If You Don't Want To See Me Nurse You Can Put A Blanket On Your Head!

The Furious Clan came out in full force in support of a woman's right to breastfeed in public.





Here we are attending a protest against Applebee's Restaurants corporate response to the direct violation of this woman's rights in Lexington, KY.



There was a nationwide protest today with 90 protests all across the country. The Ann Arbor protest was the largest outside of Lexington.... as usual we kicked ass!

Now Why Didn't I Think of That?!?

I was just complaining to Kid Furious that I supposed I should go exercise... but I was sooooo tired I just wanted to take a nap. Kid Furious replied "I know.. we should cut you in half with a giant knife! And one side of you could be treadmilling and the other side could be sleeping. Isn't that a good idea?!"
Ummmm.....Yeah? I mean if it didn't kill me first...

In The Jungle The Mighty Jungle

I just got done putting Baby Furious to sleep.
Putting her to sleep is like being mauled by a lion....
Any of you co-sleepers know exactly what I am talking about. Let me tell you this seventeen pound baby can kick your ass! For those of you who don't know putting a baby down when you co-sleep often involves laying in bed pretending you are asleep while they crawl all over you, kick you in the gut, kneel on your boob (ouch!!... mini mammogram!) and pull your hair with their tiny but powerful death grip that no amount of prying open will release without pulling a handful of your hair out with it... or tonight's beauty sinking those tiny baby nails (why are babies' nails like razor blades?!?!) into my ear and gripping on to it for her life... it felt like it was being severed from my head!!! After I finally pried her off my head she rolled over and growled with her pacie in her mouth sideways... sounding exactly like a baby lion. She followed this by taking her pacie out and scraping it against the wall 20 million times (incidentally this is shockingly loud like the sound of a shovel being scraped across concrete) until she finally snuggled up to me and went to sleep.

Oh the things we do for love!

Are we seeing a difference... or is it just me?

These pics are 9 days apart. I feel like I look different, in real life that is, and feel much thinner. Once I uploaded these I wasn't sure they looked as different as I wanted them to... but hey it has only been nine days! Look at my tummy (okay don't look too close) I think it looks a lot tighter...okay a little tighter! If you are having a hard time detecting a difference look at the waistline of my pants... see what I mean?... they fit a little better. I also measured again today and my waist is down about 1/2 inch but my hips (and accompanying postpartum belly lump) are actually down about 2" to a very reasonable 36" so I am quite pleased with that!
I am loving my scale by the way... especially as my weight has plateaued... but have to choose either to weigh-in when my weight is lowest, first thing in the morning (today 121.2, body fat 27.2%) or at night when my body fat is lowest (today 122.4, body fat 25.2%). So far I am sticking with the morning weight and body fat since I am trying to be consistent and that is what I post in my stats... but I was stoked to get the lower body fat when I checked it just now. Either way I am down 2-4% body fat and I have gained 3 pounds of muscle in the last month which has decreased my metabolic age from 27 to 20 years old! So overall I'm feeling really good. And people if you haven't started eating the cookie dough I don't know what is the matter with you ;)

Oh... No, No, No, No, No, No

Well I just caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and a spark of light caught my eye. What is that that kind of glints like a sparkly My Little Pony glitter hair? Now it is true that I didn't have time to shower today.... notice I said I didn't have time, not that I was too lazy, or I decided I didn't look too bad "as is" this morning... so lay off! My point is my hair isn't in pristine condition and I don't want to completely freak out.. but it is seeming that the majority of my postpartum hair regrowth is mother fucking grey! Now it is not like I don't have other greys, in fact I have quite a streak coming out of the top of my head. But a streak screams "Bad Ass" (what else did you expect me to say) grey temples scream "Old Hag". Sweet Jesus lets all hope a shower does the trick otherwise I might have to start stocking up on the Clairol (gasp!)

This Week

So school started today and we managed to arrive on time... I even fed Kid Furious breakfast and lunch and believe it or not I vacuumed! Thankfully (and the beauty of red shirting) she was familiar with her teachers and classroom and I was in and out in under ten minutes. I believe that took us 50 minutes last year and a lot of tears shed... hers and mine! Then I drove to the grocery store while Baby Furious cried hysterically the whole way. Turns out she hasn't improved much in the car department.. we just never went anywhere all summer and I could avoid it. On the bright side I did manage to go shopping at both grocery stores and do it in half the time! Surprise, surprise, Kid Furious' constant whining and shenanigans were really slowing me down... who knew?!

So here is our menu:

Tuesday: Chicken breasts in Stubb's (gotta go get this marinade if you don't have it already!) & pasta salad
Wednesday: Mr F & Kid F date night (hoping this will help with Kid's current 'tude)
Thursday: Flank Steak, potatoes and corn on the cob
Friday: take out
Saturday: Flank Steak Sandwiches & salad
Sunday: Salmon Noodle Casserole (yes it is exactly what you think it is... tuna noodle casserole sans the mercury)


Yeah I know that I'm pretty much just repeating last week! I was all set not to cook at all and just get take out every night so this is a major improvement from that. Plus I just can't deny those damn steak sandwiches ;)


I've also decided to start planning out all Kid Furious' meals for the whole week that way I have a plan for giving her more balanced meals. If only I would take this one step further and do the same for myself.... baby steps people.... baby steps!

Delicioso !

Yes... that would be a "Kashi Go Lean Roll!" in Caramel Peanut.
Delicious. I'm a very picky *energy* bar eater... most of them suck and have a terrible texture unlike anything else in the food world. These "Roll!" versions are really good and if anything slightly too sweet. I've been having the Chocolate Turtle flavor for awhile now and those are good, kind of like a huge tootsie roll covered in rice syrup and coated in nuts and kashi type stuff. But my god this Caramel Peanut flavor is sooo much better. I could easily eat this for dessert and be completely satisfied. 190 calories. 12 g of protein (not bad!). 6 g of fiber. Unfortunately it does have 14 g of sugar.... but hey that's why it's good!

Come On In

Here are the thoughts floating around my head...

#1 School starts in 2 days.... ugggh. I am not looking forward to this in the slightest. Kid Furious is not an early riser and so in order for us to make it to AFTERNOON preschool it takes a lot of effort and planning and we all know those are not strong Furious traits!

#2 I have been eating like complete shit lately, and surprise, surprise, feeling like it too. A few weeks back, okay I guess it was more than that, I had been having organic produce delivered. I decided to cancel this service since they weren't bringing me local produce and I was going to the same store it appeared they were... so why not pick out my own produce while I'm there, especially since half the stuff they dropped off was stuff we wouldn't normally eat? The thing is I did eat it... kind of felt obligated to do it... and now I've kind of gone off produce again. I need to really think about this and try and get myself to work it into my diet more than just at dinner. Plus, and I am ashamed it is true, I have totally dropped the ball in feeding Kid Furious a balanced diet either. Before the baby was born she wasn't served a single meal that didn't come with organic fruits and veggies now I'm much more likely to serve her buttered noodles and a chocolate milk. I could kill myself! I have got to pull it together!!

#3 I would really like to workout 2 hours a day. I'm completely serious. The problem is this: A) I can't workout during the day, since Baby Furious is a complete freaking maniac and of course she doesn't sleep on top of that! B) I need to workout on the treadmill which requires TV viewing on my part, or I feel like I will jump out of my skin, and I don't let the kids watch TV let alone "The Closer"(Okay sometimes Kid F can watch Noggin) so I can only workout at night C) I have to work out right... and I mean the minute I put my fork down... after dinner and then as soon as I am done I have to go directly upstairs and put Baby Furious to bed... this pretty much sucks and means we have no "family time" if I choose to exercise. So I'm kind of feeling overextended and guilty that I want to exercise, etc. So, as you may have noticed, the last two weeks I have not fully met my 6 hour workout goal since I have chosen to have a few more "family time" nights. I'm really struggling with this! I wish I didn't have to choose between these two things! I just feel like I do deserve to have 70 minutes to myself... seriously that's it in 24 hours!... and I feel a little more sane plus I am getting my workout in at the same time. But it is hard. I'm hoping when Kid F is at school if Baby F will cooperate I might be able to take her for stroller walks, but it is just flat out not as good of a workout! Plus I really need to start getting back on the pilates reformer and start my strength training back up too.

#4 Mr F and I are considering selling our house. It is of course a terrible market here right now so it would be a terrible decision. A house that is way too small but in the exact right location is on the market and they are asking more than we can even get for our house... and... well... we like to get ourselves all riled up and then not move. We do this about once a year. This time our rationale is that moving will help us declutter and get more organized since we'll have to purge most of our stuff (yeah it is that much smaller) and then we can *start fresh*. So even though in theory, and probably even in reality, we will never do it my stomach is all in knots and I'm stressed out... cause I know we are both crazy enough that we might do it so I have to get mentally prepared for it now!

#5 I did accomplish one longstanding organizational goal: putting together my wedding box (note I didn't say albums... those are a long ways off!). Mr.F got me a lovely leather wedding momento box for our anniversary a few years back, yes for our "leather anniversary". I of course got him a leather nail kit (yeah I'm serious) so I looked like a total jack ass by comparison that year! Well anyway, our anniversary was yesterday, I finally decide I could do this... I could go through my stuff and commit the important things to this box. I did it! And in so doing I finally purged all the magazine clippings and notes and overall shit I had been saving at the top of a closet for the past 6 years. I filled the box and then put all the misc stuff I thought might still be meaningful when discovered in an attic by my girls after my death in an archival box and tossed the rest. And yet I don't feel "mission accomplished" like I did with the pantry since I still need to do my albums. I wish I could.. but I can't. One of my biggest blunders was not paying the photographer to do our albums for us. I of course thought this was something I could do and apparently that is not the case!

#6 When Mr. F is home I feel more out of control and have a much harder time sticking to my meal plans, workout routines, cleaning missions, etc. This week I am probably going to skip meal planning until tomorrow and start on Tuesday when things get back to normal. Or start becoming normal... "back to school" time gives me such anxiety... it is some kind of weird flashback stress or something... I feel like I have to get Kid Furious off to college or something.
I need sleep! Good night!

114

How does that sound to everybody? That might be my new goal weight... I know, I know but I haven't even reached my current goal. Yeah I'm aware of that. My cousin came over and tried out my scale the other day. So just in case you are all wondering how it compares to say... calibration... it was on the money! She had just had her trainer calibrate her and it was in line with my scale's assessment. Now she is an actual bad ass and so this was a good reliable test. And a wake up call. The scale gave her a metabolic age of get this... 12 !!!... she's 38! I had just gotten my metabolic age down from 27 to 22 and was feeling pretty good about that. She really is more of an athlete and is a runner, weight trains, does pilates and didn't just have a baby (so don't try telling me this stuff... I know), but the point is this: I'm striving to be in the best shape of my life and 118 is 3.something (depending on the day) pounds away and honestly I am more than 3.something pounds away from my physical prime. I think I'm going to have to keep at the calorie counting and weight loss a little longer. Plus I need a new goal anyway, the closer I get the less motivated I feel. I need a new carrot.

Dinner was *%^&$#@ Delicious

Let me just say I was practically making out with my flank steak sandwich tonight! The bread is even better than I remember it being. Nothing could have been better than the still warm from the oven bread slathered in horseradish sauce and covered in a good amount of steak... I mean it was mother fucking fantastic! I have rarely had something as completely satisfying as this sandwich. So simple and yet so delish!

So the bread is worth making. If you've made bread by hand I'm confident that you will turn out a good loaf or two. If not here are my tips: bread is not complicated, there are not a lot of ingredients, but you do need to be sure to knead it well to develop the right texture (I'd say gluten but I don't want to scare you away). Also be sure to follow the "Traditional Method" the steam produced by the boiling water is what gives the bread such a nice crust. I like to make my bread with the minimum amount of flour needed to pull the bread together and work it in well getting it pretty elastic. That means I don't put all the flour in... I usually reserve 1-2 cups and knead it in just to get to the texture that isn't too sticky. I keep dusting my board (ie counter) and the dough while I knead. I'm scaring you already right? Just follow the directions.... if it sucks go feed some ducks or use it for french toast.

As for Flank Steak if you have either a grill or a cast iron pan (my personal favorite cooking tool these days) this is the easiest thing to make. Take your steak out and let it rest and come up to room temp before you cook it (no you are not going to get food poisoning.. you are going to cook your meat faster and more evenly) Heat your pan with just enough oil to coat over medium high heat (or grill to med-high) I get about 1.75 lb and that covers us with 2 dinners of 4 oz each (believe or not Kid Furious can throw back some serious "steak meat") I know, I know, you are doing the math and you're coming up with 1.5 lbs, well the steak cooks down so keep that in mind when you are making your purchase. Back to the cooking. So you've let your steak come up to room temp and you've either started your grill or you've got your pan ready. I change my seasoning up all the time but what you need to remember is that all you really need is salt and pepper. If you've got some ethnic side dish just throw those same spices on your steak, or buy a "steak seasoning", you cannot mess this up (and yes Ms.B I'm talking to you!) This week I put on some garlic powder, onion powder, ground thyme & ground oregano... just because I had them on the counter... perfectly good. Alright, your pan is hot (or grill) put the steak on it. For 1.75-2 lb your gonna cook that about 8 mins and then flip and cook another 8 mins. For a smaller steak 6 mins per side. Take it off the heat and let it rest for 5 minutes (do not cut into it to check it or anything you'll end up with a dry steak... it's fine). Now if you are me you had a pot of water on the other burner and you diced up a potato (yes just one big yukon gold... I'm on a diet...you could do as many as you want) and as soon as it was fork tender you scooped out the potato with a strainer and let them sit on the counter but kept the water on. When you take your steak off the heat you add a little more oil to your steak pan (yeah I know there's bits all over the bottom) and throw the potato in there and season it up with salt and pepper. Cook it flipping them around while the steak rests. At the same time I put some ears of corn in the old potato water. When the steak is done resting your corn and potatoes are done too. Slice that steak across the grain (that means parallel to the stubby end) as thin as you can. Dinner's done and you should have about half a steak leftover to make those delicious steak sandwiches. That's how its done Mrs. Furious style.

The Easiest Bread Loaf ?... I wouldn't go that far

"The Easiest Loaf of Bread You’ll Ever Bake"
(taken from King Arthur Flour's website)

1 T sugar
5 1/2-6 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 T (1 packet) yeast
1 T salt
corn meal
2 cups warm water (not over 110°F)
boiling water

MIX IT
Add sugar and yeast to warm water and let dissolve. Gradually add salt and flour to liquid and mix thoroughly until dough pulls from sides of bowl. Turn out onto floured surface to knead. (This may be a little messy, but don't give up!)

KNEAD IT
Fold far edge of dough back over on itself towards you. Press dough away with heels of hands. After each push, rotate dough 90°. Repeat process in rhythmic, rocking motion for about 3 minutes. (Lightly sprinkle flour on board to prevent sticking.) Let dough rest while you scrape out and grease mixing bowl. Knead dough again about 3 more minutes until bouncy and smooth.

LET IT RISE
Place dough in bowl and turn over once to grease the top. Cover with damp towel or plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in bulk (1 to 2 hours).

SHAPE IT
Punch down dough with fist and briefly knead out gas bubbles. Cut in half and shape into 2 Italian or French-style loaves. Place on cookie sheet generously sprinkled with corn meal. Let dough rest 10 minutes.

BAKE IT
Quick Method: Lightly slash the tops 3 or more times diagonally and brush with cold water. Place on rack in cold oven. Bake at 400°F for 35 to 40 minutes until crust is golden brown and sounds hollow to the touch.

Traditional Method: For lighter, crustier bread, let loaves rise 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 450°F for 15 minutes. Pour 2 to 3 cups of boiling water into roasting pan. Carefully place on oven bottom. Place bread on rack above pan and bake 20 minutes. Turn oven off and allow bread to remain for 5 more minutes. Remove, cool and devour!


*This is what we're having our steak sandwiches on tonight. I make it following the Traditional Method. After the 2nd rise and just before you bake them make three slashes in the tops with a sharp knife... totally professional looking! Also if you don't have cornmeal on hand use cream o'wheat (aka farina) or sesame seeds. I use Bread Flour when making this bread and have found I need about 5.5 cups. I stir in about 4.5 and kneed in the last cup. This is a sticky dough to work with but it is delish... and relatively easy.

Back To School

We take Kid Furious to visit her preschool tonight. It was a hard decision for us to make... holding her back. She is old enough to start Kindergarten (Michigan's current cut-off is Dec 1st) but she would be one of the youngest in the class. We've decided to "Red Shirt" her, a term I am uncomfortable with. However I do strongly believe it is in her best interest both socially and psychologically, if not academically, to be 5 before she enters Kindergarten. Not to mention the whole pesky neurological disorder issue. And for us Kid Furious's seizures are actually much harder to identify than those listed in the link, especially by an untrained eye (even paramedics as I have unfortunately had to learn!), and life threatening to boot. "Back to School" is a lot more stressful for us than picking out the right backpack. Relinquishing control of Kid Furious's health and well being, even for 3 afternoons a week, is a hard thing for this momma to do.

One More Reason To Get Off The Couch

I hope everyone appreciates the courage it takes for me to post these! I just wanted to show you what can be achieved in a short amount of time. These photos were taken 5 weeks apart. Believe it! I have dropped 9.5 pounds and have gone from 31% body fat to 26.9% body fat in the last 5 weeks. Behold the powers of cookie dough..... and 70 minute workouts ;)

This Week The Plan

Sorry this is a little late.. but that's what happens when you are actually acting upon your plan and not just making it up.

First a little review of last week.
I did indeed make the meatballs and froze 4 extra batches. When making the tilapia I made an extra batch in fish stick form and froze those as well. We do not have an extra freezer so it is pretty full right now. And by pretty full I mean every time you open it an avalanche of food comes falling out on your head... or your sleeping baby's head... which ever would be most inconvenient at the time. But don't worry I did finally make my cookie dough, whole wheat no less since I was out of regular flour, and I managed to wedge those babies in the freezer as well. FYI the cookies might be even better, sub half the flour for whole wheat flour and be sure to use dark brown sugar. On the plus side my plateau broke and I've had a little weight loss to show for it. Thanks to my scale I've managed to stay motivated despite the slower weight loss since I can track my fat loss as well.... and I'm down 1.5% in 3 weeks! I'm interested to see how the reintroduction of the cookie dough will effect things this week... is it actually magical? Stay tuned to find out.
On the pack rat front I failed to make any major cleaning or organizational progress last week but am already on my 3rd load of laundry today so things are looking up.

On to this week and my menu...

Monday: Chicken in Stubb's & pasta salad

Tuesday: Flank Steak, pan roasted potatoes & corn on the cob

Wednesday: pan seared salmon, Asian veggie stir fry & long noodles

Thursday: Steak & horseradish sandwiches on homemade french bread & salad

Friday: Shrimp Skewers, spring rolls & snap peas

Saturday: 6th anniversary dinner out

Sunday: Tomato & meatball soup

What Gives?

This is me this morning. We went to a wedding last night. You'd think I was wasted, but the truth is I had 2 weak cranberry and vodkas... weak on the vodka not cranberry. I was done with them before dinner and from then on had only coffee and water. The buzz was gone within the hour. But I developed a pounding headache and had to have 2 coffees (I didn't have to put caramel syrup, whipped cream and choc shavings on them but I did) but no relief. I was completely sober well before dancing. And yet I pretty much want to die right now. I'll admit I am a total light weight, and because I've been nursing or pregnant for the last 5.5 years (literally) I haven't exactly been working on building up my tolerance, but still! Usually when I'm hungover it is because I went to bed drunk, not had two light drinks proceeded through an entire evening of sobriety and drank water and still feel like shit. What gives? It must be related to what a bad ass I am ;)



On the positive side I had a great time and didn't completely blow my diet either. Well I did blow it.. but it could have been a lot worse... and it would have been had the drinks been any stronger! This was one of those weddings where no one dances but just sits at their tables awkwardly watching... well no one dances but my family. So for the first 30 min of dancing it was literally just my immediate family. For one song it was just my mom and I... there comes a moment when you realize no one else is getting up and everyone is watching you and you kind of want to kill yourself and your knees start to buckle, but you keep going hoping and praying that this is not a remixed long version of the song, since you are committed now and can't stop until it is over. My mom suggested that we might wake up and find ourselves on YouTube. But we, the extended Furiouses, got that party started... my mom even lit our table on fire much to our amusement. We had a great time and I am often reminded of how lucky I am to have such a fun family. Thanks for a good night.. you know who you are. And I big thanks to Mr. Furious who bore full parental responsibility through the wedding and will quite possibly need to today as well!

Bait and Switch

Those of you who are also my husband's readers will know that we at the Furious house take full advantage of our public library. In addition to the books, movies and cds we also rent magazines. We could pretend we are doing it to reduce our carbon footprint but in reality we do it so that Mr Furious and I won't kill each other! We both have a thing for the glossy (or even better... matte) finish of a high (or low!) end magazine and at one point had close to 20 subscriptions. We are both also hoarders and so you can see where this is all going.. I didn't want to throw out my Martha's and he didn't want to toss his mags either. Now we mostly "borrow" our magazines and no longer have to fight over our basement shelf space. So I was delighted when Mr Furious came home with this little baby last night and it is the first thing I picked up this morning.

Now I was getting very excited, you can see that it looks like those might be delicious looking cheesecake brownies. Where? you ask... Oh behind all those library stickers. And you see where it says "OWNIE INTS" I'm pretty sure under the sticker lies a B and an R. I'm not sure what comes before the "ints" maybe an H or a P and an O? Yeah you're catching on now... its kind of like playing Wheel of Fortune... only you don't win anything. So I scour the magazine for those brownies. Where the hell are they?!? Maybe those aren't brownies? They look like brownies.... I open the table of contents and sure enough page 44 "How to with Allie - brownies". Page 44.... hmmm.. page 40... turn page, ad, ad, ad,turn page, mother fucking 54!!!! Goddammit where are my brownies!?! Do NOT even tell me some "previous" reader absconded with the brownie recipe!! Goddamn library!!!!

122.4

The plateau has ended!


"By the Power of Greyskull... I have the Power!"

And For Kicks...

For the record this is not my baby this is a random stranger's baby laughing. Even Mr. Furious was momentarily thrown by this... which is interesting since this baby doesn't look anything like our baby!

Bat Wings

What's that you ask? Oh that, that hanging down fat sack? And where the hell did it come from?!?! I swear to god I didn't have those before I was pregnant... and yes I said those... I have a matching set of BAT WINGS!!! Now I'm not exactly sporting a flabby Oprah arm... YET!... but she's got 20 years on me. At this rate I could take flight by then! What the hell!?! And how do I get rid of them?!? Dude this is so not cool...

God...These Things SUCK!

Planters "peanut butter cookie crisps" 100 Calorie Packs
Disgusting! I'm not even sure they taste like peanut butter... I'm not sure what they taste like. I am sure that they are terrible and a total waste of money and my precious calories! Damn marketing....

What I need is my cookie dough, which I will be making post-haste!