Lesbian love affair...Heeeeey, get a Snuggie!

111.2  O.  M.  G.

That's what the New Digital is reading this morning after two days of "eating clean" according to Jackie Warner.  And I have been waking up AWAKE for the last two days too -- that's weird.  Is it all the diet?  Can't say for sure, but I've been working on this for almost a year now with not much to show in the way of results and I'm finally seein' em.  So, I think I'm having my own little lesbian love affair with Jacki Warner and her book This is Why You're Fat and How to Get Thin Forever.  Jackie shares my view that sugar is Satan's supplement, and her diet takes my love of eggs to places even I have not dared to go.  I ate like a pig yesterday trying to comply with her eating instructions and still lost weight.  Love, love. 

The secret seems to be protein, oatmeal and fruits/veggies.  Not to mention water.  That's obviously over-simplified, but reading her book finally motivated my ass to stop eating sugar and flour (although I thought I was already kind of not doing that) and get serious about my fruits and veggies.  Plus the new super-blender (the Waring Extreme) blends up a smoothie like nobody's business.  And who knew that milk had so much sugar in it?  I thought it was SUCH a healthy drink, and it turns out that, maybe not so much.  See!  Even after a year of searching and researching, I've still got a lot to learn.  I will be shopping Sprouts later today and bringing home a big ol' bunch of organic fruits and veggies, instead of my usual stuff that is maybe not too unhealthy.  I'm kind of excited about this.  (Hey, maybe I'll get some beans for the new pressure cooker, which is working out great, BTW.)

And speaking of excited -- the new Snuggie commercials are out!!  "Heeeeeey, get a Snuggie!"  (To the Macarena tune -- I don't know how to spell Macarena, but you know what I mean.)  As much as I totally HATE Snuggies (Why yes, I'd love a monk's robe in cheap faux zebra fleece, and what a great idea to wear this thing out in public!), I have to admit their new jingle is memorable (ripping off something that already sticks in the brain like PB to the roof of your mouth helps), and the atmosphere is festive -- they're pretty much dancing in their Snuggies now, they're so happy.  Jee-zus.  You have to hand it to the Snuggie people -- they must be making a snugly Snuggie fortune.

But I won't need a Snuggie this winter, because my ass is going to be so skinny I'ma want to show it off in something like, oh, I don't know, real clothess

A sootable ending for the GS Buddy Burners and on to new HEALTHY cooking adventures!

Well, since my last blog, like a YEAR ago, I swear, I have tested, used, and discarded the old Girl Scout Buddy Burners and vagabond stoves that I made for camping.  They worked great, the Cowgirl Casserole was better than expected (think baked beans with pork sausage over biscuits), but the incredible layers of SOOT that covered everything that the buddy burner touched were enough to make me content with a short visit to Girl Scout-hood, and the burners are being recycled in favor of a neater, cleaner, portable charcoal grill with its very own carrying bag (thank you Amazon).  It really was fun, though, and  big thanks to my camping divas for humoring my lame-assed backyard camping dinner.

So now that THAT'S over with....I bought two pressure cookers!!!  Yeah.  Because my Mother Earth Newsletter had an article about the wonders of pressure cookers.  And I gotta admit, they are pretty freakin' cool.  They arrived last night, and I've already made rice in three minutes (really) and leek and potato soup in 4 minutes.  About to open up the soup.  Wow!  Now that's some steam.  And the soup is delicious.  Hmmmm.  Julie and Julia WATCH OUT.  I'm thinking Lorna and Tracy, or, because I'm egomaniacal, maybe Tracy and Lorna.  Because I also bought Pressure Perfect by Lorna Sass.  And so far, I'm very pleased.  Will report back after paiella adventure next Sunday. 

Meanwhile, the New Digital is reading 114.8 (cuz it likes point eight) after Bowl One of leek and potato soup and a 3.5-hour work-out week.  Ena and I are Bringin' It to our body parts one hour at a time MWF and then I Skype yoga with my sister whenever time permits.  So, no, I'm about 2 lbs short of my initial 10 lb weight-loss goal, but I like to think the muscle is creeping up on the fat.  And once it cools off, I'm back to walking in the mornings, and BYE-BYE back fat.

I'm off to read my new Why You Are Fat book by Jackie Warner with a glass of champagne.  TTFN.

Old sweat(s).

Well, bust out some sparkly striped short shorts and call me Richard Simmons (and while I'm thinking of little Richard, what kind of extra-sweet, bad-ass Halloween costume would that be?), cuz I sweated off like 3 pounds last weekend.  No, I didn't actually work out.  I worked outside.  In my storage shed to be exact.  Yes, I selected Saturday, when it was a full-on sunny 110F, to remove EVERYTHING (well, almost everything) from my garden shed/enormous wooden oven, and replace my old crap-I-threw-together shelves with new, properly-constructed bull-nose composite shelving that won't buckle under the weight of all the stuff I can't throw away.  Fortunately, I had the assistance and additional sweat power of EXTRA-GOOD FRIEND (who deserves a serious merit badge of some kind for this) Patrick.  I could not have re-shelved the shed without him.  (Well, honestly, I probably COULD have, but it would have taken two weeks and involved lots of cussing, and I would have found an excuse to re-do it half-assed.)  It was seriously frickin' hot and exhausting and I wound up in bed at 9 pm.  But the good news is, that I was 3 pounds lighter on Sunday!!! Seriously, I lost THREE POUNDS just sweating in the shed one day (it was like 8 hours, but still, just one day).  I went from my 115.4-pound rut to 112.4!  I wish I'd known this trick earlier -- I could have met my 10-pound goal in half a week!  So now I'm thinking, I should turn the shed into my own personal sweat lodge/spa shed.  Some rocks, a little fire, and some water for steam, and I'm good to go.  I could probably charge admission.  Tracy's Sweet Sweat Shed Spa.  (Say that three times, real fast.)

If you see smoke and hear drums and chanting, come on back and sweat with me.  It'll be fun.  Really.  I've still got some organizing to do, so you might have to help sort through years of sprinkler heads, fertilizer, and pool hose, but that's fun, right?  Just ignore the lawn mower.

P.S.  I was already back up to 113.5 by Monday morning.  So sweat loss maybe not totally effective.  Perhaps I should combine it with a Pleasant Peppermint colon cleanse?

P.P.S.  Now that I think about it, I may have been too tired to eat dinner after slaving in the shed, so that might have contributed to the weight loss.

P.P.P.S.  And speaking of sweats, while cleaning out the shed, I made an amazing archeological find -- my old Shawnee Mission West Vikettes (yes, it's a female Viking or something) high school drill team sweats!  What a riot.  (Go Shawn-ee Miss-ion, fight for vic-tor-y....)  These vintage sweats are THIRTY-ONE YEARS OLD!!!  Yes, they are.  And still a vivid hideous yellow that was supposed to be "gold."  Mom must have used color-safe bleach and cold water, because these bad boys are still neon.  (This vintage-style photo doesn't do the old "gold" justice, so I'll have to take a regular photo of these [maybe even ON my person] and post that later.)  Why TH was I keeping them?  Who knows.  But I worked up the nerve to try them on Monday morning.  Thankfully, they were not only unnaturally yellow, they were also ENORMOUS on me when I was the littlest 90-pound Vikette (Julie Pearce, totally different story), so the top fits fine (still baggy, even after being narrowed back in 1979) and my ass just barely fits into the bottoms.  I'm so proud.  And now that I've dug them up again, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to throw them away.  Again.  Suggestions on what to do with the crazy yellow Vikettes sweats welcome.  (West is the BEST, so show all the rest!  Come on Vikings win to-ni-i-ight!)

Exploring: the relationship between beans and camping.

To boldly go where only squirrels and elk have gone before requires a set of very LARGE number 10 tin cans.  And that means beans.  Beans, baby, beans.  My desire to relive Girl Scout H.E.A.V.E.N. (my favorite thing was making an egg and toast on a buddy burner and a No. 10 tin can stove) necessitated a visit to Costco, where I scored gallon-sized cans of green beans, tomato sauce, ranch-style beans, and chilli.  What could possibly be campier?  Not much.

Being incapable of waiting for a legitimate occassion to serve this food to a small army, I immediately busted out the green beans.  Because I LIKE green beans.  Saute some onions in there, and you've got a meal.  A meal that not everyone appreciates, but it works for me.  Add some bacon, and I think anyone would be pretty happy.  But I didn't.  I'm a frickin' saint.  The green beans were tasty, healthy, inoffensive, and really unobjectionable on every level.  They lasted like 5 days and I think I lost a pound.  And I got my first camping "stove."  I removed BOTH ends of the can, bought a cast-iron diffuser-type thing to use as a top/burner for my sweet new red-enamel coffee pot and my cast-iron frying pan/deep dish combo, and I've got a kick-ass stove top for one of my new buddy burners.  In theory, because I haven't tried any of this yet.  But now that I think of it, doesn't it seem like a GREAT idea to try frying an egg on this rig in the morning?  Let's let that idea marinate and I'll let you know.

No. 10 can number 2, was an inoccuous tomato sauce that went onto some penne and will be seen on some chicken and rice with onion soup this weekend.  Too boring to merit much discussion.  I made a traditional tin can stove with this baby -- 3"-wide flap on the bottom and 5 triangle bottle-opener vents near the top.  I can cook my egg directly on the top of this bad boy.  But will it last?  Who cares, I can always buy another can of green beans.

No. 10 can number 3.  Now here's where we run into a bit of a thing.  This can was "ranch-style" pinto beans.  The bastards.  It's beans with a sauce composed mainly of beef fat.  What.  The.  Hell.  And the result (even after draining off the fat sauce) is something a little less severe than, but similar to, brussel sprouts and cauliflower mixed with alcohol in the rain while camping.  It's less severe, but of apparently limitless duration.  Lola and I are using the new tower fan in the bedroom.

And that leaves me with No. 10 can number 4.  Chilli.  (Do that whistle from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly here.)  Chilli.  I'll let you know when I work up the nerve to open up this can of whoop-my-ass.

Maybe I'll save it for camping.  :-)