Conjuring cats

I noticed this cat in the yard this morning. It had a collar so I thought it was safe to alert Satchel to its existence. He spent most of the morning trying to get her to come to him, but wasn't successful.

Oddly enough, when I got to work there was a tiny kitten stuck in a tree near our parking lot. I really almost got back in my car, and then to get Satchel so he could climb the tree. There was a woman already trying to get it down, so I just went to work instead.

This afternoon the first cat was back and ready to be Satchel's best friend.

"Can I feed her?"

"Can I give her some water?"

"Can she come inside?"

"Can we name her?"

So far the answer has been no, no, no, no. But I think we are ready for a cat again. I told the kids I wanted one to adopt us, like Olive adopted me all of those years ago, so who knows. The cat's collar is just a cheapo flea collar so maybe whoever has been feeding her hasn't committed to keeping her forever. If they have then we can just visit with her in the yard, which might actually be the best way to have a pet.

However, if a tiny black kitten appeared, I would definitely let it in and feed it.

I remember when Tracey and I were cat crazy as kids. Our mom picked us up from soccer practice one night and she had a kitten in the backseat. It was SO exciting! We named that cat Putze Tutz and he was awesome. He even sucked his "thumb."

Things I Don't Want to Forget

1. Jiro is totally into word searches


2. After, sometimes before, kissing me goodnight, Jiro also kisses his blankie and favorite pillow.

3. In order to help him remember something in the morning, Satchel likes to stack toy totes in front of his door or leave a strategically placed stuffed animal there.

4. At soccer practice the boys had to play on the "skins" team and it was the most embarrassed they have been in a long time. I blame swim shirts.

Doing It All

Things have been really hard lately. It seems that I start most conversations, or end them with, "I'm tired."

There are three people in my house very tired of hearing me say that. As I look ahead, I only see more reasons to be tired. The kids now have three soccer practices a week (On top of Taekwondo twice a week), I am doing the Leadership Memphis Fall fast Track program which meets once a week, I signed up to be on the grant review committee for Give 365 which means more after hours meetings, we have four more Rock-n-Romps this year, and I will most likely keep my post as PTA president. Oh, and I told Satchel & Jiro I'd help them plan a giant Nerf Gun War in Overton Park.

So something's gotta give. But what? Sadly, I think it is my column in the CA. After three? four? years of coming up with something witty, insightful, mildly interesting, or "good enough" every other week it has become a struggle to come up with new ideas. Sure, the kids provide a constant source of material, but as they get older and the more vocal my commenters (read: haters) get, the less I want to share. I'm hard enough on myself, I don't need to read the nasty things from people who don't even know me on a regular basis.

I'll still share here, of course, and I'll still be writing for the CA, just not from a personal perspective.

So, now back to business. Warren's dad, who we call Oji, was in town last week and it was fun assimilating him into our culture. He is a reader of mine, so he took the whole "don't eat that before I take a picture of it" rule in stride, among others. Like Warren, he enjoys cooking. He treated us to his famous cinnamon rolls last week.



Oji likes to going out to eat in Asian restaurants so that is a bonus, since that's mainly what we do when not cooking. At Shanghai, he taught Satchel how to eat egg drop soup through a straw.



He also enjoys grocery shopping, which is really nice since we seem to make some kind of trip to some kind of grocery store several times a week. If we didn't how would we know that Viet Hoa has giant jackfruits in stock?



Among Oji's skills are making Ramen, which totally came in handy on Thursday and Friday of last week when Satchel stayed home sick. It was really nice that neither Warren or I had to miss work, and it gave them some bonding time. (Had Satchel been seriously ill, I would have gladly stayed home and nursed him, just so you know.)

Oji took a side trip to Branson this week to see his sister and should return tomorrow for another few days with us before heading home. I'm looking forward to taking him to the downtown farmer's market, a Mexican place on Summer or Macon Rd, La Michoacana, maybe the JCC and Rock-n-Romp. Maybe if he has enough fun, he'll never want to leave!

Soccer!

Satchel and Jiro had their first soccer practice last night. I left work to pick them up at home, and when I arrived they were out front in their shin guards and cleats kicking their soccer balls around. Warren had even gotten out the soccer goal that had been collecting dust since we optimistically purchased four years ago.

They are on a team with a few of their best buddies, and the practice field is just down the road by Rhodes. And the coach is AWESOME. He is very much in charge and totally reminds me of my old coach.



The boys did a lot of drills and then had a fifteen minute scrimmage. Jiro was in the goal, and actually made one save. (There was only one shot on goal.) Satchel played right forward, my position, and looked amazing.

When practice was over they had a team huddle and yelled, "Go Green!" Which is exactly what we used to yell when I played for the green team.



I'm so excited. I can hardly stand it! But the best part is that Satchel actually said, "Mommy, thank you for signing us up for soccer. It's really fun!" This from the kid who had no interest in playing! Jiro was a little less enthusiastic because playing goalie was kind of boring. Hopefully he'll get some field time at the next practice.

GO GREEN!

ATL

We spent the last few days of summer vacation in Atlanta. Our main purpose was for Warren to compete in the National Kendo Tournament, held at Emory University. He's been training like crazy. I love my samurai.



He didn't do as well as he had hoped, so overall it was pretty disappointing. However, we did get to see a lot of good Kendo competitions over the weekend.



There were all sorts of things to do and see in Atlanta, but since most of our time was spent at the tournament, we didn't do too much other than hang at the hotel, swim, go out to eat, and make a quick trip to Ikea. I did manage to sneak away for a couple of hours to have a drink with my bestie from the Peace Corps, Catherine. She's been living in Ramallah for the past couple of years, so it's been awhile since we've gotten to just have each other all to ourselves.

Here, she shows me her state of the art cell phone.



And here, she models her new reading glasses purchased at the Drug Store.



We left Atlanta early on Sunday so we could get back in time to buy school supplies, cut the grass, do laundry, grocery shop, etc. We did manage to squeeze in a quick stop at Elvis' birthplace in Tupelo.



It looked like there was some serious construction about to happen behind the museum. There were lots of little old ladies scampering about. One asked Jiro to pose for her and went on and on about how he could be a young Elvis. It was pretty funny.



We were super excited to come home to such nice temps. The boys actually wore hoodies to their first day of school!



The weather was nice, but calling it hoodie weather would be a stretch.

Nutrition, or something like that

I started keeping a diet journal this year. Not because I am actually on a diet, but because I wanted to be more aware of what I'm eating. Additionally, I thought it might be nice to see if any patterns emerged in terms of weight loss/gain, sleep patterns, overall health, etc. Simultaneously, I started a 365 project that involved taking a picture of something yummy everyday. I've definitely noticed that as we've entered farmer's market season, my idea of yummy has drastically changed. Gone are the pictures of restaurant food. Now yummy centers around fresh vegetables and the things we are making with them at home.

I've pretty much nailed down a couple of perfect breakfasts and learned that I could eat a spinach salad just about everyday for lunch. Over the past month, I've replaced my daily Diet Coke with a La Croix sparkling water. That alone has been a major feat. I'm finding that since I will allow myself to have a Diet Coke as a treat, I've been going to the movies a lot so, as a treat, I can sip a giant beverage in the dark. But I still feel like I am making progress. It's pretty similar to the way I quit smoking ten years ago, but allow myself to have an occasional one (or two...or three) when I'm enjoying an adult beverage with other adults.

Anyways, the point of this post is that I am trying to eat better, mostly for health reasons. Not being a trained dietician or having a personal nutritionist on staff has left me to try and figure everything out on my own. I've been using the Fooducate App, which is awesome. (So awesome, that I wrote about it this week.) I can definitely credit it for changing some of my shopping habits. At the very least it has made me feel extra guilty when I eat something verified as crap.

I've done a lot of reading and studying and talking and observing and I'm still not sure I've got it all figured out. Portion sizes are tough, and I still find myself "cleaning up" after the kids when they waste food, and snacking on some of the crap that they bring home or convince me to buy them. I think once I get myself under control I'm going to have to really crack down on their eating habits.

OK, if you are still with me...I present to you what I ate today, mostly in pictures. Is it too much? Too little? What am I missing?

I got up early to go swimming, and when I came home I ate a large banana. I showered, then had a giant iced coffee while I made my lunch. By huge, I mean CBBQ cup sized. I used a big splash of coconut milk creamer today, but usually it's the chocolatey or French Vanilla Coffee Mate.

This is my usual breakfast, which I eat when I get to work around 8:30. (Siggi's has about 14g of protein.)



I vary it. Sometimes I cut up half a banana and throw in some cashews, sometimes I eat the blueberry flavor and just add nuts, and sometimes I eat plain with strawberries and bananas and no nuts. In the winter, I replace the yogurt with steel cut oats.



I like to eat lunch around 11:30 so there is no morning snack. Lunch, if I have my way, is spinach (& arugula if I have it) salad with carrots, tomato, peppers, onion, feta cheese, some kind of nuts (walnuts, cashews, sunflower seeds, etc.) , and some form of meat (steak, chicken, pork, shrimp, etc.). Today I didn't have any meat, so I had some quinoa and brown rice salad that Warren made.



Here's a typical meat salad:



I don't usually go crazy on the salad dressing. Since I quit the Diet Coke, I have been nibbling on one square of chocolate after lunch. (I have a few Olive & Sinclair bars stashed in my desk drawer.)

My afternoon snack is something like carrots and hummus, an apple with peanut butter, frozen grapes, or a grapefruit. Today it was a grapefruit. A ate a whole one, like you would an orange. It was a mess. I'll probably go back to the civilized way with a spoon.



When I left work, I met a friend at Otherland's. I really wanted another iced coffee, but I resisted since my sleep pattern has been severely messed up for the past two weeks. When I got home, I was starving. Warren stayed late at work, so I attacked the leftovers. I had some shrimp and peach ceviche I made the other night with the crumbs of some Las Delicias chips.



I was still hungry, so I ate a small bowl of Pirate Booty (!!) while I heated up some leftover Tom Yum soup that Warren made the other night with tofu, mushrooms, and some chicken. I only realized it had chicken in it after I added 5 leftover grilled shrimp.



I was full before I finished, but then I finished anyway.

I thought I'd have a cucumber lemonade popsicle that I made for dessert, but then Jiro gave me a few sips of the chocolate shake my mom got him at Sonic earlier, so I skipped it.

So there you have it. I'd say that today was fairly typical. As you can see, I have a sweet tooth, and am easily tempted by carbs. My mom was here this morning while I was making my lunch and she marveled that I didn't pack crackers or bread. Should I?

Besides the iced coffee and La Croix, I only drank water today. A good amount, I'd say. I usually drink two La Croix, but I never got around to the second one.

LEGO Birthday Party

On Saturday the monkeys went to a LEGO birthday party at the Majors' house. It was so simple, so fun, and so smart, that I just had to share.

First, set up some tables. Second, get out all of the LEGOs. Third, build!




There was some cake eating and a LEGO movie on for those who needed a break, but at the end of the two hours, everyone had created something fabulous to leave with the birthday boy.




I'm totally planning on stealing this idea. However, I think it would be more fun (for me) and challenging (for them) if I had them actually dig through our boxes of LEGOS and try and find all of the pieces to the various sets we have bought over the years. They'd definitely need more than two hours, but I'm okay with that.

Week 7 Camp Report

So last week the boys had their final week of scheduled activities. (We have one more week of summer but it will be fairly unstructured and include a road trip.) When I dropped them off on Monday morning I still hadn't mentioned that half of their day would be at Reading Camp. Turns out it was in the morning and Comic Books were in the afternoon, so I just said, "Oh yeah you have Reading Camp first."

They barely blinked and followed me in to the cafeteria where the other Reading Campers were gathering. I introduced us to the teacher and then they had a seat. I drove to my office reflecting on their action-packed summer. Before week one there was lots of questions, anxiety, complaining, and moaning. I'd say that the nonplussed, go with the flow attitude of Week 7 was proof again that my idea of expanding their horizons was a good one.



Amazingly enough they reported that they liked Reading Camp BETTER than Comic Book Camp and that it was FUN. I asked a lot of questions to try and figure out exactly what went on in reading camp, other than reading, of course, but didn't get much info. At the end of the week I did at least see the fruits of their Comic Book Camp. They each had a portfolio that included a very deatiled, hand drawn comic, word searches, and other coloring pages. Jiro had even created a superhero of his own.

It was really nice to have so many great camps to choose from this year. They made a ton of new friends, and even agreed to sign up for fall soccer at Evergreen Presbyterian. I'm so excited!