Low Salt, Low Carb, Low Calorie, and Low BS

So, in the midst of trying to save money, trying to pay things down, we've been screwing up a bit.  A JUICER here, a new crock pot there.  The juicer, while nice, isn't a necessity, and I'm really beginning to feel we shouldn't have gotten it just now--maybe saved that purchase for down the road a bit.  But hubby was inspired, he really wanted to try it, and it was pretty majorly on sale.  But still.  Now I feel obligated to push him to make juices because, otherwise, it's just a lump of cash on the counter, one of a million "used for a few weeks" juicers out there.

If you're in the market, it's a Cuisinart, and it does make super-nice juice, with pretty dry pulp.  No, I'm not trying to sell this one, just saying that if you're looking for a juicer and you can't afford a 600 dollar Breville, this one's good.  Here's a more DETAILED REVIEW.

The crock pot I feel better about.  While it won't save us any money on spaghetti sauce (in fact, it costs more to make at home), it does knock the sodium back by 75% over jarred sauce.  That's important to me, because I really struggle with keeping my sodium under 2,000 mg a day.  Plus, making our own Mexican beans at home IS markedly cheaper.  Make them in the crock pot, spice them up, then freeze them.  They're muy tasty, and a whole lot less expensive.

The gadget counter.  Funny, they all look very small in this picture.

Notice the dirty spoon?  That's for stirring the drastically lower-sodium homemade primavera/arrabiata sauce.  Here's a list of the ingredients and their nutritional information (we entered it as a recipe last night on My Fitness Pal so we can use it repeatedly without having to re-enter the information).  You can, of course, add whatever you want, but try not to add salt--sort of defeats the purpose:

Also, watch those red pepper flakes--they can heat up a vat of sauce in a big hurry!  Remember--less is more, you can always add more later.

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Our boy is feeling very self-conscious about his weight and appearance, specifically when it comes to going to the pool.  While he's certainly not obese (like his mom), he could stand to lose 20 lbs according to his doctor, and I agree.  However, it's hard to get a 15 year old to stop eating the crap--or, more specifically, it's hard to get him to start eating the good stuff.  The sheer volume of food we wind up throwing away because he only picks at it?  Upsetting.  But we keep trying, because it's important.  You see, he was a freakishly picky child--so picky that we couldn't even take him to restaurants because he wouldn't eat anything on the menu.  No beef (that's okay), no pork (that's okay), no chicken unless it was breaded and baked or fried (but had to be REAL chicken, no parts-is-parts chicken), no green veggies, no beans, no rice.  He would eat bread and fruit.  And, as a result, he was incredibly skinny (like boney-skinny) until he was 11 years old.

When he finally decided that he actually liked pizza.

And we, in our foolish joy that he was suddenly able to eat at birthday parties and the like, encouraged him!  Try pizza with this, try it with that!  Try THIS--it's pasta, and it's really just pizza in noodle form!  

Boy, aren't we stupid?

Anyway, he announced last night that he wants to go to the pool alone.  And that brings with it new worries.  Because those ratty children in this neighborhood scare me.  What if they follow him?  What if they hassle him?  

Or follow him to the pool and ridicule him?

What if they attack him?  No, I'm not overreacting, one of the rat children attacked another boy just a couple of weeks ago, beat him and strangled him.  

I think I'll let him walk up, call me when he gets there so I know he made it okay, and then his dad can pick him up on his way home from work.  That will put our boy at the pool later in the day, which will reduce his sun exposure (skin cancer mommy doesn't like him getting baked), and it will have him NOT walking home later in the day.  

Oh, and before you think I'm being completely smothering, the pool is over a mile away.  It's not like I'm worried about him walking around the corner.  

I think he's hoping to make friends, and, while that would be great, I really fear that the rats in the neighborhood will spoil that pretty quickly.  It's happened before--the new kids turns out to know the rats, and they pressure him to stop hanging with our boy.  One kid in the face of a group of bullies?  Not many will brave those bullies to hang out with the "loner."  Who is only a loner because he's been excluded and put outside.  

Well, and because he doesn't want to hang out with kids who kill small animals and beat the hell out of other kids.  

We'll see.  Cross your fingers.

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Saw a ridiculous meme come across my wall today:  

Okay, first off--seriously?  Let's be real here--Christ isn't the default position (if you think it is, look at India, the Middle East, or many Asian countries some time).  Children don't need to be taught NOT to believe in Jesus because that is the natural state-- NOT believing is normal, natural, and how we're built.  In order to produce people who don't embrace a particular mythology, all you have to do is avoid teaching that mythology as "fact."

Like they say--if you don't indoctrinate them by the age of seven, you almost certainly won't be able to.  My wonderful boy?  I read the bible to him, Old and New, before he was ten.  When I got to the story of Moses and the burning bush, he said, "Hang on--now God's a BUSH that's on FIRE and TALKS?  PLEASE!"  He demanded to see the book, thought for sure I was making it up.  After reading it, he looked up and said, "Nobody really believes this, do they?"

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And that's about it, I guess.  Time to wake that boy up and find out who stole my dark chocolate bars.  

Here.  Have something ugly!

Wow.

I Never Had Your Class Ring, David.

Back in high school, I dated a boy named David.  Very tall, very handsome, very broken.  David was something of an orphan--he lived on his own (whether or not he was an officially "Emancipated Minor," I don't know).

Our relationship didn't go so well--two teenagers, one unwilling to have sex (that'd be me), both indulging in drugs and alcohol at wild parties at the orphan's horrid little dive of a home in a crappy part of town?  No surprise things didn't go well.  When Christmas came along, and David gave me the saddest, smallest of little "can barely see the chip" diamond rings?  I panicked.  Within a month, I'd broken up with him--not because of the ring, but because he came home one night, bloodied, laughing about how he and a friend had gone "queer bashing."

That was the end of that.

I stumbled across David years later, on Facebook, of course.  He'd cleaned up (like me), gotten fat (like me), and had found ol' Joseph Smith in a BIG way (totally unlike me).  Married, lovely wife, beautiful kids.  It was nice to see that he hadn't sunk and ceased like I'd expected.

When David "friended" me, I thought it a bit odd--we hadn't really parted on great terms.  But then, it had been 28 years, so hey, you know?  It wasn't long, though, before it became clear why he'd wanted the contact.  You see, he sent me a message, asking if I still had his class ring and senior year book.

Problem is, I never had those things.  In fact, we broke up four months before the yearbooks were even issued.  Who knows how long before he got his class ring?  I don't recall him ever having a class ring.  Sadly, that didn't occur to me at that moment.  All that occurred (and all I said) was, "I'm sorry, David--I never had them."  And his response?  Polite, but clearly skeptical.  And then he dropped me from his friends list.

Well, if you're reading this, David, I never had your class ring, and I never had your yearbook.  We broke up in January.  Yearbooks came out last week of May/first week of June.  The ring you gave me was a sad, small little diamond chip in 14 karat, and I still have it.  No slight intended, but you were powerfully wasted back then most of the time.  It's not surprising that you've lost track of who and when.  I hope you figure it out and get your stuff back.

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So, remember the awful rat child across the street?  The scary, violent, stupid one who, along with his friends, kills small animals and terrorizes the kids in the neighborhood?  He beat the living daylights out of another kid two days ago--punched and strangled him.  We didn't see it happen, but we saw the aftermath--a little girl crying, a vehicle with two women in it racing up and coming to a halt in front of the rat and the crying girl, then rat-child leaping on his bike and flying off toward home.  When he saw his Dad was home, he raced off around the side of the row--we saw him skulking off across the grass with his bike, hiding.  

Don't know why he bothered.  Bobby (his dad) is an utterly ineffectual, passive-aggressive git who chews his kids out when there's an audience, and then let's it all slide once the show is over.   Rat-boy still had friends sleep over that night, and the next day he was out and about on his bike like nothing had happened.  One of those reaffirming, vindicating things for us (though we feel bad for the boy he hurt--that kid's social life in this neighborhood is over).  Really reinforces why we barred that feral little rat-freak from our home.

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It's spring-time--that wonderful time when all the idiotic "how to remove a tick" memes start making the Facebook rounds.  Let's just clear it all up now, okay?

Matches, other hot objects, Vaseline, baby oil, Ben-Gay, turpentine, dish soap, nail polish, or whatever other wives-tale-y thing you've been told?

Lies.

Sorry, but that's the truth of it.  See, the problem with anything meant to "irritate" or "suffocate" a tick out of you?  It can also inspire the tick to regurgitate into you.  And that, my friends, is how they make you sick.  That is how they transmit Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Lyme Disease, Ehrlichiosis, Rickettsiosis (that's the Gulf Coast Tick), STARI, Tickborne Relapsing Fever, Tularemia, and the brand spanking new 364D Rickettsia, which has started popping up in California, transmitted by the Pacific Coast Tick.  

There is ONE appropriate way to safely remove a tick that has embedded in your body (or your pet's, or your kid's).  Get a pair of fine tipped tweezers, grasp the tick firmly right behind the head where it's attached (get as close to the skin as possible so you're not squeezing the abdomen), and pull firmly (but not jerkily) straight away from the body.  Firm, even pull, don't twist.  It'll take some force, but I've had to do it repeatedly now.  After your remove the offending beast, drop it in a ziplock bag with a scrap of damp cotton, and mark the bag with the date and place you think you picked the guy up.  Put it in the fridge.  Wash your hands and the site of the bite (and your tweezers, which should be tick-dedicated).  Watch for rash.  If you show symptoms (rash, fever, chills, aches and pains, ulceration, or paralysis), get to your doctor with your preserved tick.

Here, check it out:  

Also, from the CDC.

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Oh, something funny I realized the other day.  Remember how I said I have a hard time getting to the word "Hammock?"  How, since my accident, I have to come at it sideways?  It hit me the other day, as I struggled to come up with the word "hamper" (another word that thwarts me most times), that I have a lot of trouble with a number of words that start with "ham."

Of course, I can't come up with "linen closet" most times, either, and I call the vacuum the lawn mower and vice-versa, so maybe it means nothing.

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And that's that.  Having tuna tonight--first meat in almost a week.  No, I don't feel miraculously better (in fact, I haven't, to be completely indelicate, had a "movement" in almost four days, and yes, my fiber intake is out of this world), but I do find I can eat a LOT more because non-meat items aren't nearly so calorie dense.  Last night's Catalan (sans chicken for me) was spectacularly good, and I had all sorts of spare calories for being bad.  It rocked.

Here, have something ugly:

Wombats, RIC, and Just Plain Mean

So, I came across a Facebook post/meme today.  A picture of a heavy black woman dressed in tight, rather garish attire.  A lot of spilling over and the like.  And the challenge was to describe the picture in one word.  You can imagine the words.

Ho
Crackho
Slut
Hideous
Disgusting
Vomit
Sickening
Die
Obamanation
WTF
Cellulite
Hefty
Horrible
Thick
Yuck
Welfare Ho
Ijustthrewupinmymouth

That's just a small sampling of the hundreds of responses.  Me?  I added a word to the list, too.

BULLIES.

Again, how do we stop our kids from torturing other human beings for their looks or their gender or their sexual orientation or their race when we consider this sort of cruel attack FUN?

That reminds me--there's an upcoming event in DC that's near and dear to my heart.  I don't know if we'll go, I'm not really the sign-waving political demonstration type these days, I'm more the "sway 'em with words" kind of person, but I may make an exception here.  It's important.

20th Annual March/Demonstration Against Infant Circumcision

Routine infant circumcision is down dramatically in the United States, and 18 states now refuse to cover it under Medicaid.  We are the ONLY country in the west that routinely circumcises boys for non-religious reasons, and our rate of HIV and Penile Cancer (the diseases allegedly prevented by circumcision) is markedly higher than in like countries that don't practice routine infant circumcision.  Parents who circumcise "so he'll fit in" are actually wrong--in most parts of the US, the majority of infants are now NOT circumcised.  In addition, I'm not sure taking sharp objects to a baby's genitals is a good way to handle locker-room peeping.  I don't want to get all intense here, so I'll leave it at this.  To folks who say "it's a personal decision," I say this--I agree with you.  It IS a personal decision.  So personal that I propose it be left to the owner of the genitals in question.  After all, agony and risk aside, it's the permanent altering of another human being's body for largely cosmetic purposes. It forever changes the structure and function of the body part, and not, according to reports, for the better.  That's big.  That's huge.  That needs to be a choice made by a man, not a choice made FOR him when he's too young to understand what's being proposed.

And that's all I have to say about that.  Just remember--all those "hot" Brit movie stars you think are so sexy?  Dollars to donuts, pretty much every one of them is intact.  Food for thought.

Speaking of food (see how I did that?), we're having fajitas with beans and rice for dinner.  It's so easy to make that without a zillion calories or carbs.  It's one of my "I'm starving, I need a LOT of food" meals that doesn't break the calorie or carb bank.  We use Kontos Lavash instead of tortillas because the calories and carbs are lower than most tortillas (and the taste quite nice), fat-free sour cream, and weigh the chicken.  A lot of onions and bell peppers, too.  We mix in peppers and just a little bit of corn with the low sodium black beans.  We give a nod to processed food by having Uncle Ben's Spanish Rice.  One package is two decent-sized servings, and it does the job nicely.  Dessert will probably just be a banana.  I'm not in the mood for more, I don't think.

My WiFi has been punking off lately.  Not enough to keep me offline, just enough to be really, really irritating.  Normally, just clicking on the little red X runs it through some hoops and brings it back, but yesterday there was no joy, so I clicked on "Troubleshoot."  Only to be met with the admonition that I would need an INTERNET CONNECTION to continue.  That's right, the only way to troubleshoot my lack of an internet connection is to ACCESS THE INTERNET.

Thanks, Verizon.  Love you.

To be fair, I DO mostly like Verizon.  Except when the bill comes due every month.  Three cell phones, one tablet, cable, landline, and WiFi/internet?   Wowser.  The tablet's contract is up this month, and we'll be letting it scroll off and use it solely WiFi.  That'll knock 45 bucks or so off the bill.

 So, our boy, who takes interminable baths, was dragging another one out to two hours or so yesterday.  When I finally shouted up the stairs, he called back, "I'm drying off!"

Half an hour later, still no boy.  I moved to give another shout, and hubby said, "He said he was drying off."  I said, "That was half an hour ago!"  And hubby's response?

"Maybe he's really, really wet."

If I take a superbly luxurious bath, I might take 30 minutes, tops.  Hubby?  I've known him to hide in that tub for 4+ hours, just letting out the cooling water and adding more warm as the time ticks away.  It's amazing to me, but it's no mystery where our boy gets his mad bathing skills from.

Now, you see that sentence up there?  The " . . . it's no mystery where our boy gets his mad bathing skills from"  bit?  Help me out--I wanted to write that " . . . it's no mystery from where our boy gets his mad bathing skills."  In fact, what I really wanted to write was, ". . . it's no mystery whence our boy gets his mad bathing skills."  Am I the only person here who actually agonizes over things like that?

Am I geek?  A grammar wonk?

Oh, oh!  I forgot, I found something!  And I'm a bit upset, actually.  Why didn't anyone ever tell me how incredibly cute WOMBATS are!  Holy cow, they're adorable!  I want three!

Here--have a wombat.  A wombat named Douglas, in fact:




Do not reprint without permission. © KAQ

Bully

Watched "Bully" last night.  A lot of mixed feelings.  Obviously tears at the sight of parents grieving the loss of their boy who hanged himself in the face of ongoing bullying.  Relief that we don't have our boy in public school, but also the knowledge that keeping him home didn't protect him from the kids in the neighborhood who have left him friendless and alone.  Deep sadness that our boy is going to have to live with this situation for another 19 months before we can afford to get out of this place and find a better neighborhood.

And fear, of course.  Our boy isn't a great sharer of feelings, he doesn't tend to express what's going on inside, and when he tries, he tends to resort to a lot of "I don't knows" and "I'm fines."  And maybe he is fine.  Maybe his increasing temper/sensitivity issues are nothing more than a symptom of being almost 15 years old.

Or maybe he's terrifically sad and doesn't know how to express it.

The documentary itself wasn't as intense or as deep as I was led to believe it would be.  Yes, I did cry once, at the very beginning.  Yes, I teared up a couple of times.  But I saw things that were upsetting in a different way--sure, the bullies themselves were bad, especially the monsters on the school bus (who reminded me of the kids in this neighborhood.  A lot.).  But what really struck me was the crappy, ineffectual behavior of the adults who could/should be making a difference.  The cops and resource officers who were unwilling to act unless shouted into it.  And the school principal shown repeatedly?  The one who compared a child not wanting to shake hands with the kid who's been torturing him with the very bullying itself?  Seriously, telling the boy that his hesitation to shake hands with the bully was just as bad as the bullying!  And when the victim said that the bully wasn't sincere in his apology, she said, in effect, "Just like you didn't mean that handshake--you're just as bad as he is."

This same creature went on to tell another kid's parents that she'd ridden their boy's school bus, and that those kids were "good as gold."  Well no KIDDING, stupid--there was an adult authority figure on the bus observing them!  Of COURSE they were "good as gold!"  However, you have, on video, evidence that when you're NOT there, they punch, kick, stab with pencils, choke, insult, ridicule, and all-around torture that kid.

That woman should get out of education.  Immediately.

And that second boy?  The poor boy on the bus?  Someone needs to have a sit-down with his FATHER, who has done an excellent job of telling the boy that it's HIS responsibility to DO SOMETHING about the bullying or else it'll happen to his little sister, too.  In other words, "Stand up to 20 kids beating on you and torturing you or else anything that happens to your baby sister will be your fault."  Not at ALL the message to send a boy who is already dancing on the edge of suicide.

And speaking of the little sister, the parents need to stop standing by and letting her ridicule his physical appearance ("fishface!"), letting her say things like, "They're going to kill me when I get to my next grade because you're my brother.  It's already hard enough because everyone thinks you're a freak."  That's not verbatim, but it's representative.  She needs a talking to, because she's not helping that poor boy.  She's part of the torturing.

I have to say that, when the boy's mom told him that these kids are not his friends, that when they stab him with pencils and throw his books to the floor, when they hit him in the head, punch him in the back, or call him names, they aren't his pals, his response was devastating.  In a nutshell, he said, "Okay.  But if, as you say, these kids aren't my friends, then who do I have?  What friends do I have?"

The answer is "none."  You have no friends.  And oh, sweetie, my heart breaks for you just like it breaks for my own boy.

While the show was not as deep or as upsetting as I expected (and think it should  have been), I think that, for most parents of teens, it's a good one to see.

Why on earth this documentary initially pulled an "R" rating from the MPAA?  No clue.  Sure, there's one scene where a kid says the dreaded "F" word a few times (in Utah, that would be "Fetch, fetch, fetchity-fetch, fetch fetch!"), but that's about it.  And that's not worthy of an "R" rating.  Let's grow up, shall we?

Here's the related movement that's risen from the movie:

It's a lovely idea, and I totally understand the need that parents who've lost a child have to do something--ANYTHING--to make that loss make a DIFFERENCE.  That said?

I don't think it does.  I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound awful or heartless, because, believe me, I'm not those things.  Maybe I'm just beaten down and worn out and all out of hope.  But the very kids who were on those stages taking that pledge?  I have NO doubt that most of them also engage in bullying.  They may not CALL it that, they may convince themselves that this is DIFFERENT, that this particular kid or that one somehow DESERVES to be called names or threatened or isolated.  Sad reality is, if every kid who said they wouldn't bully then DIDN'T, we wouldn't have much of a problem.

For that matter, if every PARENT who said they wouldn't tolerate bullying in their child then followed through (rather than finding excuses to justify their child's behavior), we'd also not have much of a problem.

I have little faith that either kids or parents are going to do much to stop this. We're an increasingly mean country that is, more and more, turning to sarcasm, rudeness, and ridicule as sources of entertainment.

People of Walmart, anyone?  How can we possibly teach our children not to ridicule, ostracize, or otherwise bully others for who and what they are when we engage in those very behaviors every day and call it "fun?"

I don't have anything fun or happy to say today.  But, as Scarlett so aptly said, ". . . tomorrow is another day."

Do not reprint without permission. © KAQ

I was right to worry

So, my concerns about letting our boy wander about the neighborhood? 

Dead on.

Hubby and I were out cleaning out the old car when we witnessed a near massacre--ten or so kids trying to lure the rat-children across the street off to a place where they could beat their asses.  Listening to the rat-kids, it became clear that they (and the punk behind us) had ambushed one of these kids and, at close range, knocked him around and shot him with their Airsoft guns.  This was the attempted payback.  It got ugly, and the rat-kids' mother came out and shouted these kids (some of whom were mid-to-late teens) away.  Then we were treated to an hour of listening to the rat-kids plan their revenge.  Serious stuff, talking about baseball bats and sneaking around to flank one boy while he walked to the bus stop.

I was chilled, listening, because it's exactly the sort of thing I feared when I told our boy that, no, he may not just wander around the neighborhood hoping to find someone to hang out with.  These kids will start in on him--we already know that, they've already done it.  But away from home, where there's no safe haven?  I have no idea what might happen. 

The lice kids, after months of completely blowing our boy off, have started showing up again.  Always, when turned away, they head directly over to the rat-kids' house.  No art, no attempting to be smooth.  They come over from there and return there when turned away.  One of them actually came over after dark and asked if our boy could come out to "hang" when the rat-kids were standing right on the sidewalk, waiting. 

Goodness.

Sadly, with the car situation, it's looking like moving away from here next fall isn't likely to happen.  Hopefully, the landlord will rent to us for another year.  If he doesn't?  Wow, I don't dare even think about it.

Considering a Costco or BJ's warehouse membership.  Have a free 60 day membership to BJ's, went once to take a look.  Some things markedly cheaper than Wegmans and Walmart, some not.  Costco may have better prices, we don't know--they aren't offering free trial memberships.  BJ's accepts manufacturer's coupons, whereas Costco does not.  However, Costco sells gas, and they do it for around 30 cents less a gallon than the local gas stations.  BJ's doesn't sell gas.  So we're trying to decide what to do here.  If anyone has any money-saving warehouse tips that might help us make a decision, please share!

Speaking of cheap gas, if we want to drive 44 miles to Front Royal, gas there is 40 cents cheaper a gallon.  But it would take over two gallons to get there and back.  But we have an 18 gallon tank.  Which means it would cost $6.78 in gas to get there and back.  We would save $7.20 over local prices to fill the tank.  Add the wear on the car that comes with smacking an extra 88 miles on it a week?  Not worth it.  But it sure is a pretty drive, huh?


Our boy downloaded a new game on the computer last night, which riddled our machine with malware.  Game was called "Slender," and wow.  Browser hijacked, "adware" everywhere, homepage hijacked, even ads showing up on my blog, which is a concern because I'm not supposed to have competing ads on my blog.  I don't know if those ads were showing for anyone else (I should have three ads--one top, one body, and one bottom) or if it was just for me, but I'm hoping it didn't screw up my ad deal.  There was no "uninstall program" under "add or remove," so I ran Malwarebytes (it found 8 registry key entries and four malware/adware programs), isolated and deleted, rebooted, and manually deleted the game files.  Hopefully, that'll cover it.  The ads and browser issues seem to be cleared up. 

A sad day, thus far.  Hope it gets better.