Quickie

Quickie post after a good workout despite sore throat. Hope its not strep!!

Thanks for the inspiration Kelly

More pics from my volunteer spot at the Wildlife rehab place - Nature's Nursery  later and a couple of DIY projects too!! I know you're holding your breath!!

Monday Monday

Its here!!! I am officially a volunteer at Nature's Nursery Wildlife rehabilitation center!! I cleaned cages for pigeons, crows, blue jays, a gorgeous hawk, a skunk!!, an opossum, a demon bunny, a corn snake, several rats, several bats, and Einstein the screech owl.  I know - heavenly - what could be better. Oh and I watched a hawk get its nutrition through a tube while it gets strong enough to eat mice.
Whoo Hooo. Tomorrow its upstairs to the real wild animals - today was in the educational programming room. The pigeon even landed on my head. No poop accidents yet!!

 

Some pics from the day.
 The bat (who's name I've forgotten) prefers to eat only when in his small travelling cage as opposed to his larger regular cage).










This is Einstein.

I forgot to post yesterday the pic from my green smoothie. Here it is: spinach, celery, a banana, a bit of agave nectar, and water. It wasn't too bad. The overwhelming taste was celery.  Today I used only lettuces not spinach as I found I was really bloated yesterday (although that may have been from my son's veggie stix). I added strawberries too and again it wasn't bad. I really had a craving for carbs by 2:30pm though and ate far too many salsa chips.

Oh well, last randomness for the day - my sweet boy came in from hitting baseballs with his dad yesterday and exclaimed that "Dad hit him in the ass."  Cracked me up, I probably should have charged him a quarter or forbade him from saying that again but he surprised me and made me laugh all night. The things kids say.

Happy Monday everyone.

My sweet boy

In my last post I completely forgot to add the awesome conversation my boy and I had yesterday morning.
He and I had a sleepover - I slept in his bed for the night.
When he woke up he said, "Mom, don't change, I like your personality just the way you are."  Awww
and then he said, " Mom you and I are soft, not like Dad and DeDe [sister]". And he's right we are soft - sensitive, emotional, AWESOME folks.
What a great way to start the day!!!

Goodbye Sugar

Well, for something completely new, I overdosed on sugar last night.  Yup - those tasty crackwhore sugar cookies with orange icing and sprinkles....... I think at the end of the evening I had four!!!!

Felt like crap going to bed (duh no kidding) so today I'm ready to start the 4 day sugar cleanse, except for the sugar that goes in my coffee (whatever, I'm not giving that up!!)

So I made sweet potato pancakes this morning. They were dry but with a bit of agave nectar they were edible. Next time I should try The Gracious Pantry's pumpkin pancakes, they sound much more appetizing.

This afternoon I'm going to try Green Smoothie Girl's green smoothie. The recipes must be closely guarded secrets 'cause they're not on her website but in the book I had to buy. I'm going to start with water, stevia or agave nectar, a whole lemon (peel and everything!!), spinach (!!), celery, banana, maybe some berries if I have some in the freezer although strawberries are on sale. I'll have to post a pic. I hope my bullet blender is up to the challenge 'cause I'm not ready to fork out $400 for the blender she recommends.

In other news, I tried Jeff Galloway's magic mile thing to help with run training. You calculate how fast you can run a mile without coughing up a lung and his calculations help you come up with a training plan for a 5K, a 10K, a half marathon and a marathon. I'm always needing a push to help me stay interested in running, esp. longer distances so I'm trying this. I ran a mile in 7:50mins. So now I try the 10K (6.2mile) run at a training pace of 9:01min/mile. I train with a 4min run, 1 min walk. Off to try that soon.

Then I have some digital scrapbooking to do (yea!!), and hopefully a relaxing afternoon.

Happy Sunday to you!

Five little questions you can copy and paste and answer in your own blog to get to know your fellow bloggers better and to give your blog brain a break!
Enjoy!

1. What’s your most favorite noise and your least favorite noise?
Wow I really have to agree with Draz and Laura, I think its the rain. Although my sweet babies breathing while they sleep, even if they snore, is beautiful too.

My least favorite is whining!!! Its like nails on a chalkboard (that's pretty bad too!)

2. If you were a character in the movie Grease – who would you be?
Oh man. I don't know. Probably Frenchy. I'm a dreamer, romantic.

3. What was the name of your best friend in elementary school? Are you still friends?
Anne. We were inseperable until junior high, reconnected in late high school, lived together for a year and now she won't "friend" me on fb. No idea why - drives me crazy too.
My friend Erika is probably most oldest friend. We've been close for 24 years. We're still good friends but don't see each other very often.

4. Who is your current celebrity crush?
OMG who isn't. Love Patrick Swayze - totally agree with Draz a man who can dance is soo sexy.
Love Hugh Jackman too! Brad Pitt - esp. in Troy, anyone who is the romantic lead in a movie. Patrick Dempsey.....

5. Repeat question: How was your week in real life and in blog land?
In blog land I've started following some new blogs: http://sunscholars.blogspot.com/2011/10/for-kids-friday-32.html  and  http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/clean-eating-peaches-millet/

In real life... I decided to try following weight watchers point system, I thought the math of making the numbers fit my goal would be great but then I got a big honkin' migraine Monday night and I still haven't chased that bitch off!!! Its much better and was able to work out today but haven't been able to eat well all week. Next week I'll try again - and I bought a book about whole foods. I'm a little freaked out about cancer and all the possible environmental triggers.  Anyhoo that's my life in a nutshell - Ooh forgot, I started watching Terra Nova this week - love it!!! Grey's was good, and so was private. It was a great tv week. Glee, House, and the latest terra nova to watch still.
Happy Weekend everyone!

Fall Garden

My kids and I finished the back garden today! We ripped out the entire garden yesterday on impulse and today we shopped for pumpkins, straw bales, mums and scarecrows.
Here's the before and after.

After we ripped it out

The finished product!!
Looks pretty good huh?! And we spent the whole day together - that was the best part!!

Random stuff and fall gardens

I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a while at the ball park yesterday (while I was there for 3-4hrs with my boy). She commented that she read, and loved my blog about shopping. That was such a nice pick me up because I never knew she even read it. So even though folks may not be a follower, somewhere they might be reading. Cool!!
Yesterday I got adventurous and completely ripped out my backyard garden (well except for the decorative grasses and my daughters strawberry plants).  It was a disgusting mix of old and very old flowers, weeds, stuff! I even yanked out the chrysanthemums. Yes I know they're in season and come up every year but after 7 years they were looking tired (don't we all).  So today I'm looking online for fall gardening ideas that don't involve actual planting.

 Here's what I'm aiming for. So number 1 son and I are off to buy hay/straw bales, pumpkins and chrysanthemums this morning when we take Hurricane Caite to synchro practise. I'll post the before and after pics later.

Cakes and Cookies

Baseball Glove Cake with Marshmallow Fondant - Yum

Lately it seems that all I want to do is bake. Must be the fall air! Unfortunately the yellow jacket cookies I made last week were eaten before I had a chance to take a pic, and my crafty 40 Sucks birthday thing was forgotten too.

Harry Potter Castle Cake (should have covered the cones with grey too)

So I'm going to post some pics of my other baking attempts just for fun!

Mad Scientist Cake

Harry Potter Quidditch Cake

Karate Cookies

And, in my ongoing obsession with pintrest and ruffles I found this fabulous and easy looking scarf, http://mama-says-sew.blogspot.com/2011/01/ruffle-flower-scarf.html

New Directions

Let me tell you now, I'm a big geek! I love Harry Potter, Glee, sappy commercials make me cry, and I love LOVE wild animals.  I could sit and watch the Hippos.... at the zoo all day. (BIG GEEK).
So now that we've all accepted that fact I can tell you about my morning. I have decided to do a little volunteering just for me. I help out at my kids school a lot! and I like it but I do that because I'm a good mommy. Today I went out to Nature's Nursery, a wildlife rehabilitation center. When I walked through the door, the strong, eau de multiple animals was a little assaulting but that's because there are soo many awesome animals in there!   bats, hummingbirds!!, a skunk, oppossums, snakes, turtles, hawks, OWLS, and probably the most awesome, the eagle

Isn't she gorgeous!!! I'm sure she's 3feet tall, and scared the crap outta me when they opened the door to where she's rehabilitated but I'm crazy excited about it too! (GEEK). She'd probably just as soon peck me to death as let me near her but I don't care.  Somebody better revive me when they let me near the Great Horned Owl. (SUPER GEEK)!

I'll probably be cleaning cages and feeding frozen mice to these lovely creatures for the first little while, but I could also be rescuing injured animals near me and bringing them in for rehabilitation, releasing them back into the wild and maybe even helping in the clinic with procedures on sick and injured animals. Can't wait to start and bring my camera so I can show you fabulous pictures of my new adventures.

 Just call me Dr. Doolittle!