Summer Dilemma

So there are five weeks of school and the weather is getting warmer, it seems that around this time I am faced with the same sense of urgency to get into beach body shape. Granted I always workout and eat relatively well most of the time, but I am a snacker. When you work in an environment where the staples are goldfish, popcorn, and chocolate, those things slowly creep into my diet and a few winter pounds or lets call them school year pounds creep on. So here I am again determined to float the river in two weeks and feel pretty good doing it. I want to lose the few pounds before summer and go shopping for great new clothes. (this is always my incentive) So as I embark on a low carb, low fat lifestyle I am writing and posting it as to say have some sort of virtual accountability.

I am also motivated by the annual visit to the endocrinologist Friday. I always dread getting on that scale, since well his job is to monitor my weight and the gradual weight gain that is a side affect of insulin resistance. I am set out to prove them wrong and weigh less than I did the year before!

So I cut some things out today focusing only on healthy choices. The timing of my embarkment however couldn't have been better since today marks the beginning of teacher appreciation week. For those of you who aren't in education that means food and an endless supply of it. Each day is themed with snacks in the teacher's lounge. Since I like to snack this is the perfect storm to let the pounds creep up. Todays theme was desserts. Yes a plethora of desserts all at one's reach. You can try something not like it an grab another. Homemade, store bought, warm, cold, cookies, brownies, cakes, chocolate, vanilla - you name it there is something there to satisfy your craving or every desire. Now you may say don't go in the teachers lounge or avoid the cookies, cakes, brownies etc. However, the teachers lounge is the social hub at the school. It is where we congregate, eat lunch, and yes vent. Therefore, it is unavoidable. My first victory came at 10:00 this morning. You know when you really want a snack because between coffee and normal bodily functions have caused the fuel from breakfast has been wear off. However I was able to enter the teacher's lounge and walk out with only the string cheese that I came for. I ate it happily. My second victory was at lunch when I did try an oatmeal cranberry walnut cookie, but only a small piece from a fellow teachers. Finally at 1:00 a few hours after lunch (we eat early in elementary school) I grabbed a sugar free popsicle and avoided more dessert nibbling!

So there you have day 1. I am delighted with my victories, but plan to updated you every few days the next five weeks! I know that in time I will probably get grouchy and annoyed with this plan. However the summer is closely upon us and you know so is the aspect of shopping. I am on my way to dinner with a friend. I am also set out to conquer my number one snacking time, late at night watching TV!

Wish me luck

I feel bad for the squirrels. I mean I am really worried about them. I feel as though they are in for a really hard winter come next December. Why you ask? How do I possibly know this? Well because I am very close to a family who stole all of the squirrels Pecans. It all began in the fall when the pecans began to fall from the trees. In case you don’t know pecans are found in a big round brown shell. My mother-in-law decided that her supply of pecans was low so her and her husband made it their mission to find as many pecans as they possibly could and as result mission pecan was launched at the ranch house. At all hours you could find my family picking up pecans or stealing them from certain rodents that may dependent on them to survive. To me it doesn’t look like fun work. Bending over picking up a pecan one by one and placing it in a bucket only to haul it later back to the house Over those months all I heard about was Pecans. Nothing delighted my father-in-law more than discovering a new Pecan tree on his land, or Williamson County’s land! My mother-in-law often recruited her sweet little grandchildren into helping her, which they were happy to do. While this mission was being launched, everywhere you turned at the ranch were bags, boxes, and bundles of whole Pecans. Fifty gallon feed bags and huge barrels in front of every door and around every corner. I mean everywhere. I have never seen so many. They stressed when it might rain or ruin them. As soon as they saw one they compulsively had to pick it up. Once these nuggets of gold were collected the painstaking task had only begun. They were then loaded up and hauled off to get crushed. All those hundreds of pounds of whole Pecans were now crushed into thousands of pounds of Pecan pieces mixed in with shells and all. So now the fun really began when you would fill up a large baking dish from the overloaded fifty gallon bag with crushed Pecans. Then you would take a small pocket knife and comb through every crushed Pecan, separating the shells from the nuts. Often the nut was stuck in its shell and that’s where the knife came in. Carefully you would wedge the knife in between the shell and the nut until the shell came loose. Fun! I truly have a respect for squirrels those suckers are sharp and hard. I did partake in helping with this task, you know to earn brownie points. However it wasn’t really good for the manicure. Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of Pecans picked up, hauled, bagged, crushed, combed through and separated. Months and months of work and finally… Well there is now a freezer full of plastic gallon bags of Pecans. Yes they have a special freezer for Pecans and well ice cream but that’s another story. After all that work I realized I don’t even like pecans that much. I know it’s kinda blasphemous, but I just don’t. I only use them occasionally while baking, but I think I will just stick to buying a 6 -10 dollar bag once a year for that occasion.

It's a Wild Blue Basin out there!

Service, one word that the fine city of Bertram does not know. They struggle with when waiting tables at one of the three restaurants in town, two being Mexican. (a post on my favorite local restaurant Crazy Gals coming soon) The city lacks in large amount cell phone service no matter what your plan is and often drops your call as you enter the town, as if to say good luck connecting to civilization! You’ve just entered a whole new world. Also as I found out last night significantly lacking in Internet service. My husband and I were trying to bundle our TV provider with Internet. We currently do not have Internet at the house. I called our Satellite provider to find out since we are still on contract what the cancellation fee would be. Of course they asked me what the problem was. When I explained about the Internet; they mentioned that they do bundle with several companies and would LOVE to connect me to the bundling department. I went ahead and said sure so that I would be aware of all my options. As soon as the Asian Lady answered the phone, I gave the phone to my husband so he could ask the Internet questions and decipher the accent (He’s a better negotiator anyway or maybe a persuader, he got me to marry him right!) The lady talked to him about the program and took his address. She then offered to connect him with the Internet provider in our area. Which was, get this, not Verizon, ATT or Roadrunner. None of the companies you would think. It was Wild Blue Basin or Blue Basin or Wild Basin. I really don’t know, I’d never heard of it before, where do I live that there is no like ATT? So he called this hillbilly Internet provider. He was greeted with a peppy voice on a recording, not an automated telephone services but a recording. When he finally spoke to a person who again took down his address and regretted to inform him that they are currently working to capacity in our area and could not take on any more clients. Really! What? How many people in Bertram really care about Internet. Or know how to use it. Like three maybe my sister-in-law and someone else? I have never heard of that before. Did they not have enough tin foil on the antenna? Was the Satellite too small? Or did the duct tape wear off? So I guess we’ll go with the cable company until Bertram gets more twenty-first century options.

Dollar General

Dollar General. I actually despise the store. It isn’t that I don’t like dollar stores. It’s that this store seems to be the ghetto of all dollar stores. For some reason to me the floors are always sticky and they smell like feet. I even think that the deals aren’t even good. They just trick by having rounded numbers instead of the .99 or .59 etc. So instead of 3.98 for a box of cheerios you’ll pay 4. Seems better for some reason. I’m sure it has to do with simplicity for their sort of clientele. I remember discussing with someone the possibility of moving out into the middle of know where with someone who actually lived out in the same area. She said that that Dollar General would come in handy. NEVER I thought. I would rather just do without then enter that store, and what could I possibly need that they might have. When the Dollar General opened in Bertram, I wondered how long it was going to take before it started to smell or stick. How long do they last as a new store before they become what we all know as the ghetto way to spend a buck. Well that thing was sure popular. Cars were in and out all day long. It was sprawling with Bertram’s finest. It wasn’t long before I had to eat my words. Yes, that dreaded Dollar General became very convenient. I stopped in their for medicine, butter or brown sugar. Even ice cream on occasions. One day in particular I was making chicken and rice, except I was missing the rice ingredient. So on a rainy day I pulled on my sweat pants, my uggs and a big black jacket. I ran in there as fast as I possibly could, with my big black jacket and hood pulled over my head close to my eyes. It is as if I am afraid that some satellite somewhere will pick me up entering the store and broadcast it so that all can see and laugh at me. After I hopped out of my car and enter the store, which was of course busy. A young man turned around from the chip aisle. I am not totally foreign to this, remember I do have all my teeth, but I was trying to hide in my big black jacket so I was slightly surprised. Then as I browsed the plethora of rice options. (I’m kidding) The kid walked passed my aisle twice in both directions. I didn’t really think anything of it, until as I went to leave the store and drive out on the highway back to my safe haven he rolled down the window and asked for my number. As I go to flash my left hand, I realize that in the process of making meatloaf for tomorrow’s dinner (I often make two at once) I have left it on the kitchen counter. So, as I flash my empty left hand I realize that I now look like the idiot in the oversized coat and simply laugh at the turn of events and speed off in the opposite direction. Nothing really gets more redneck then going to the Dollar General to pick up chicks. J

The Scent of Goat

It is kinda ironic that I ended up in Bertram, Texas. I have to believe that God works in mysterious ways or at least has a sense of humor. I was first introduced to this rural area through my roommate in college. (Later, she introduced me to my husband, so I guess I have her to thank or at least to blame.) The first time she took me to her home I had no idea where we were going. We traveled down this two-lane country road for like what seemed like forever. There was nothing there, nothing even to look at. What I should also mention was even though the speed limit sign said 40 my driver, this native country dweller knew better. I knew at any minute a car would come around the curve and run us off the road. What I soon discovered is that there rarely were other cars on the road. I would also learn later how to navigate turns and hills to ensure this didn’t happen. Think of it has a hidden curriculum of country driving. Finally we come up on a bush. Yes a bush and she whips a left turn onto her driveway. I had to wonder how in the world did she know what bush to turn at? To my surprise we arrived at a normal house tucked away in what I thought was the middle on nowhere. The only thing that was a little concerning to me was the gun on top of the fridge. Really I wondered? Why? What happens if it like falls on top of me. I mentioned something to her. Hey there’s a gun on top of your fridge. Completely expecting her to lock it away in a safe box far away from me. She looked at me totally perplexed that I would be announcing to what was to her obvious. It was almost like ya, and… She said simply it’s funny to me that it is weird to you, yet another clash of cultures. I am terrified of guns and that really hasn’t changed. However at least I have come to expect to see them. My husband has them tucked in every nook and cranny of our house. I stumble upon them everywhere it seems like, making the bed, folding clothes, putting things away in cabinets and even vacuuming. The other day I was vacuuming and as I was coming around the curtains I heard something hit the wall and slide down to the floor. Really? Behind the Curtains! What was funny that in the fall something broke off. Hehe. I wasn’t apologetic in anyway I hate them all over the house. Maybe he’ll learn. One of my favorite stories about my first visit to this other world happened one time when I was staying with my roommate at her parent’s house. I believe her sister mentioned that we should go ‘to town’ to get ice cream. ‘To town’ I thought this might be a good thing maybe I will get to see some civilization or at least things that I recognized. I didn’t realize that ‘town’ was the main highway and ‘the store’ was the Exxon or the Shell Stations. The sisters debated which one to go to and finally deciding on the Exxon because it had better selection. Really? What do you mean better selection? We’re not debating between Hagan Daaz and Ben and Jerry’s are we? As we enter the ‘better selection’ convenience store. My roommate and I overheard someone talking in the aisle. I couldn’t help but laugh at the sound of his voice. I felt as though we were definitely in Hicksville. My roommate was laughing. As her mother came in the store she greeted the hick talking man as if it was her long lost son. She went in for a big hug. He however immediately stopped her informing her that he smelled like goat. Goat really the only place I had ever seen a goat was in a petting zoo, and I had definitely never referred to myself as smelling like one. At that remark I lost it. Literally rolling in the aisles of that huge conveniences store with more options than the shell station. Turns out the goat smelling, southern talking gentlemen was her cousin. One minute she was making fun of him, the next minute she was related. Oh the irony I thought. I have learned that out in country you either know someone anywhere you go or your related. Get me back to a target or something and some solidarity.

Welcome

Seven months ago I married a man who was almost the exact opposite of me. Although I knew by marrying him that I would enter into a whole knew world. I didn’t know that I would become pure entertainment and many times the brunt of jokes to those who I would now be living around. To explain what I mean let me begin by explaining background to this blog. I grew up a suburban girl in Southlake, Texas. Yes Southlake. You did get more suburban than that. Southlake is the home of Pat Summerall, Mark McLemore, and I am sure many other millionaires I just don’t know about. It is also home, as many of you may already know, the Carroll Dragons. Those rich white boys with bleach blonde hair who kept winning state championship after championship in football. I really believe the only reason they won was because of Carroll high’s resources and athletic facilities. I remember one hot summer the Dallas Cowboys came to barrow the Dragon’s facilities because it was too hot to train outside. Southlake Carroll should be pretty fancy with the median income being over 180,000 dollars. (Disclaimer my family did not fit in with the average, we moved to Southlake before it became SOUTHLAKE, this is what I just grew up around.) I also enjoyed many luxuries that this high-class town offered. Minutes from the big city of Ft. Worth and Dallas, we had everything. The grocery store was two miles away, along with a plethora of restaurants and shops. I never appreciated living close to things until now because this little city mouse got married and moved out to the country, and not just any rural town the unique town of Bertram, Texas. Which population is about 1400 and average income is 36,000. Big change I know. I identify with the city mouse in Aesop’s fable. He goes out to visit his cousin in the country and is surprise at what he encounters and doesn’t know. I certainly don’t know a lot about country living, but I am learning. I am learning what wet asphalt looks like and not to drive over it, the difference between a phone vibrating and a cow mooing, and the difference between the sound of a gun going off and a cabinet slamming. I know now that cows and deer make good road hazards and how to avoid them. I even know where to hide one’s keys on their locked car. I also know to my surprise that many people use the curbs of people’s houses to window shop. I invite you to come with me on this journey. As this city mouse collides with an entirely different world. Just like the fable I hope to learn and appreciate both aspects of each culture and to hold on to that city part of me. I invite you to discover with me what happens when country meets city and hopefully laugh along the way. It’s bound to be funny.