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Showing posts with label the teen goes veg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the teen goes veg. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

paging dr. blogspot. paging dr. blogspot, stat.

i know, i know. i shouldn't be letting this ridiculous facebook bullshit get to me. but it is, and i'll tell you why:

i care what people think of me.

i don't like admitting that, because it seems so petty and stupid. although i do believe that most people who insist that they don't care what others think of them actually do, and in fact care quite a lot. but acting as though it doesn't matter is a great way to keep people from seeing too much. obviously, that doesn't apply to everyone - it's just a silly theory i have.

blogging began as a fun thing for me - an easy way to document the ordinary day-to-day activities of my life, as well as what the teen and the bean were up to. i enjoy looking back on posts a year later and reminiscing, and i've also found that it's a great outlet for me to get my thoughts out and work my way through them. sometimes they're pretty personal, a lot of times rather comical, and i've received some great comments and e-mails from readers who offer support, laugh at my antics, and even come to their own realizations about their own lives. so for me, blogging has turned into something that's quite therapeutic.

as i was writing yesterday's post, i came to the conclusion that the reason why i care about others' opinions of me truly stems from all those times that i had to go to a new school, be the new kid, and prove myself all over again to a whole new group of kids who most likely didn't really give a shit whether i befriended them or not.

so although this person on facebook means absolutely nothing to me, his fucktarded posts on an open, public forum questioning and judging my life really, really piss me the fuck off. and as i mentioned yesterday, the whole high school thing is one of the few hot buttons that never fails to get me going.

i was laying on the couch with the sleeping bean last night, playing solitaire on my iPhone and checking e-mails. i clicked on the facebook application (because i'm freaking addicted to that damn thing) and was absolutely floored to find this:

Sorry girl, someone who goes to College for just a year, don't make em' a College Grad.....just get yo' G.E.D. n' you good to go! aint no shame in it, ya know whut I'm sayin?........ :)

and i was LIVID. i was so incensed that i couldn't even take the time to snicker at the absolute irony of the damn post. i'd been polite in my previous reply to this ridiculous person, answered his question truthfully even though i knew i had no reason to justify or explain myself to him, and he couldn't just leave it alone?

i couldn't help it - i popped off with another reply that was a whole lot less polite and a hell of a lot more angry. i pointed out his lack of reading comprehension, spelled out that i'd received a proficiency certificate more than a year before i was scheduled to graduate high school, and the most painful part (for me) - that i'd never claimed to be a college graduate. well, and then i threw in a cute jab about how his writing skills in his posts didn't exactly put him in a position to judge my education background. heh. come on - i had to!

as we were getting ready this morning, i was filling the teen in on the facebook shenanigans. she was just as pissed off as i was about the whole thing, and the conversation continued as we got in the car to head to school. and when i told her that both the high school experience and my lack of a college education were sensitive subjects with me, she looked at me and said "that's totally my dad's fault. i'm sorry, mom."

how much do i love this girl, really? i mean, really - i love how she thinks things through and so often comes up with the right conclusions, or close. when i told her that she had nothing to apologize for, she followed it up with "well, it was mostly because of him that you ended up making those choices, isn't it?"

and she was right. i'd met her dad when i was particularly vulnerable and easily influenced. and i was so in love with him and wanted to do whatever i could to spend time with him that i sacrificed a lot - a whole lot more than i realized back then.

sooooooo...i just de-friended the facebook d-bag. i was hesitant at first to do it, because god knows what he'll post next, but i figure, he's truly nothing. and he made himself look like the idiot with those horrible, want-to-poke-my-own-eyeballs-out-because-he-can't-write posts.

anyway! to end this post on a lighter note, the vegetarian dinners have been...interesting. i made a nice green salad the other night and served it with that trader joe's "chicken" - and let's just say that it's a good thing i left it on the side. because it turned into mollydog's dinner.



it looks like chicken, right? even had the right texture. but even with seasoning, there was no disguising the taste of the stuff. this shit was straight nasty. the hub and the bean spit their bites out, and the teen made faces at it before finally tasting it and then rushing to wash it down with a glass of water. blech.

at least the red lobster cheese biscuits i made were good.



the teen made dessert for us. i'd bought a couple of bags of these:



and she made rice krispies treats with them. the caramel in the marshmallows smelled wonderful, and added a really nice flavor to the krispy treats.



i highly recommend these, if you can find the marshmallows. so yummy!

also at trader joe's, we'd bought this:



i decided to see if i could disguise the fact that it wasn't real meat by putting it in my beloved tater tot casserole. i put it in a skillet to warm it through:



and then assembled the casserole. yes, i ran out of regular tots and used the round ones to finish it up.



i did taste the "meat" first, and while it was noticeably different from regular ground meat, it wasn't that bad. it had the right texture and the flavor was slightly soy sauce-ish (which isn't shocking, considering that it's made from soybeans). and it went over well enough - i didn't even get a chance to take a picture of the finished product before we dished it up. the teen still didn't love it, but the hub and i cleaned our plates. heh.

here's a few bean pics - i laughed as she took one of my reusable grocery bags and made a backpack out of it.



and then she got tired and decided to take a load off and rest a little - in the dog's bed.



way to end this post on a lighter note, yes?

Monday, March 23, 2009

veggin' out

i was happy to see the teen when we picked her up after school on friday. i know i've said it before, but the weeks that she's with her dad just drag, and i so look forward to those fridays when she comes back and brings new life into the house. i miss her so much when she's gone.

as usual, i dragged her with me to run some errands - just quick stuff like picking up the mail and a grocery run. and as i was telling her that i was planning on making chicken tacos for dinner, she gave me a weird look, stopped pushing the cart, and said "mom, i kind of have to tell you something."

all sorts of crazy shit ran through my mind. a new boyfriend? a bad grade at school? she wants to live with her dad full time? what? but i kept my composure and said "sure, babe, what's up?"

she gave me that look again, and said "i decided i want to be a vegetarian."

phew. i was so relieved that it wasn't anything drastic. not to mention, this is something she's said before, but i never really thought she'd do it. and then i thought back over the course of all thirteen years of her life and it made sense - she's never been much of a meat eater to begin with. even when she was a baby, she turned her nose up at anything that had beef or chicken or turkey in it. but at the same time, she didn't really like a lot of veggies, either. and her love of bacon is almost as legendary as mine. that's what had always stopped her before.

and as i was mulling all of this over in my noggin, she's saying "mom, i'm really sorry, i know it's going to be a pain in the butt to make dinner and stuff for me."

awwwww. she'd just decided to cut out meat from her diet, live a healthier lifestyle, and she was worried about inconveniencing me? i love her so much.

i told her not to worry about it for a second. yeah, it'd be a little challenging, but i was totally up for it, and i told her so. plus, the hub's been known to cut red meat out of his own diet for months at a time - he'd be totally on board with this, i just knew it.

and he was, of course. i wasn't shocked in the least. actually, the biggest lame-ass in all of this is me - i'm a complete carnivore and rarely have a meatless meal. i'm not a huge fan of a large variety of vegetables, but neither is the teen. not to mention, like me, she hates beans - which is a major staple and source of protein for those who choose a vegetarian lifestyle. we're both gonna have to make some adjustments and open our minds (and mouths) a little here.

so now, my big challenge is scouring the interwebz for tasty vegetarian meals that we can all enjoy. i'm hoping to find a nice variety of entrees that aren't always pasta or salad, which is what seems to be the typical dish. like, when you go to a wedding or something, and there's a vegetarian meal available, isn't it always something boring and blah like pasta primavera or spaghetti with marinara sauce? ho-hum.

wish me luck. this is gonna be interesting.

an amtrak adventure story

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