Look up!

Today begins a new month of blogging, during which I am going to try extra hard to make NaBloPoMo. For those doing NaNoWriMo, where you write an entire novel in a month, this must seem like nothing, but I guess I'm just trying to get into the habit of writing daily. Then I can work on quantity. Also, if you skip a day of NaNoWriMo, you can spread out that word count over the next few days. If you skip a day of NaBloPoMo, it's all over. I did find a way to blog by e-mail, so I will be able to send in at least a sentence from my phone if I get into a bind, such as losing electricity or something weird).

The theme is "look up" and it couldn't be more timely. My lack of blogging lately has stemmed largely from a pretty nasty bout of depression--another interesting interpretation of my blog title. No, I haven't been diagnosed, and I probably won't be, since being overwhelmed is the chief trigger, and seeing a professional is just another time commitment that I can't afford. Fortunately, I'm able to deal with it. Having three little people who depend on me for everything forces me to get up and at least take care of their needs, but I have been neglecting mine a bit, and probably the hubby's as well. So, when I read this month's blogging theme, it felt like a much-needed pat on the back.

The rest of this year could be a pretty amazing. Biggest Loser Part 2 starts Monday at work. I have about 30 pounds to lose by fall--preferably by August. That's when I go in for my yearly checkup, and I want to be so fit that the midwives don't recognize me! I fell embarrassingly short of my goal in the last competition, and I really want to make it this time. I have written up a household schedule, and I'm going to try hard to stick to my guns. Am I really going to lose weight and get organized? All in one summer? I'm certainly going to try. I'm going to look up and take hold of the possibilities and see where it goes.

A bounty of bentos!

So I haven't posted in forever. I'm going to try NaBloPoMo again in May, so I thought I'd get back into the habit. To (sort of) make up for my neglect, I'm going to share not one, not two, but three bentos!

Bento number one incorporates a leftover piece of Culver's fried chicken, cottage cheese, carrot and celery sticks, a Mini Babybel gouda cheese and Back to Nature cream cookies (like Oreos). There is a lot of protein in this one, what with two kinds of cheese and meat, but that's what guys need, right?

Bento number two makes up for the protein overload in the first one: it's completely meatless! The entree is baked whole wheat rotini with creamy vodka pasta sauce, shredded mozarella, and grated parmesan-romano cheese. It also includes purple cauliflower, radishes, and yellow mini cupcakes with buttercream and strawberries. Yes, those cupcakes are leftovers from his birthday two weeks ago, but the buttercream pretty much disguises the fact that they are stale. ;)

Bento number three is an example of how a ton of food can be packed into these little boxes. At first glance, you would think I'm starving the poor guy, but empty all of this out onto a plate and it's a pretty big lunch. This one contains a sloppy Joe on whole grain white bun; carrots, celery, and radishes; a tangelo; and waffle pretzel and Nutella sandwiches. I had to remove all but one compartment to make this work. Hopefully the fruit and veggies are dry enough that the sandwich doesn't go soggy. It helps that the filling was refrigerated prior to making the sandwich, so it's pretty solid.

That's all for now. Bonus points for anyone who can tell me which picture was taken at night under crappy compact fluorescent lights.

Bento: the world's smallest Boston Cream Pie!

I mentioned during last weekend's rant that I needed to make Nate's birthday cupcakes. What I made was a version of Boston Cream Pie Minis from Kraft Foods. As usual, I altered the recipe a bit. I sent Nate to the store for the ingredients (yes, for his own cake; I'm a slave driver), and when he saw Cool Whip on the list, he requested real whipped cream instead. I figured it would work. When he got home, I realized that he'd forgotten the cake mix, so I decided to make that from scratch, too. The only thing that wasn't from scratch was the instant pudding. The other alteration I made was to substitute the vanilla pudding for pistachio in half of the cakes and chocolate fudge in the other half. Having only one standard muffin pan, and not enough time for 2 bakings, I put half of the batter into a mini muffin pan. Thus, the world's smallest Boston Cream Pies were born. The cool thing is, two of these fit perfectly into one of the compartments of our rectangle Lock & Lock. I threw them into today's lunch, along with a sandwich of old fashioned loaf, cut in strips and rolled up and some baby carrots.

Overwhelmed

My posts have had an unusually optimistic cast lately (or maybe it's just optimistic relative to my usual outlook). Today, you're in for a real treat. I am going to let it all hang out, because quite frankly, I am too discouraged to care what anyone thinks. You may have noticed that I went from posting daily to not posting at all. I flubbed up NaBloPoMo in March and was fully intending to do April, but didn't think about it until April 2nd. After that, I gave up for a while.

It's weird how my posting habits tend to reflect everything else in my life. I haven't lost any weight since the last post, and I am starting to think that I won't lose any more, either. The working, housekeeping, and chasing after the kids is becoming too much. I don't understand how. I only average 13 hours per week, and I'm a miserable failure at housekeeping, so what is consuming all this time? (Don't say blogging. That takes maybe 15 minutes a day when I do it regularly, and I'm usually nursing at the keyboard.) Some women work full time and still hold it together. Could it be because their kids are at daycare and not home trashing the house all day? I don't know, but I'll hold on to that as my excuse.

I've given up on ever having anything nice. I don't have expensive tastes--by nice I mean neat, visually pleasing, and well-maintained. Nope. Not for me. I am destined to live in a dump because neither my kids nor my husband respect me, and I'm the only one who cares about how things look.

And what about homeschooling? As it stands, other homeschoolers will hate me because my kids will be some of the few who actually reinforce the "unsocialized" stereotype. How the heck are we supposed to network if we can't have anyone over?

My rant is over. Time to go finish Nate's birthday cupcakes.