a quote to inspire and book review

There were all those unkindnesses, palpable, daily, so easily avoidable; but one could not think just of those.. or one would spend one's time in tears - and the unkindnesses would continue. So the small things came into their own: small act of helping others, if one could; small ways of making one's own life better; acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter.
- from The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith


I love this series! I just finished the 8th book "The Good Husband of Zebra Drive". Set in Botswana it is a mystery series with colorful characters and casts an honest but kindly eye on humanity. The atmosphere is warm and loving without drifting into sappy sweetness. The first book in the series is called "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" and there are I believe 9 in the series at this time. If you're in the mood for a good story intertwined with a bit of mystery and humor, pick one of these up, pour your self a cuppa tea and enjoy!

Butterflies Butterflies

Every spring we are the lucky observers of butterfly migrations. For a few weeks, every where you look you can see butterflies flitting. The trees in our neighborhood act as sort of a funnel so a large portion of them go right through our backyard! Once the sun is up, you can see about 5 - 10 butterflies each minute. The kids and I were out enjoying the wonderful sunny spring day and they agreed to catch me a few butterflies so I could take a picture for this blog. I think we caught 5 in about 15 minutes! of course we let them go right away, but I managed to snap a few pics. The baby even got in on it. I'm sure she thought her siblings had gone nuts jumping up and down and waving their arms around but she enjoyed the show!

Book Review - Runaway Mistress

So as you can tell by my sideline I'm a bibliophile or book lover. I read constantly, or as much as I can with 4 kids! I have a serious addiction to books! As you can imagine this could be expensive, however I manage to keep the costs down two ways; the old fashioned library and a FANTASTIC site called pbs.com or Paper Back Swap. This site has saved me hundreds (really!) over the year + I've been a member. I LOVE it! check it out! Anyway, once in a while on this blog I will do some book reviews on books that stand out. I have a handful of favorite authors and I'll talk about them some, but I just finished a cute little romance that I sincerely enjoyed; Robyn Carr's Runaway Mistress. I've never read anything by her before and this was an older one (written in 2005)but it was clever, with an endearing heroine and a nice climax that made you wonder if the white knight was going to swoop in in and rescue her in time. I also enjoyed the main characters self discovery and appreciation of the simple things in life. A nice, cheerful novel that I would rate as: Definitely worth your time. Happy reading!

Don't Worry, Be happy

February has blown by and march is already here. Wow. Life is improving in many ways and plodding along in others. I am still struggling with the depression. I know there are 3 aspects to it; first the hormones from the pregnancy and now breastfeeding. They are still out of whack because I'm all zitted out(UG!wrinkles and zits is just not fair!) and the hair is still dropping by the handful each time I wash it. But I'm trying to be more like my positive self and remember that the hormones will improve with time. One of the other aspects to this depression will also improve with time; the juggling act of a toddler and a baby and a teenager and a second grader will get better and easier. I tell you that I do have a new respect for and sympathy for ANY mother who has 2 or more in diapers. It's tougher than it looks folks. I've decided to get a bit of help with the third aspect of my depression: grief. My mother in law passing in December is really difficult for me still and it made me realize that I've had so little experience dealing with such grief so I decided to go see someone to talk it out. I expect that I will be feeling better soon, but until then I'm gonna 'fake it 'til I make it' and do my best to act and think like a happy, productive me. LOL! Here's some inspiration; a pic of my HEALTHY mother - her hair is coming back from the Chemo and she's hugging my two littlest troublemakers. Remember life is short so Don't Worry, Be happy everyone!

Rant about fastfood

They’re trying to kill us all. The Fast food industry; Not only is their food cheap and convenient but it tastes good because of all the fat and sugar. Sigh. The portions are outrageous and they have absolutely no cares about calorie counts. Really they’re approaching my estimation of the cigarette companies; do they see us all as expendable? Do they just see us as a quick buck, who cares how they affect our health? One lunch combo at most of these places has my entire DAY’S worth of calories. A whole days worth! In one meal! No wonder America is full of fattys! We are eating 3 or more times the amount of calories we need every day! What’s the cause of all this ranting? 2 reasons really. The first is that I saw at Jack in the box today that they have a new menu item. It’s called Taco Nachos. You know those deep fried tacos that they offer, the ones with the mystery meat? Well for just $2 you can get this: They take two of those tacos, cut each one into three ‘chips’ and smother them in nacho cheese sauce. They even don’t bother to put the lettuce inside the tacos, they just put it in the bottom of the bowl to fluff it out a bit. I mean they wouldn’t want you to get any vegetables by accident! LOL! I can’t believe that they can, in good conscience, offer such things. I mean it - they’re trying to kill us all!

Well, I’m an admitted fast food lover. I like to have hot food especially when I’m tired, and I’m lazy so I don’t like to cook myself breakfast. I love eggs and by themselves they’re not really that bad for you so that’s how I justify it. Here’s what I do on a regular basis, thinking I wasn’t doing so bad for myself. Jack in the Box’s Meaty breakfast burrito combo - it’s just eggs, meat and cheese. Of course it comes with the hash browns and I always get it with a Medium coke. Just under 5 bucks. But I knew that portion was going to be to many calories for me so I hit upon this idea.. I take it home and I open up the burrito and I take out half the eggs, half of the little sausage pieces and the piece of bacon and put them on a plate for my toddler. I give him 3 of the hashbrown sticks and put 2 into the burrito. Then I have that and the coke for breakfast and he has eggs, cheese, sausage, bacon and hashbrowns with milk. Not bad right? WRONG! This is my other reason for ranting. Here I thought I was doing alright but I decided to get a calorie count so I could keep track. Look at this: The burrito is 610 calories, the coke is 260 and the hashbrowns are 230. That mean the total for this ‘meal’ is 1100 calories. That means if I even eat half of it, I’m consuming 550 calories. But really because I’m drinking the whole coke its more like 680 calories. That’s twice my target for each meal. In other words that’s breakfast AND lunch in my book. Sigh. No wonder I’m fat. Not to mention the fact that I was feeding half of that to my toddler! I was giving him way more calories and fat than he needed as well. Setting him up for obesity when he’s only 2?! Well, I hope the people who own those fast food restaurants sleep well at night while the rest of us have nightmares about the food they make and we get suckered into buying. As for me – I’m going to buck up and make myself food from now on. At least I’ll know what I’m getting calorie wise.

Family pic and new plan for the year

So the Simple steps are already fading… I’ve gotten the first four habits down but I really don’t seem to have any interest anymore. Is that a reflection of the depression or is that just my personality? It’s not that I’m quitting, it’s that I’m distracted with other things. Do you ever feel like your life is so hectic and if you could just SIMPLIFY, that everything would be better? Like you’re being pulled in three different directions and trying to stomp out fires at the same time? That’s pretty much how I feel all the time. A friend of mine was complimenting me the other day about juggling 4 kids and being a brownie leader – I just laughed. Maybe I’m like a duck.. I look all calm and peaceful on the surface, but underneath I’m paddling like crazy. LOL! In this age of SuperMoms, I am definitely NOT one. Not that I don’t secretly wish to be, but not too much because just thinking about it makes me tired. :) Anyway, I read through the rest of the Simple Steps and I just got impatient with it. 40 steps and I really don’t see how doing Kegels and cooking with herbs and spices will simplify and improve my life. (I mean, I’ve carried 4 kids to full term, the smallest of which was 7 lbs 10 oz and the largest of which was over 9 lbs. so I don’t think ANY amount of Kegels is really gonna help – am I right ladies?)So I thought, instead of trashing this idea completely, how about I come up with a shorter, more pertinent list for myself. So here it is:

Jackie’s Goals for a better, simpler, happy life in 2009

1) I will drink 48 ounces of water, or more each day. It makes me pee, but I feel better when I am good about doing it.
2) I will clear out one drawer/cabinet or closet each week. I’ve written one thing each week on my calendar through April. I will also work on my flylady zones and on de-cluttering each day.
3) I will stick loose bills in a tin in my bedroom, not in the ashtray of my car. This will help me save for something fun and will keep me from hitting the Drive-thru fast food.
4) I will force myself to exercise at least 4 days a week – a fifth day if I’m expecting cake or ice cream in the near future. :p
5) I will make up a daily schedule and to do list so I don’t have to think about what I should do, or remember stuff – both of which are hard for any mom, much less one with a newborn.
6) I will gradually replace all the junk in my diet and my families diet with good stuff; whole grains instead of bleached flour, get rid of the food dyes, the nitrates, the trans-fats.
7) I will find time to do the things I love like reading, needlework and scrapbooking. Oh and play with my little monsters, cuddle them and read them stories.

So instead of 40 steps, I’m going for 7. That's a reasonable number right? I’ve got number one down. I’m doing well on numbers 2 and 3. I’m focusing on number 4 or at least trying to. I’m going to give myself a few weeks of that to make it a habit, although I’m going to start on number five right now as well – so I can feel some sense of control. We'll see how it all goes!

Simple Steps progress and Rough weekend.

Well I've been having some success at the simple steps! I am now thoroughly addicted to my water. I do still have my soda once in a while and I'm hooked on my new coffee maker, so I have two or three cups a day, but still less calories than all that Coke! My main tricks to incorporate this into my life were this: First I drink a full glass of ice water before I drink anything with flavor; coffee, soda, juice or milk. second, I try to drink a full glass before each meal. That's an old dieting trick to make you feel full faster, but it also works to make sure that you've got your water for the day (1 full glass is about 12 ounces, times 3 times a day is 36 ounces and I'm trying to make sure I drink 48 ounces a day, so that last 8 ounces is easy!) I wrote down on my calendar drawers and such to organize, one a week. So far I have cleaned out and re-organized my Pot cupboard, my coffee cupboard, the little bin on my PC desk and my silverware drawer. Not bad!The best part of that habit is that the hubby notices. Sure, I like it tidy, it makes it easier to put stuff back and all that, but I just love it when he says: Wow this looks nice! :) I've been good about collecting loose dollars and popping them in an old tin, trying to average 2 dollars per day. It's funny how that habit has made me so much more conscious of coins and small bills. I tend to keep track of them now more than I did. I'm also a bit more reluctant to spend them.

We had a pretty rough weekend. My mother-in-law's wake was Saturday and it was a very good turn out, but draining. My hubby is still having a rough time with it all and it's frustrating that I don't know how to help him. I know that loosing a parent is one of the most traumatic things to happen in a person's life, but I haven't experienced it myself yet. He lost both of his parents in the span of a year. It has to be hard. I just wish I could find a way to help him, to carry some of the burden. What is it about big strong men? Any strong emotion gets turned into anger? He's not angry at me, but he gets angry at the drop if a hat, at anyone. I know its pain, but it just gets lost in the translation!