Category: Food

I’ve been telling myself for months that I need to start eating better.

There was always an excuse though: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, my events being back-to-back at work and not having time to eat better, selling (and eating) Girl Scout cookies. I vowed to myself that after the whole Girl Scout cookie thing and after February 16th, the date of my last major event, I would start eating better and jogging again. But February 16th and then the 17th came and I continued to eat crappily.

The girls were sick the week of February 7th so I took them in to the doctor. I was already there, so I figured I’d go in to get help with my acne again.

That’s a whole other story, but to summarize: I was on birth control since I was 17 years old, after having Eenan. I got my tubes tied after I had Emily on February 2009 at the age of 27. About 6 months later, after not being on any kind of birth control, I started getting acne and about 2010 (combined with the stress of the divorce and fighting for my kids) my face erupted like never before. It was awful. So in 2011 when I couldn’t take it anymore my doctor put me on Minocycline, an oral antibiotic, plus pledgets and a topical antibiotic. My face cleared up a lot, thank God, but in 2013 I must have become immune because it stopped working. So I changed my eating habits, drank more water, etc. and nothing seemed to help.

So I went in with the girls that day and my doc went ahead and did my yearly physical while I was there, plus blood work. When I had picked the girls up I’d had 4 Thin Mints with Emily (grrr), so I reminded the girls at the office that my sugar might be a little higher due to that, and being checked after lunch. Dr. Guzman prescribed birth control to help with my acne, and we went on our way.

Fast forward to 1 1/2 weeks later and Laura calls me on the 19th at 3pm that they need me to go in. That always means that something came back abnormal on the results. She tells me that my cholesterol is super high and they need to see me. So in I go. My cholesterol total was at almost 400 and my “bad” cholesterol was at 300. Not good. I even reminded all the girls that I’d had those Thin Mints that day before my blood work was taken but Dr. Guzman somberly said no, this was something that was developing for a while. She said I was thin, healthy overall so she was blaming my crappy genetics. (My first thought was Damn you, Mother!!)

She put me on a strict diet and basically told me to stick to the produce section of HEB, fish and chicken. That’s it. She also gave me a list of names that were a creative cover-up for high cholesterol on “Fat Free” or “No Trans Fat” packages. The first thing I thought was, “OMG. No cheese. No cookies. No butter. No BACON!”

Oh yeah, and she also prescribed Lipitor. Yup. I tried getting out of it by telling her I would cure myself by eating better and exercising (like I did back in 2008 with the diabetes) but she said no way; it was too high and I needed to take the pill. It really sucks. I had a bit of a hard time dealing with it for a few days.

It’s a pretty known fact that I love food. My Facebook and Instagram streams are probably 70% pics of food that I make, or food that I’m eating at restaurants. I just love food. The expression “sad” is an understatement for how I feel about having to make grand changes in the way I eat.

There’s no better way to kick your ass into gear than being told you have extremely high cholesterol. So my meals went from:

(FYI, Mambo Seafood’s service SUCKS. Jessica and I were 30 minutes late to work and I never got my cocktail sauce!!)

To this:

I got that hummus recipe from Pinterest, but instead of using white beans used the traditional chick peas and OMG. Seriously the BEST hummus I’ve ever had! I just wish I could find a good, healthy, low-cholesterol store-bought pita bread or a recipe for a good one. It wasn’t bad with celery at all. Jorge wasn’t too fond of it. He did the whole *aherk* thing, so boo LOL. More for me!

So it’s not too bad, but man I miss my cheese. And bacon. And beer brats. Waah.

I’ll get over it, and maybe, hopefully used to it. I thought of food all the time before, and now it’s even worse. Before I eat anything I research it. I research my recipes for the day. I have so much to re-learn. And it sucks to be surrounded by food at work (donuts, chocolate chip cookies from Jason’s Deli, grapefruits that I can’t have because it clashes with my medication, etc.). I seriously felt like this on Friday:

I almost resent and detest people as I see them stuffing delicious food in their mouth, but I have to pep-talk myself into not cursing them 🙁 . Jorge is certain that my test results were wonky and incorrect, but I don’t know. I was eating badly. And then I was doing the Keto diet and stopped suddenly and started stuffing my face with carbs, so maybe that had something to do with it? It’s been almost a year since I’d started Keto. I started after my birthday in April and stopped around July 4th. So who knows. I wasn’t going hardcore or anything with the red meats and say, Bulletproof (butter in my) coffee. I’ll have to ask next month when I go in for a follow-up.

Wish me luck on this new journey!! I kind of feel like I’m damned, but by golly, I WILL get over this darn thing! I will get off the pill!

In my usual manor, I’m finishing this entry up a month after the actual date, but that’s how I do .

Dina, Briana, Javi and the kids got to come down for the holiday . There was a lot of laughing and running around, since Jorge and I had to share the kids with the other parents, like we usually do on holidays.

On Christmas Eve, we visited Gramma and took her her gifts :).

The girls and I visited Rosie and Michelle for a few minutes that evening. The girls had a blast with Sheeba, Rosie’s 4th baby, heh, and looking at their Christmas decorations. They go all out!

The kiddos all played with their cousins and Javi, Briana, Dina, Mom, Jorge and I sat around and opened our gifts from them. I wanted to wait till Christmas, but Javi said, “You’re adults, you don’t have to wait till freakin’ Christmas!”

Javi and Mia brought Ruffles some presents, too. Little toys with bells and a standing thing with a ball and feathers; he had a blast!

They brought us an awesome candle holder centerpiece for the table and 3 bottles of Moscato d’asti! I love my family, they know us too well!

We woke up early on Christmas morning and Jorge went to pick his boys up. They got back and then commenced the ripping open of packages and squeals from the kids. I feel so blessed and great inside that, er, Santa, got to make all their wishes come true. (This is around the time that Jorge would say the fat man gets all the credit .

Javi helped Emily put her Doc McStuffins Check-up Center together. That thing was the bain of Santa’s existence for the month of December .

Eenan, who asked for an old-school Gameboy, was–I think–pleased with his special edition Pikachu Game Boy and 4 games that came with it. Too bad one of them doesn’t save the progress, grr. Eenan hung out in their room while the other boys played a game of Monopoly while their new Xbox downloaded who knows what. This was their expression:

Alaethia opened every package she could find and when everything was nice and strewn all over their bedroom, we put their newest Barbie beach house together. She messed around with her new 2DS and then she, Emily and Mia played Barbie’s and Doc McStuffins together. Julien played with his toys for a while and got so tired he passed out. It didn’t help that the poor thing had a stomach virus. He arrived needing to throw up . That poor baby is sick from some ailment every weekend he visits, and when they don’t allow him to come, it’s because he’s got a brand-new virus of some sort. Anyway. I digress.

We hung around the rest of the day, enjoying the kids and our family :). We got mom a new TV that we got an INSANE deal on, but we aren’t sure if it’s a pro or a con, since I have a hard enough time getting her to do her chores as it is. I’m beginning to realize that what people say is true: as you and your parents get older, you switch roles .

Dina, Javi, Bri and the kids visited more family and then my kids were going to be picked up by their dad and would be back the next day. We took a few photos before they left. Don’t mind my make-up-less face and wild mane .

My loves were picked up and Dina, Javi, Bri and the kids came back. With a huge tray of cookies from Tony and Noni. I had these awesome little moon-shaped, powdered sugary cookies and I vowed to find a recipe on Pinterest and make them!

John, his girlfriend and her little girl came over for a while. It was the first time we’d met them even though they’ve been together a while. I was in the middle of making a crescent-wrapped brie when they arrived. I’d found the original recipe on Pinterest, but the link has since been turned into a spam-link so I winged it. Javi and Jorge brought back the peach jam I asked for, but brought garlic-flavored crescents back. I wasn’t sure how it was going to taste, but it was a huge hit!

John and his girlfriend and her baby left and I joined the rest of the family on the porch. We ate brie and had wine and just chit-chatted about everything, good and bad. I love when we just start talking about the past, the present, future, everything!

We went out to the driveway for a while so Julien could ride his new bike :).

We came inside and we sat around the table, on Facebook and watching TV. Javi and I scrolled through our newsfeed and saw some cute/cheesy/hilarious Christmas Family Photos. So we decided that every year from here on out, we were going to have our own Super Happy Family Fun Time Photo. And here it is:

We had actually taken several, one of them a super-hilariously cheesy one where we each had our hand on the person in front of us’ shoulder, very 1980’s, but Briana didn’t like how she came out and I didn’t like how I came out so we scratched that one LOL. We decided that next year, we were somehow going to find footie pajamas for everyone, with stockings in the background and a Christmas movie playing in the background, much like this one. Someone had a photo like that on Facebook this year and we decided we’re going to ONE-UP THEM.

We had such a great time and I feel so blessed that we could spend it together .

Monday – I dropped the boys off on that very foggy morning.

Like always, they made me crack up laughing with their jokes and teenage meanderings. Eenan was telling me about his video games and said, “And then the DS got YouTube and it was like Jesus kissed my forehead.” Buahaha!

Then Jaylen let me know he can finally snap his fingers, and snaps to prove it. I snap mine and Eenan says, “I’m the only one who can’t do that. I can never be sassy. On my grave it will read ‘The Only Boy Who Had No Sass”.

And the last one: “I’m not a social butterfly. I’m more of an anti-social moth…”

HOW does this boy come up with those things?? LOL

The consequences of taking a week off (i.e.: being slammed with work when I got back) caught up with me that Monday. I have 3 events coming up, 2 in January and 1 in February. My 3 BIG events of the year, and I swear there aren’t enough hours in the day. Add to that the other tasks I have, like Certificate processing, committee meetings, reception duty and rushing everyday to pick Emily up at 11:30am–and it gets a little crazy. And it just so happened that that day, during the Monday morning meeting, that we had a reception for a Mayor to start organizing. In 10 days. Sweet Jesus.

The good thing is that the day goes by SUPER FAST.

After grocery shopping (it feels like I’m at H-E-B at least 5x a week), I got home, made dinner and then Jorge and I relaxed with the girls after their baths and watched “The Santa Clause”. Emily had never watched it before and she loved it. It was my favorite Christmas movie for a long time ^_^.

Tuesday – I helped Jessica set up for an event she was having that evening at the Incubator, after one of my committee meetings. I finalized all the details for the reception, like catering and set-up. I’d be doing the centerpieces so I placed an order for Birds of Paradise with H-E-B. I wanted something Christmas-y, but my boss wanted a more masculine-looking arrangement so I had some work to do =\.

After helping the girls with homework and getting them ready for the next day, Jorge and I sat with them and got more ideas for Christmas from them. We watched as they circled things in the Target gift book.

We looked for a gift Emily wanted online. I was panicking because we couldn’t find it anywhere. I even sent out a plea on Facebook and Carmen came through, ordering this gift online at her local Walmart in Louisiana and then we’d work out shipping it to me later. I was thrilled.

Wednesday – Mom had yet another appointment, so I was taking half a day from work, which meant I was running like a chicken with my head cut off to accomplish everything on my to-do list for the day. I’m so glad I have such understanding bosses, seriously.

I picked up Emmos, and then we went to Mom’s appointment while John waited at the house for Aly to get home. I receive a text from Walmart stating that the item I’d ordered was out of stock and so my order was cancelled. I couldn’t believe it. Then came the 2 hours of run-around telephone calls with the Walmart in Louisiana. I was in such a bad mood that I was a rude bitch to the Wal-mart manager I was on the phone with and thereafter, every clinic employee we came in contact with, especially after they told me we had to go to yet another clinic and it still would be about 3 months plus before they could help my Mother with what she needed.

I used 3 vacation days in 2 1/2 weeks to take Mom to appointments, just to have them tell us, “She needs to come back in a week” at every single place. It’s so annoying.

Sally and I had a conversation about our short fuses lately and we’ve both realized we’ve become snappier and take-no-shit-from-people. I don’t know if it’s that we’re more confident and mature…or just getting old and cranky buahaha.

We hung out with John and I vented about all the drama with Mom’s appointments. We ate dinner, Emily worked on her little diamond ornament and I got the girls ready for bed, and when my love got home we put up the Christmas decorations ^_^.

Thursday – I dropped the girls off at school and smooched and hugged them since their dad would pick them up for the weekend.

This was a busy day at work. 2 events in one day. First was the Good Day Luncheon, where Laura, Rosie and I took an intermission when we were done with our duties (my boss and I were in charge of the Santa photos) to take photos around the Country Club.

Then Michelle and I helped Gerry prepare for the All About Women Christmas Affair. Poor Bob fell and hurt himself that night. Michelle and I were in charge of the wine and dessert section. My vices LOL.

There were TONS of ladies at this event. The night didn’t go without incident though; a poor lady fainted and I was left in charge of her vendor booth.

I was exhausted by the end of the night. When I got home, my wonderful love had already wrapped most of the gifts we’d bought the kids. He’s so awesome ^_^.

Friday – I did as much as I could that morning at work before we made it out to Oh Kay’s (a store) for the Cash Mob event. Everything was so expensive, so we were all kind of tip-toeing around, trying to keep from breaking all the beautiful, sparkly things and finding something that didn’t cost an arm and a leg, heh.

I went straight to pick up Emmo’s since her other family couldn’t that day. I was glad to see my little lady ^_^. I ate lunch with her and then headed back to work to finish up the tons of e-mails I was still trying to catch up on. Most are regarding the Mexican Artisan Expo, and it takes me an eternity to complete an e-mail that’s entirely in Spanish LOL. I’m much better than I was 3 years ago, for sure! I ended up working till almost 5:30pm, then headed to Payless where Kristina had called an order of boots in for me. It was FREEZING out and the next day was the Candlelight Posada and I had no black boots. She found them for me and I got a great deal with her coupon ^_^.

My love got home from work that night and we went to Old Navy so I could find a black undershirt to wear under my Posada T-shirt. I found a black blouse, and a chiffon shirt for work. Since I had a coupon it cost us a total of $0.80 hehe.

We were starving so we went to Chili’s for dinner. I had the spiciest darn tilapia, ever >_<. My love was sweet and let me have half his steak since I couldn't eat my darn food. We got back home and changed into some warm PJ's and sat out on the porch, reminiscing about our high school days. We always go back to that, and playfully argue about me breaking up with him and him letting me, heh. Neither one of us thinks the other has the original story right about why or how we broke up. We know WHO the two people were who encouraged us to, but I stick to my story about why and he sticks to his about why. I couldn't remember where we met, which isn't like me because I remember the smallest details about just about everything (well, he'd argue that I don't remember about why we broke up LOL). I thought the first time we met was at Alma's house, but he said the first time he ever saw me was at that arcade place at the mall, which was turned into a clothing store that had a lounge upstairs with black-lighting and teens would just hang out there. I, for the life of me, can't remember that, but I do remember we'd frequent that place. We talked about everything--all the years in between and how much it bothered him being the "good friend" all the time, convincing my ex-husband to stay with his family, not to cheat, that his life didn't suck, etc. But we each made our lives work, each made our friends and family believe we were happy where we were. Made ourselves believe it, too. We played our parts really well, even till the end with the other people we were married to, even when they destroyed our marriages, cheating on us with other people and then conveniently turning the blame to us. And us, being the ones who keep our business to ourselves, never put on blast why our relationships ended, or how long those other people were "unhappy" with us. Oh, but they did. And they made things up and ruined our reputations. But we attribute all that happened in our lives to be something that had to happen; it was part of our history and part of the way that paved the road to each other. Jorge always says that we needed to go through all that to grow and learn, so that when fate brought us together we’d be ready for each other :*).

But, I digress!

Saturday – I woke up and made my coffee, then bundled up and got dressed. For the first time, ever, I wore leggings under my jeans, 2 socks, my boots, 2 shirts, a scarf, my jacket and a beanie. It was cold as balls outside, 34 degrees and I was scheduled to work outside from 9:30am till 11pm.

Ivan and I were in charge of the Marketplace. It went a little better than I thought, although there were a couple of feisty vendors. It always happens though.

I got to hang out with my BFF, Sally:

We took a little break and got some hot chocolate from her department and some sausage on a stick and brisket tacos from mine, heh. Gerry, Bob, my boss, Wally and Steve were at the food booth, and although the grill was warm, they were still out there in the biting cold. Ivan and I were in the biting cold period, and kept taking turns to go inside to get warm or to the grill LOL.

When we were done with most of the work, Steve told Michelle and I to take a couple-hour break, but we thought it would be silly to come all the way home, and then go back so we just clocked out for a bit and hung out inside. Then it was time to clock back in at 4:30 and I was assigned to the gazebo for Santa pics with Sally, woo! It was insanely cold up there. I didn’t even tell Mario to take the kids this year, because it was just so gosh-darn cold. Jorge showed up with Jorgie and Justin (who were dropped off by their mother while she shopped) for a little bit, but of course they didn’t have thick jackets (but I bet someone else did!) so they went home.

We got to see Kristina and her little boy and an old classmate and her family, Sylvia. Our shift was over around 9:30pm, and then it was clean-up time. We were given the green-light to leave and I came home. I was tired, but since we were kidless (the boys had been picked up by their mother) and Junior invited us over, we went.

I was starving, and realized I really hadn’t had food since that sausage on a stick and a crappy hot chocolate from earlier. We looked for a drive-thru that had nachos and Michelada’s, and it took a while, but we found one.

We hung out and talked about the Keto diet, all while consuming carbs, hehe.

Sunday – We got to sleep in, yay! We watched the Patriots win, woo, and then we got ready to go to the mall. My love was insistent that we go. He reminded me that I needed pants, and wanted to look at Pandora charms for me. I wasn’t too into spending on Pandora charms, but I did need pants. All my size 4’s are pinned and the pins really scratch my back LOL. I wasn’t even sure HOW I had started to fit into size 2’s again, what with all the junk-food eating, but I wasn’t complaining, heh.

I got a huge, unexpected surprise that day, but I’ll have to save that for a later post ^_^.