again is the spinach.  Fresh spinach is a little expensive and honestly, I like canned spinach better (I know, I'm weird).
This recipe will definitely be added into my rotation...........that's if I ever get to the point where I actually have a rotation!  I'm working on it.




Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Back to Baking

When I was younger, unmarried and sans children, I used to bake.  I would make pies and cookies and cakes from scratch.  I loved it even though my waistline certainly did not.  And the husband, who wasn't the husband back then, in fact, he wasn't even the boyfriend back then but boy is that a long story, loved all my baked goods as well.  We would sometimes joke about how I was luring him into a relationship with the promise of homemade pies.  We loved pie.  And then, I stopped baking.  It was a combination of a lot of things.  Life got busier, I was working two jobs, I was trying to meet the right guy (which felt like yet another job) and I realized that what I made I inevitably ate.   I sold my bread maker at a rummage sale along with a ton of baking cookbooks.  My prized Kitchen Aide mixer became dusty from non-use and when I did bake it was things from a box, or worse, it was scooping pre-made cookie dough onto baking sheets.   Now don't get me wrong, there is certainly a need in this world for pre-made cookie dough like when you realize your child needs to bring 100 cookies for the bake sale that you thought was next Friday but it's really this Friday,  but there is also something to be said for real baking.

I quit my second job, met the right guy, got married, bought a house, had a bunch of babies and guess what? Things got even busier and space was at a premium so the Kitchen Aide mixer moved onto a shelf in the basement and the days of baked goodies seem like a distant memory.  But every so often, I get the itch to bake again and so when I came across this the other day I just couldn't resist.

Yea, I know, it's hardly making bread from scratch but it looked so simple I figured Quinn and I could do it together without a whole lot of fuss.  She was happy to help.


She mixed the yeast and sugar together.

And then added hot water and gave it a little stir.

I don't think the water was quite hot enough because it looked a little clumpy and not bubbly enough.  I worried the yeast wasn't activated and wondered how I screwed up the one thing I had to do - add water.


After waiting a few minutes and hoping the yeast was doing it's job, I added the flour.


And stirred until it was a big ball of sticky dough.

I added flour to the baking pan and just gently shaped the dough into something sort of resembling a loaf.

By this point Quinn was no longer interested which was fine since the dough needed to rest and rise.

The instructions say to cover it and leave the dough in a non-drafty place.  I just left mine on the counter because there isn't a single non-drafty place in my entire house.  Upon returning to the dough, I was excited to find that the dough had indeed risen at least a little.  It wasn't supposed to double but I'm guessing it should have risen a bit more than it ended up doing.

Into the oven it went and then out it came.  Bread!

Yummy.








Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Best Laid Plans

I'm tired.  Not just tired but t.i.r.e.d. tired.  Yesterday I had a rare moment all to myself in a public restroom and as I shut off the light and went to leave I actually leaned my head against the wall and wondered how gross it would be to lie down right there and sleep a little bit and how long would I be able to sleep before someone came looking for me.  And so later, at home, when the husband offered to sleep on the couch and keep the baby downstairs with him so that I could get one night of interrupted sleep I jumped at the chance.  But, what is it they say about best laid plans?  The actual quote is "the best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry."

And yes, it did all go awry.  Typically Maren is up until around 9:00 p.m. and then wakes up again between 12:00-2:00 a.m. and then again around 5:00 a.m.  Last night, it wasn't Maren keeping me up but Shannon.  I found him crying in the hall around 11:00 p.m. saying that he couldn't fall asleep because his leg hurt.  I couldn't get anything  more specific out of him than that it hurt and soon not just he one was hurting but also the other leg.  He felt water would make it feel better and so would sleeping with me in the big bed.  So, we tried that.  He woke up crying again right around 2:00 a.m. again saying it was his leg.  This time we tried a little Tylenol.  Just for fun, he woke up again right at 5:00 a.m. which was the same time I heard Maren crying downstairs.  Ahhhh, so much for a night of restful sleep.

I am assuming the leg pain is growing pains.  Shannon has been growing by inches, literally, and so it wouldn't surprise me if he really was feeling leg pain from that.  At the same time, I think our family is having growing pains as well.  Adding a baby is joyous and also a whole lotta work!

Monday, February 4, 2013

Double Duty

Despite owning easily 50 or more cookbooks (all of which have been paged through profusely, but rarely actually cooked from), I recently purchased yet another one, entitled Fix It & Freeze It Heat It & Eat It.  I was lured in by the promise of recipes that freeze easily and thus can save you time on busy days (of course, that's only true if you remember to take it out of the freezer far enough in advance, but that's another post.)  One section is devoted to recipes you can make and eat that night and then freeze a portion and make something different with it another night.  So, I started with something simple and a few weeks ago I made the homemade sloppy joes.  While making it, I doubled the recipe and then just the other day used the sloppy joes to make a modified Shepard's pie.

This dinner was all about putting something together quickly and thus the use of pre-made mashed potatoes.  The other ingredients were shredded cheddar, green onion and obviously the defrosted sloppy joe mix.


I spread the mix in the bottom of the casserole dish and then mixed the potatoes, cheddar cheese and chopped up onion all together.

And spread that on top of the meat.

Out of the oven it wasn't the prettiest dish in the world but the taste wasn't half bad.


I recently came across and pinned another double duty recipe for herbed turkey thighs that you can then take and use in a wonderful sounding turkey pita with cucumber salad.  Next time I see turkey legs on sale I might just give it a try. 

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Closet Progress

I spent the morning hanging out with Maren and Sully and then once the husband and the other kids were home I snuck upstairs for some closet decluttering.  Mission halfway accomplished.



The result was two bags of trash and four bags of assorted clothes, purses and tote bags to donate. I've discovered that I have a very severe tote bag habit.  I've also discovered that it probably is better to not look at clothes that have been hiding in my closet for years because once I start looking I start finding reasons to keep things.  So, although I packed up four bags of things to give away, I also hauled an entire laundry basket of clothes I haven't worn in years down to the basement thinking that I will wash them and begin to wear them again. 


Whereas I collect tote bags, Shannon collects Pokeman cards and Mario figures. And he takes them seriously.  He didn't look up once the entire time I was working.