PI DAY Omfg.

Today...is Pi Day. 3.14! YES.

So, the nerd force is strong with this one, and I love, love, love weird numbers and dates and things like that (I was very excited that yesterday, 3.13.13, was a palindrome), and  I also love pie, soooo this is kind of the best day ever.

Fingers crossed, if I get out of work in a timely fashion today *knocks wood* this is happening.

I WANT TO EAT THAT.

Omg.

I keep saying that maybe I'll make something for my coworkers because it's a crazy time of year. Then I keep thinking about it and not doing it. Does it count that I thought about it? Can I be like...I totally thought about making you food and then didn't do it and then still get credit?

I could make them the magic cake balls, which, by the way, are kind of the best thing ever.

I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't let you know about these.

Now, the great thing about these, aside from the fact that they are vegan, gluten-free, and ridiculously delicious, is the fact that when you make them, they actually look like this.

No, really.

I can't be the only person who often makes desserts that look like crap, but these always come out looking just as awesome as the picture, which is amazing. They really have that WOW factor, and everyone I have ever known who has ever eaten one has been totally floored by how delicious they are. My mom, who is the fussiest person alive and who hates all of our hypoallergenic/paleo food cannot get enough of these and has said I should make them whenever I am required to bake anything, which is the.most.amazing.endorsement.ever.

I made these for my sister-in-law's bridal shower, which included a sweets/dessert table, and these were the only dessert to disappear completely. Granted, me, my husband, kids, and my mom are probably responsible for a disproportionate bit of the consumption, but I digress... I also made these for my mom's birthday, and they turned out just as well the second time. The only thing I'd note is that I used coconut oil instead of grapeseed oil, and that I used the Gluten Free Pantry cake flour the first time, and I used Bob's Red Mill All Purpose baking flour the second time, and the first time it was the teeeeeensiest bit better, but no one else could tell the difference.

Ok, so now I've spent the entire blog post talking about pies and junk food, and now I want to eat it, which is terrible because:
 A) It is 10 am, and that is ridiculous
B) Because eating pie and cake balls (even if they're paleo, vegan, gluten free whatever) is NOT conducive to losing weight, and
C) I don't have any of these delicious things right now, so I couldn't eat them even if I wanted.

Sad panda.

...*steps away from the internet*

Swimsuits and coffee, not in that order.

Whatever.

I keep telling myself that it's too early to follow my morning coffee with my afternoon green tea at TEN AM, but I don't think I'm going to listen. I mean, it's health in a glass right?

Also, I'm kind of high-fiving myself because dinner is already done. Like a boss.  Except actually, if I was a boss, I'd make enough money that I could pay someone else to do that shit, but I digress. I notice that a lot actually. People say "like a boss," but if you think about what a boss would actually do, it probably wouldn't be whatever it was that they said. Fail.

So, dinner tonight is herbed turkey breast and baby carrots in the slow cooker (hurray for having dinner pretty much done when you get home!), salad, and maybe some sauteed brussels sprouts. This is something of a New Year's resolution--making sure that dinner is pretty much always done when I get home so I don't have to first get home and be like...what's for dinner? And then first make dinner, which would make it be late...blah, blah, blah. So far, it's been hugely successful.

Also, yesterday recap....
4 links sausage
16 oz water
coffee
sardines
clementine
green tea
40 oz water
1 link Italian turkey sausage (in lieau of macadamia nuts)
paleo meatloaf, sweet potato tater tots, roated green beans
2 gluten free dairy free cake balls
wine

So, I did make good on my Downton/wine thing. I didn't eat the nuts, which was probably for the best, but I ended up eating the cake balls because someone had to....which, I made them for my mom's birthday, so whatever. I'm going to call the nuts/cakeball thing a wash. DON'T JUDGE ME.

Exercise-wise, I got my 20-30 minute walk in, and I did some arm exercises at my desk with my 5lb kettlebell. I think I need to bring a 10 lb weight in because then I could do stuff...because really, I am way more likely to be able to do exercise at my desk than I am at home. Sad? Maybe. True? Definitely.

Today's food plan:
16 oz water
black coffee
some pieces of lox with a smear of dairy-free cream cheese
coconut larabar  I actually got to go home for lunch, so I had a little fried organic mashed potato w/ two eggs and avocado. YUM.
clementine
macadamia nuts
salad w/ avocado, roasted turkey breast, roasted baby carrots, brussels sprouts
wine

Plan is to walk, do standing forward bend, and arm exercises at desk and pretend that this is a fitness plan.

Also, total side note, but I am SO LOOKING FORWARD TO SPRING.

Sort of.

I mean, I'm excited that winter will be over because winter sucks,  but I am not excited about allergies.

I'm boobing, and my options are limited. I'm thinking I'm going to head it off with prescription eye drops and nasal spray. Basically the Elestate+NasalChrom double header...nothing systemic...and hope for the best. Maybe that will allow me to wear mascara and not look like a gross, red-eyed, red-nosed mess. Maybe.

Also, I'm thinking about swim suits. I'm going to be upfront and tell you that this probably isn't a good idea. I've had three kids. Count them. Three. Honestly, I'd like to avoid the whole thing altogether, but given that I have small children and live right by the neighborhood pool, this probably isn't a realistic plan.  I'm thinking....If I can get my abs together, maybe I can find a bikini that won't make me look like a beast.

Here are my bikini criteria:

• No string bikinis. These boobs need underwire, baby.
• Some bottom coverage. Anything that requires a fresh Brazillian is out. My kids would probably end up accidentally pantsing (is that how you spell that?) me in the pool, which would be beyond embarassing. I need to be able to bend over, pick up my kids, and possibly have my kid be able to tug on my bottom without it untying and coming off, and it can't be so small that that tug would move it an inch and then show off my lady bits.
• Maybe this? God, I miss my abs.

Anyhow, thanks to paleo awesomeness, I'm about ten pounds away from pre-baby weight. I'm actually pretty happy with this because generally, it takes me a year and a day to get down to that weight. By a year and a day, I actually mean about eighteen months, so really six months is pretty good. I think the only reason this happened faster is because I started  paleo sooner this time around.

I want to accelerate the process a bit though because I'm in a wedding in like...a month, and the dress might be less than flattering for my post-baby midsection.

Spanx, what?

I just looked around the internet for a picture of someone in like thirty four pairs of Spanx, and I didn't find it, and I was too lazy to keep looking.

So imagine that.

Because that's going to be me.

Overall plan:

• Fairly strict paleo+ occassional wine
• Walk every day at work during lunch
• 15 minutes of toning a day
• A ridiculous amount of water
• Food logging (it makes me more accountable and less likely to shove random crap in my face.)

Soooooo

Today's foodness:
4 pieces of Jones sausage. I know it's processed, but it doesn't have any gluten, dairy, msg, or truly weird shit in it, and that's ok. Also, it is MICROWAVABLE.

• Black coffee.
• Organic green tea.
• Wild Planet Sardines in evo with lemon
• Clementine
• More of the green tea
• 40 oz of water

That's so far.

Let's be honest: I'll probably nom a handful of macadamia nuts as soon as I walk in the door.

For dinner we're having frozen meatloaf (egg-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, paleo), sweet potato fries, and some sort of vegetable. Maybe brussel sprouts, French green beans, or asparagus, along with several fistfulls of salad greens, which I do when I am too lazy to make an actual salad. I figure it keeps them from going bad, and it keeps me eating salad greens. Win-win?

Also, can I get an 'Amen' on the whole already made frozen dinner thing? I'll get home, pop it all in the oven to heat up, and get the munchkins all bathed up. With any luck, after they scoot off to bed, I'll be able to enjoy a glass of wine and an episode of Downton Season 2.

Now, I'm going to get on my soap box about sardines.  First off, Americans don't eat enough fish. I don't know why. I'm not even going to get in to that. The annoying thing about it is if I eat them at work, I have to sneak off into a corner far away and eat them and then chuck the can in a garbage can that is super remote so no one is like "Ewwww! You ate fish." And yes, I am the best coworker ever.

Bottom line is you should consider eating sardines because:

• Low in mercury and pcbs
• Super high in omega 3s, coenzyme q10, calcium, potassium, vitamin D, iron, b12, and protein
• No preparation or fancy storage, which is perfect for super lazy people like me. I put them in my desk drawer, and then I eat them with a fork and throw them away. AWESOME.
• Also, this particular brand doesn't have the head, is sustainably harvested, AND comes in a BPA-free tin.

Seriously, a can has about 50% of my rda of calcium, 25% of my iron (and yes I realize they are competing nutrients, but whatever), 25 g of protein, about 280 calories, and 688 mg of DHA. Idk. I'm lazy. They're easy. They're a non-dairy calcium source (I don't do dairy), and they're low in contaminants (I'm breastfeeding), so they're kind of perfect.  Also, I think they taste good, which is always a bonus. Try them.

End rant.

Starting with a whimper

Honestly, not a lot to say here.

At one point, I used to food journal, and it worked for me. Also, I liked writing down my random musings.  Later on, I actually had a proper blog where I tracked readership and stuff (www.shinyhappyliving.com), and I had so many issues with hosting and other stuff that it just got away from me.

I wanted it to be a health blog/paleo blog/mom blog, but at the end of the day,let's face it:

1.  I am not a photographer. In fact, my photos kind of suck, and I am NOT going to spend 2k on a camera that my kids will probably break so that I can spend two hours I don't have photographing my food while it gets cold. NOT HAPPENING.
2. I don't know html or code or java or fucking whatever. I AM NOT A COMPUTER PROGRAMMER. I mean...really, I just like to hear myself talk. Or read my writing. Or whatever. I can't deal with all that other crap.
3. I am cheap. The blog wasn't making like soooo much money that I was gonna pay someone to fix it for me, and dreamhost was all like...fix it yourself, which I didn't.
4. I have a full time job and three kids. This means that I am not going to be making my own fermented ketchup with organic hydroponic tomatoes that I grew in my yard. This is also why you won't see me telling you about the fifteen miles I ran in the rain. Instead you'll hear me telling you I'm so excited I did fifteen bicep curls or something.
5. I also don't have time to be effing around with reddit, stumble upon, and all that other crap to artificially get my hit counts up so that I can get advertisers, so that it will actually be worth my time to be on the computer while my kids are murdering each other in my living room (thank God for hardwood floors.).

So yeah. There's that.

A little about me...I'm married to a wonderful man, and I have three kids. I'm sure if you continue to read here, you'll learn a lot about all of them.

My youngest is almost six months old, and I'm trying to lose the last bit of baby weight. Woooo...to that end, you'll probably read about my futile attempts to exercise and lose weight. Sorry in advance.

Also, I do the whole Paleo thing, so I'll probably be going on about that too.

But just so you know...

1. I'm not a make-your-own-ketchup paleo.
2. I'm not an everything grassfed paleo. I mean, it would be nice, but it's just not feasible. I'm not going to default on my mortgage over meat.
3. While our house is gluten free (husband's allergies), dairy free (everyone), and egg free (mostly due to son's issues), we occassionally have rice or potatoes or the odd baked good with either almond flour or *gasp* gluten free all purpose.

Some other things...

I'm old enough to know better but young enough to wish I didn't.

I like wine, black coffee, and dark chocolate.

In my former life, I liked reading, drawing, yoga, pilates, cooking, and spending too much on clothes and beauty products, the latter of which I would never use.

I like propper grammar, and I like lists.

I AM ALWAYS LATE.

This should probably be in the "About Me" section, but I haven't figured that part out yet.

So yeah. 
*Awkwardly waves goodbye and shuffles off*