Dear Honey,
This is your Mother speaking.

What is wrong with you?  What I mean is what is wrong with your face???? 

For goodness sake, I have never known anyone to obsess about her face and blackheads, and pores, and breakouts like you do.  I think you have beautiful skin, and I am not just saying that because you are my daughter -  you have had naturally glowing, non chemically induced, just plain gorgeous skin since the day you were born! 

Well, you did start out a little olive looking when you were a baby – that was your father’s Italian side sneaking in there – but you grew out of it.  I remember you were so dark the day we brought you home from the hospital that your grandmother asked if we had the right baby! She was concerned that there was some American Indian woman out there trying to explain a little pale-face to her husband.  After we explained that you were jaundiced and Italian and that olive green plus yellow makes brown – she calmed right down.  Your skin got lighter every year – and has now become a beautiful pale ivory – not a freckle or birthmark in sight and the envy of 86% of the women in the world.  {But Mom, 86%, how did you-} Don’t ask how, I just know!

So how did this happen that you now have a high maintenance face?! My daughter, one of those women … women with a “face care regimen”…Aughhhh! But never fear darling daughter, I have the answer to your dilemma.  A simple plan to get you out of the never ending facial products aisle and back into the real world. Here it is ——-

Morning:  Soap (whatever is on sale, do look for facial soap) – wash your face with it.
Evening:  Soap – wash your face with it. Then slather on moisturizer – go to the bottom shelf in Wal-Marts moisturizer aisle and you will find the really big bottles with the pump tops. Use the same stuff for your whole body, saves time. Ta-da! Simple, natural, organic, earth friendly, cheap, and especially easy! This was the “face care regimen” of your youth! My youth! And my Mothers youth! You get the picture.

Ahh, but, I know you – and I know that you will not be happy with just this – so I am adding a little something special for you, my high maintenance daughter, to the end of this note.

A recipe for homemade “Farmgirl Cleanser”…..
1c. Plain Yogurt
¼ t. apple cider vinegar
½ t. extra-virgin olive oil

Mix thoroughly, and smooth a handful over your face. Leave for a minute then rinse with cool water.  The mix will keep in the fridge for a week.  Makes your face feel smooth as a babies bottom!

Love from your Mother,
Queen B.

Ok, who wants to try Queen B’s Farmgirl Cleanser?? I’m scared, she waxed my eyebrows when I was 14 with her ‘homemade wax’ and I looked like I had eyebrow mange…

(taken with the new camera, and touched up, just a bit, with Picnik!)

I won’t give day by day updates all the time (I promise!) but I wanted to put this out there for anyone who has considered Meridia, and wondered what it would be like. It doesn’t work the same on everyone, but I’ve never talked with someone whose been on the medication before and wish someone would have talked about it!

So I’ve been on Meridia for two days. I really thought that it would take a few days to start feeling any effect, but I was wrong!

Day One: I had a yogurt for breakfast and took my pills (Meridia, multivitamin, vitamin D, and calcium) and went to work. Had a bowl of cut fruit and a pastry at a class, and by lunch I wasn’t hungry but didn’t have a full feeling. For lunch, I had a salad. I got about 1/3 of the way through and all of a sudden had a feeling of being way full. Being the smart one that I am, I ate another third of the salad and then realized that I was full to the point of nausea. Good move there Honey! So in an afternoon class (can you tell it was class day? why do they always serve snacks?!) I had a small bag of Doritos. I ate them fast because we only had a five minute break- but then spent the rest of the class feeling like I was going to be sick. I was dealing with throw-up burps (you know the kind) and really was thinking I might see the chips again. Gross! So when I got home, Marmot announced that he wanted sushi to celebrate his new job. I had just gotten rid of the nausea, but I love sushi! So I ate sushi. And I paid for it, by sweating, feeling incredibly nauseated, and having throw-up burps for the rest of the night. Thus why I’ve termed it the pharmaceutical gastric bypass, because I eat a (relatively) small amount and feel gaggy.

Day Two: I started out at 6am with a yogurt and my pills. Still felt a little burpy. Ok, but just not going to eat. Around 10:30 I realized I was hungry- slight heartburn, and empty growly stomach- so I ate a single serve of Green Giant Niblets corn. For lunch, Marmot wanted McDonald’s so I got a Happy Meal. I ate my four pieces of McNuggets and half of the small fry, and felt full but not sick. An hour later I finished the fry. Two hours later, I had a 1/4 cup of vanilla ice cream. I had dinner (stir-fry with rice) and a glass of milk, so I’m sitting at 1,173 calories according to SparkPeople. Not bad! I’m going to have something for dessert later tonight, and if all goes well, I’ll end the night under 1500 calories. Right on target!

I’ll be weighing once a week (on Thursdays) and doing monthly measurements. Fingers crossed that it pays off!

The item with the biggest lack of progress on the Baby Bucket List is, sadly, my weight. This has been an issue for me, in one way or another, for over a decade! After a depressing look over my weight fluctuations and what my successes and failures have been, I decided its time to bring in the big guns. I talked to my primary care doctor, and she gave me a referral to the Department of Endocrinology. Not just for thyroid issues, Endocrinology (at least in our health system) also acts as a primary care for weight related issues.

So, I have my own Dr. H! I met with him last week, and we worked out a weight loss plan for me. He went over my weight loss history, and said that I actually do really well when I try to lose weight, and we just need to see how to keep it going. It fits in with my ongoing joke that I probably have a killer metabolism, and this is just the best its been able to do to keep up! I’m getting labs and a metabolism test to see if that is indeed the case.

My Dr. H’s philosophy is that there are five rungs in the weight loss ladder- food modification, physical activity, psychological counseling, medication, and bariatric surgery. Based on my history, he felt comfortable getting me started on four rungs!

Food Modification: I’m meeting with a dietician, Rose, once a month to look at broadened food choices, my food journal, awareness of hunger signals, and awareness of full signals. During my first visit, she went over some of the things like eating until fullness, and she said “I’m telling you the simple things not because I think you don’t know these things, but because they are simple enough to start right now.” I’ll meet with Rose once a month to check my progress. The cool thing is that Rose also works in OB for nutrition during pregnancy, so she can follow me all the way through the initial weight loss stage, but then even after I do get pregnant!

Physical Activity: Dr. H said he wants me to do an hour a day, 4 days a week. He doesn’t care what I do, as long as it raises my heartrate.  He doesn’t recommend anything specific because one persons perfect activity as another person’s torture. Find something I can tolerate, and do it. The company gym does have trainers for periodic visits, but he said becoming a gym rat isn’t the goal and he’d prefer I find something I can do without a gym.

Psychological Counseling: Due to my eating disorder history and the fact that I slip into some of those patterns pretty quickly, I get to see a psychologist once a week. I figure if I run out of food and weight stuff to talk about, I can just talk about my Mom! {Just kidding Mom!}

Medication: I went on Xenical (the prescription form of Alli) years ago, and dang near shit my pants after eating sweet and sour shrimp in San Francisco. Due to my past experience, I was a little leary when he mentioned medication- however, Meridia sounded reasonable to me. It was originally an anti-depressant but didn’t actually make anyone feel better- but they saw appetite suppression, everyone lost weight! While for some it does have some anti-depressant capabilities (fingers crossed- hah!), Dr. H said that he’s seen good successes with it as a weight-loss tool. He also said that the concerns about cardiac issues have been shown to be minimal in someone without cardiac history, although I am to monitor my blood pressure twice weekly. So I filled my prescription, and started it yesterday! {Update just on Meridia coming in the next few days, but let me just say, I’m calling it a pharmaceutical gastric bypass!}

I will see Dr. H every three months to check progress and get repeat labs, and modify my plan as needed. Although sometimes I think this is overkill, I also see that what I’ve done on my own simply hasn’t worked! I’m hoping the increased accountability and the medication will give me the kick in the ass I’ve needed! I’ve logged my starting weight, blood pressure, and measurements. Stay tuned!

Not posting here today, but I’m writing over at OurMommyhood – come check it out!

I get to cross another item off the Baby Bucket List…as I am now the proud owner of a Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1. And its RED.

The circumstances of buying it were slightly dubious- and by dubious I mean mad at my husband, so I bought a camera just to prove how mad I was.

{I know Mom, I should have just cut the crotch out of his favorite pants and been done with, I know!!}

And then just to top it off- he wasn’t mad. What is the point of buying something ridiculous out of spite if he doesn’t care?!

But I have an awesome camera. Not too grown-up (ie, not too many features for me to use) but complicated enough that it makes an awesome click when I take the picture, it makes me feel like I know something about photography. Hah! So I’ve been scouring Pioneer Woman’s photography section, getting ideas on how to play with the manual features, and really thinking that I might want to try Photoshop Elements.

Stay tuned for a deluge of candids, like this gem-

You’ve been warned!

I was 19. I remember standing in the waiting room of my Dad’s office with him, his staff, and the patients he was supposed to be seeing. We all stood frozen, watching the footage of the planes hitting the towers and the Pentagon.

Sometimes I think of 9/11 was an opportunity for us to step beyond partisanship and the ugliness that comes- and we missed it.

But then sometimes I see something- like driving home today and seeing ten people with huge American flags standing on the bridge. And it makes me think that maybe we have another chance.

Today is a day of respect. Respect for those who lost their lives. Respect for our fellow countrymen. Respect for the fact that those who died should not have their deaths politicized.

So in many ways, it’s an opportunity that continues to allow us the chance to grasp it.