CAH SNAKE

Posted on October 17, 2012 by ShellyBeach

One day last week at lunch, Bennett returned from Chipotle and handed me the brown paper Chipotle bag. He said he had gotten me a special dessert…this seemed a little weird to me, but I looked in the bag. This is what I saw and was quite startled:

Bennett found Mr. Snake sunning himself on the sidewalk in front of work. We released the snake after we took some pictures to try and use for snake identification purposes. We remain stumped. We sent the pictures to the “Ask an Expert” address at the Ohio State Expansion, which was so helpful in the identification of that weird green moth I had in my yard this summer. The expert said that the best match was a Northern Water Snake, but it could be an Eastern Milk Snake. Neither of those look like the picture. Whatever, Extension Expert.

Posted in Friends, Lame. Work., Nature! | Leave a comment

Flower Arrangements.

Posted on October 17, 2012 by ShellyBeach

Not too long ago, I “helped” my dad with a silk flower arrangement for fall. I finally took a picture of our marginal work:

This is the one that the Michaels flower arranging dude, Buzz, made for my dad for the hearth (note the “copper vessel”:

Posted in Craftiness, Domesticity!, Parentals | Leave a comment

Blah Blah Blah

Posted on October 7, 2012 by ShellyBeach

The Whole30 continued this past week through night shift. I slept a little better but still woke up after only a few hours each day…but I had more energy and stayed awake at work better anyway. We had some delicious food I didn’t take pictures of…delicious baked chicken, chicken/squash chili, green apple guacamole. I only just now feel like I could run more than 4 miles again since I started eating this way, so I think the Detroit half is out, since it’s in 2 weeks.

I think I feel less doomy about the cold than normal, and I did clean my closet on Friday while listening to the new Tristan Prettyman album on repeat…this is what I got rid of (one of the bags is a bedspread that has seen its share of bodily fluids – and by bodily fluids, I mean cat vomit):

Anyway…not much else is happening around here. We had to turn the furnace on (we do not play the “how long can we wait to turn the furnace on?” game). One of the garage door opener springs busted Friday night, so we have to park our cars outside in the cold, which is sad. Brian and Nathan are watching Red Zone, and I need to go food shopping and cook some stuff for the week. I sent Chiara a package that weighed about 14 lbs that I hope makes it through customs with my awkward form-filling-outness. I have to go visit customers on Tuesday and Thursday at work. Weird.

Posted in Cats and more cats, Delicious Meals and Food, Domesticity!, House and Yard, Random Fun things, Training, Whole30 | Leave a comment

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Posted on October 7, 2012 by ShellyBeach

Posted in Stupid stuff | Leave a comment

Whole30 Stuff

Posted on September 30, 2012 by ShellyBeach

I spent most of the summer losing the weight I gained around the time the parental divorce was finalized. My weight loss stalled after a couple of months of real effort and having virtually no fat or salt and eating like 1300 calories a day. Now I need to lose the weight I gained before that just from being a lazy, night-shift working adult-type person (the 32 pounds I was going to lose while I was 32…Sigh).

In the course of being fed up with deprivey dieting, I came across the Whole30. The Whole30 is 30 days of what is basically paleo eating…no legumes, grains, dairy, white potatoes, processed food. Every meal is protein, lots of veggies, maybe some fruit, and some healthy fat. Being a lunatic with a (distant, at this point) history of eating disorders, “healthy fat” is one of the weirdest things ever. Also, not having to measure things is crazy talk…you’re supposed to base things on a palm-sized protein and maybe a thumb-sized fat, but you eat according to legit hunger and satiety. So weird and not modern, I guess.

I was terrified of starting the 30 days…I thought it would be super difficult. I am on Day 14 and it is going pretty well. I’ve not missed bread or cheese as much as I thought I would. I miss ice cream something fierce (that might be what I eat on Day 31), but in general, I’m happy with eating this way. I sleep much better/more. I’ve lost some weight and I think my skin and hair might look a little better.

One thing I’ve struggled with is my running…I had been up to running 8 miles and seemingly on pace for the Detroit Half, but since I started doing this, I can only do about half of that…the timeline on the Whole30 website would indicate that that’s going to improve soon (supposedly once my body re-learns how to burn fat efficiently rather than always glucose). I’m hoping so, but not feeling super confident about Detroit anymore. We’ll see.

Also, I’ve been experimenting with recipes and food-making!

One day, we had bison burger and sweet potato fries, but I forgot to take a picture with my bison meat in it. Here’s a picture of super-delicious sweet potato fries with chicken:

Today I made guacamole and delicious turkey for tacos (Brian had actual tacos):

I started making this turkey/apple/cinnamon concoction for breakfasts:

I also made homemade mayo out of olive oil and used it in tuna salad, which I wrapped in collard greens, and some sort of semi-scary crockpot Chicken Vindaloo. So adventuresome.

Posted in 2012 > 2011 to the max., Delicious Meals and Food, Domesticity!, My fat ass, Whole30 | Leave a comment

Marching MilliCUREies

Posted on September 30, 2012 by ShellyBeach

This year, I didn’t make new Marching MilliCUREies shirts and didn’t actively recruit for the team, so our team was pretty small.

Here’s the 2012 edition of Marching MilliCUREies:

Here we are with a pink-wigged photobomber:

OH! Also, the Lady Rockets were working a water stop again, and THE Inma Zanoguera handed me water. AND, I tweeted about this and Coach Cullop retweeted me. OHEMGEE!

Posted in Family Time, Friends, HoneyBear, MARCHING MILLICUREIES | Leave a comment

Showcase of Bands 2012

Posted on September 30, 2012 by ShellyBeach

Last night, Brian and I picked up the Ralstons and took them to the AWHS Showcase of Bands. My dad went up to school early and camped out in elderly-friendly seats. It was chilly, but not as cold as at the UT game the week prior.

Here are my beloved Marching Generals:

Five other bands were there, and the most notable of those bands was Elmwood. Elmwood did a KISS show, complete with this dude:

The whole band had weird masks on, but I don’t think the kids knew what KISS facepaint was supposed to look like…they looked good overall (much better than Evergreen and their weird Postal Worker theme):

We took this panoramic picture of the mass band with Brian’s updated iPhone 4S (click on it to see how sharp it is):

Posted in AWHS, Oh Yes!, Family Time, Parentals, Random Fun things | Leave a comment

Football Weather

Posted on September 30, 2012 by ShellyBeach

Last Saturday, my Dad and I went to the UT vs. Coastal Carolina football game. It was raining until late afternoon (just about when we got there…weird how that worked out), and it turns out that didn’t stop Bossman from tailgaiting all day in the cold. I think we were the first visitors that he and Sue had all day (not counting the other crazy die-hard tailgaters), so when we got there, Bossman was eager to feed us his delicious baked beans and Subway sandwiches.

Since there was no one else around, we had to help him take the tent down and put away all the food/grill/tables before we went in to the game. Good times.

The game was so long and so cold and long and also cold. The Rockets beat the Chanticleers, but it wasn’t particularly pretty or interesting. I watched the clock for at least the whole last quarter.

Posted in Catch the Fever, Delicious Meals and Food, Friends, Parentals, Rocket Fever! | Leave a comment

Bubble Buster

Posted on September 30, 2012 by ShellyBeach

On Friday 9/21, Brian and I went to the Toledo Cross Country Inter-Regional Bubble Buster meet at Ottawa Park. There were lots of teams from big schools there:

The course they ran was somewhat similar to the one used at the NCAA Regional meet that my dad and I went to last year, so we found a good spot that the runners would pass several times.

The Men’s race was first…and UT Men are not super great. I think it is because UT doesn’t have Men’s Track & Field (there is a women’s team), so dudes who are serious about their running go somewhere else. Syracuse had 93023 runners in the men’s race, and they were all pretty good…Here’s a picture of the lead runners (all Syracuse and the EMU dude who eventually won):

Syracuse dominating at the end from a distance:

There were more Women’s teams, since UT’s Women’s team is good, and I thought the starting line looked cool:


This came through the course ahead of the lead runners for both races, complete with screaming cross country coach:

Lady race leaders, probably about halfway through the race:

When we finally started to leave Ottawa Park, we saw these dudes:

Posted in Catch the Fever, HoneyBear, Rocket Fever!, Running | Leave a comment

Fall is for planting!

Posted on September 20, 2012 by ShellyBeach

After 10 days of work in a row, I was really looking forward to being done with work Wednesday at 5pm. I ended up having to work last night, so my plans for normal sleep patterns and also yard dominance were somewhat disrupted.

I always see signs at the nursery near work that say, “Fall is for planting!” but I’ve never given it much thought. Then I happened upon some MSN articles that said you should so your perennial splitting in the fall, so that the plants can grow roots now and not have to split their energy between growing roots and growing foliage in the spring. We had some large hostas that I probably should have split in the spring this year, so my plans started with splitting those and ballooned when I found some new plants at Anderson’s and Menards.

Brian dug up a lot of sod today for the Side Bed Expansion Project…This is all the farther the bed that we added in the spring to accommodate the hydrangea that Bossman gave us went:

As you can see in this picture, we extended it all the way to the air conditioner:

Here are some (blurry?) pictures of the plants we added (two of them are transplanted hostas):

Here’s another angle of the Side Bed Expansion Project:

I am really happy with how it came out. Brian would probably say this after all the digging and what not (OK he wouldn’t at all, he doesn’t think it is as funny as I do at all):

While I was taking pictures, I took some update pictures in the backyard…Here’s a picture of some of our older yard handiwork (Some of the hostas have been tragically butchered:

This hydrangea is really big:

A shot of our acorn-laden patio with misshapen patio furniture:

The hosta that Gnomeo lives under also got butchered/hacked/hopefully not murdered:

Posted in HoneyBear, House and Yard, Nature!, Random Fun things | Leave a comment