Summer Day

I have been abandoned by my family...and I am just fine and happy about it.

Ke$ha Barbie went to the lake with her friend and her family. My husband and TCBITW went fishing.

It's just been me and the cats and I'm not complaining...it has been rather nice not having to hear someone complaining about what I have neglected to do for them...or what I have not purchased for them (because they THOUGHT they remembered telling me when I was in the shower because they yelled it through the bathroom door (my shower is a steam shower and sound proof), or what I didn't find for them...

Instead I have had 3 very nice days of doing exactly what I pleased and I have to say it was a little like a vacation. I only wish these days had been spent at the spa and included massages and facials and a pilates class.

I can't seem to motivate myself to clean up the spare room and get it organized into some sort of office/craft room/escape room for myself. I just open the door, see all the junk that was randomly thrown into it and sigh.

I did get started on the class scrapbook for the school. My little Siamese cat keeps trying to eat the paper. She's done it before...one year she ate all the titles off of the cover page. The proverbial "dog ate my homework" story, I know...

The scrapbook is one of those things that really focuses on my ADD and my control issues. I do the book because I know I do it better than anyone else would (control issues) but I procrastinate on it and stop and start (ADD) all the time. The pages are 18" x 24" (there is a way to do it digitally but unless I get a Mac, I'm not going there) and so it uses a lot of background paper...but I can usually get every one of the 80 kids in the class on a 2 page spread.

So right now my bedroom floor looks like the carnage of a fight between a scrapbook store and Kodak...

I started on my Anthony Bourdain book. I wasn't going to buy any books until I got myself an iPad or Kindle or Nook but I kept hearing that "The Help" was great so I went to the bookstore and while looking for the book the Bourdain book called to me from the shelf.

I am a little more than obsessed with Anthony Bourdain. I have considered trying to stalk him. I have watched all of his "No Reservations" episodes on the Travel Channel and I dance with glee when he is on "Top Chef". I've read "Kitchen Confidential" and so I had to have this new book "Medium Raw". It is food porn. Literally. If you are a "foodie", you must read it. He is crude and rude and unapologetic...and raw...and genius...I love love love him.

I've been re-reading "The Pillars of the Earth" (coming on Starz premium channel as a miniseries this Friday...can't wait...) but I put it aside for my little love affair with Anthony...and his food porn...

I got to watch my "guilty pleasure" television..."The Real Housewives of New Jersey" and "Toddlers and Tiaras"...you just can't take your eyes off of them...the Jersey girls are over the top but it is the pa gent princesses of "Toddlers and Tiaras" that make me sit in my bed and cringe and say "oh no she didn't" when I see them spray tanning a 4 year old and painting the faces of 6 year olds so that they look like aging Vegas showgirls. And they spend $2500 on a dress...a dress that the 3 year old will grow out of in 6 months...and the prize money is something like $500 in saving bonds IF you win the big title and the big crown. I've been puzzled by that culture since way before Jon Benet Ramsay. I would love for Christopher Guest to do a movie about it like he did for the dog show world with "Best in Show"....wouldn't that be amazing? Can't you just see Parker Posey and Jane Lynch as pageant moms and Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins as pageant dads or judges...and Catherine O'Hara as a pageant coach...I love Christopher Guest movies almost as much as I love Anthony Bourdain...

I got the pool to myself...no one splashed me...no one took my float...no one changed my music on the stereo...it was all good until today when I settled myself into my chair and grabbed my book and was good and ready for my latest attempt to turn myself into an aging Malibu Barbie when the thunder clapped and the storm rolled in. I grabbed the cat (she was under my chair) and made it inside before the first drops rained down on my precious Bourdain book.

I worked out and ate right...except for last night when I ate some very bad-for-you-but-tastes-oh-so-good rigatoni pasta from Maggianos. I didn't have a choice...it was served to me at a party.

Along with the Crave cupcakes...I call them "crack"..."Crack" cupcakes...because they are totally addicting and once you have one, you can't do without...like a crack addict. I've never tried crack because sugar is my drug of choice...and crack is illegal. But these cupcakes should be illegal too. And now we have another crack-den cupcake place called "Sprinkles" in town and I think there is a conspiracy out there to keep me fat. Cupcakes are my kryptonite...

I looked long and hard at the cupcake before I decided to unwrap it and eat it. I haven't had that much sugar in months. It was like I was mainlining glucose...total sugar rush (to go with my wine and champagne---it was a birthday party). I had to move the box of cupcakes from my reach...because that cupcake was like a drug. I totally turned into Lindsay Lohan (albeit with sugar and not drugs and alcohol)and I needed rehab.

On my way out the door the birthday girl tried hand me some cupcakes to take home. I told her that was like giving heroin to a recovering addict and she had to take them far far away from me. She did (thank goodness). It took all my willpower to stop at one so I wasn't going to tempt fate and think that I could keep my version of heroin on the kitchen counter and not mainline it right into my body.

To pay for my sins I gave myself an exceedingly hard spin class today and felt like that was a pretty good penance for having done my body so wrong with sugar and buttercream.

But I will say this...it was worth every calorie and fat gram...

The Fit Foods place has me doing this "liver cleanse" concoction...a vile combination of unsweetened cranberry juice, fresh lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, a shot of B-12 and water to keep you from puckering up so much you can force any more down. You drink it first thing in the morning. I will say that it wakes you up..."surprise, taste buds! Here comes something totally sour and bitter to make you wish you were still in bed!!!". I think between all of the antibiotics I took last week for the diverticulitis and the sugar and cream last night that my liver probably DOES need a cleanse...

And somehow, despite ice wine and mango sorbet (Friday night), a cupcake, creamy pasta, and pad thai, I have managed to drop a few pounds. Maybe it is the liver cleanse...

Ke$ha Barbie is home now so I'm gonna quit blogging and see if I can't get her to pretend like she enjoys spending time with me....like she used to....

Summer is half over and I still feel like it just began...enjoy your summer days...they are flying by....

"Summer Day" by Sheryl Crow...it's her new song...she is soooooo cool...

bye darlings!