burnt toast life

Massacre at Harding Farm

Based on the title, and because I’m not the most adept at suspenseful openers, I’m just going to say it: the chickens were murdered. Well, not all of them. Just three of them. That leaves one confused, lonely hen that we found wandering the driveway in a state of shock (not sure if chickens can register shock, but if they can, that’s what she was).

We went on vacation last week and of course it was relaxing. However, I realized something about myself. While I did not face work stress or home stress or regular daily stress, I managed to create vacation stress. Rather than just live and let live, I found myself worrying about who was doing what and at what time, when I should be ready by, how long I should stay at the beach, whether I should pack a turkey sandwich or peanut butter and fluff, etc. You know – big decisions. It’s not that my problems were monumental, it’s just that my poor brain doesn’t know how to function without at least a modicum of anxiety. In the absence of actual drama, I somehow manufacture faux drama.

One thing that was actually worth worrying about came in the form of text around mid-week. I had a friend checking in on the animals at home (cat, turtle, fish, chickens), and she found an ominous pile of feathers in the front yard, which she reported to me with a sad face emoticon. She said that she did not see any chickens wandering about.

We got home and immediately set off looking for our flock. It didn’t take long to discover the aforementioned feathers in the front yard… and then the second pile near the neighbor’s yard… and also the third pile near a pine tree. A quick stop at the neighbor’s confirmed that nary a rooster crow had been heard since Tuesday (it was then Friday). Dismayed, we walked up and down the driveway until we found our lone surviving hen, who turned her head at us inquisitively as if to ask, “Where were you? Where were you while my family was being murdered?” Eric quickly gathered her up into the coop and locked it up tightly. The giant food and water feeders we purchased recently take up half the floor space of the coop, serving as a cruel reminder to all that we had and all that we lost.

all that remains

Obviously, free ranging has its limitations. Eric tried to make me feel better by justifying that this would have happened even if we had been home since we weren’t corralling them at night, but I would imagine that we would have noticed they were being plucked off one by one and locked them up sooner. Really, we should have kept them in the coop full time once the first hen went missing weeks ago. But we loved seeing them strutting around the yard, hiding in the front bushes, perching on the wood pile out back, and creating a little haven in the dry creek bed beside the driveway. The neighbors also enjoyed them immensely, saying it warmed their hearts when they found chickens wandering around their backyard.

Silver linings: we still have one hen. The three roosters that we gave away to the farm are still living (hopefully). And the ones that we lost had very good, albeit short, chicken lives. They roamed freely, eating bugs and ruling the yard. They were not restricted to the tiny cages of giant eggs factories. If it were me, I would prefer a short and free life to a long and imprisoned one. However, these could all just be justifications of a woefully inept caregiver.

The next steps involve finding a chicken friend for Diana Ross (Get it? She will survive?) [EDIT: Diana Ross DID NOT, I repeat DID NOT sing “I Will Survive.” Shame on the writer for not doing her research. The hen’s name shall be Gloria.] and then starting the whole process over again in the spring, if my uncle allows it. Maybe I shouldn’t tell him this little tale. To my lost chickens, I will just say this: I’m sorry, and I hope you can forgive me.

fighting the good fight

First, just allow me to apologize. I am forever one step behind when it comes to trending articles, videos, fads, etc. You can hear me saying things like, “Wow! So how about that Zumba?” two years after everyone else started doing Zumba. Maybe I live under a rock. Maybe I don’t watch the news often enough. Maybe it’s all of these things. But despite this delay, I almost always eventually figure out what everyone is talking about/loving/hating/eating/watching.

That was a rather lengthy preamble to introduce an amazing article (and yes, it’s from 2009). I stumbled across this gem from columnist Laura Munson. It’s a piece she did for The New York Times entitled “Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear.” I think everyone should read it. But if you don’t, the story in short is that after 20 years of marriage her husband requested a divorce, claiming that he didn’t love her anymore. Rather than rage, cry, become vindictive, or shut down completely, she chose to not believe him. She spent a summer giving him all the space he needed to be unreliable and unhusband-like, all the while remaining stoic and putting up with his shenanigans like a saint. In the end, they stayed together.

I can completely relate to this piece. No, I have not yet been married for half a lifetime. I don’t know the exquisite pain that must go along with hearing those words from your partner’s mouth after building a life together. I do, however, adopt the same tactic when it comes to marital spats that Laura Munson suggests. Rather than fight back, I fight passively. This was not always the case.

The absolute hands-down worst fight of our entire relationship occurred on August 20, 2010. Whoever claimed that the first year of marriage is the hardest wasn’t kidding. It doesn’t matter what we were fighting about on that evening – what matters is that a series of smaller fights over the previous three months culminated into a spectacular volcano of pure anger that lasted well into the next morning. I should probably mention that we were married that May. And while that fight was raging I truly believed that our marriage was over.

Many men turn into their father. My husband has plenty in common with his dad, it’s true. But mostly he is exactly like his mom (sorry, Cindy). When he is worked up and combative, he tends to say things that aren’t true. My biggest mistake for those first three months was believing those things. So when he said things like, “I hate you. This is terrible. You’re the worst thing on Earth. I’m leaving you,” (um, I have cleaned this up considerably. You don’t want to know what he really said) I fought back. Then he fought back. And then the fights became something out of a terrible, terrible soap opera.

The secret to fighting with him, I finally realized, was to believe absolutely nothing that came out of his mouth. Or even to believe the exact opposite. Because not only does he not remember half the things he spews while going off in a fit of fury, he also doesn’t mean them. Ever. It was a hard lesson to learn and sometimes it’s a hard lesson to practice. It’s a lesson that Laura Munson took to heart on a much, much larger scale. I’d like to think I would have the courage and strength to do the same.

I have no idea if this method is considered “healthy.” It’s sort of like refusing to negotiate with terrorists, I think, and in this scenario his dramatic proclamations are the terrorists. By denying them validation and praying they go away quietly, I am weeding out the truths from the exaggerations. I am separating the real arguments from the overinflated petty bullshit.

We still fight all the time. It’s part of what makes us us and it goes hand in hand with a passionate relationship that I can’t live without. But now the knock-down, drag out fights of legend are fewer and farther between. I no longer live in fear that our next fight will be the end because learning how to fight properly has instilled a sense of security in me. I don’t know how, but so far it’s working.

Of course, he definitely just read this entire post, so he’s on to me now. I’ll let you know how it’s going in three months.

calorie free living

Tonight’s meal was inspired by kgbdeals.com, or more specifically, my employer. I could not believe my good fortune when the Miracle Noodle deal landed on my desk. Calorie free, carb free noodles? Could it be? Is it possible? And more importantly… how have I been missing out for so long?

My diet obsession since finishing Insanity has ebbed and flowed. One day I would manage to eat nothing but a smoothie and some diet iced tea, while the next I guiltily stopped at Wawa for breakfast. And lunch. And even dinner. Ok, I’m addicted to Wawa. So kill me.

But this… the very idea that I could eat an entire bowl of something, that I could trick my body into thinking it was eating yet still level out as though I was eating nothing at all – this was a revolution. This was going to change my entire universe.

My two dozen packs of Miracle Noodles arrived in a very heavy box this past Saturday. At first the weight of the box perplexed me. I had expected tightly coiled and dry noodles, Ramen-style. Miracle Noodles are quite the opposite. Each 7 oz. serving arrives in an individual packet, floating around in a gel-like substance that is far from appetizing.

Miracle Noodles - before!

Not to be discouraged, I planned tonight’s meal and included the following:

Miracle Noodles - after!

 

Miracle Noodles – 0 calories

1/2 cup of zucchini, sauteed in oil and garlic – 30 calories

1 packet of chicken soup flavoring – 10 calories

1/2 salmon fillet – 75 calories

It was amazing. No, it wasn’t delicious; it was palatable. The noodles were kind of slimy. But it was food. It filled me up, and my entire dinner was 115 calories. Granted, this is not the kind of meal you can eat every night. So what? I am in love with these noodles, and there’s nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.

scaredy dog

Why, hello! It’s been so long. Long enough to acquire a few more animals, of course. So here’s the current headcount:

2 dogs

8 chickens

5 fish

1 turtle

1 cat

One of these days I’m going to start charging people admission to come over to the Harding Family Petting Zoo. It’s a grand old time.

Anyway, we got this cat. A rescued, 3-year-old, no-one-wants-me-anymore-and-my-owner-is-moving away cat (who is fat). I saw him for approximately 3 seconds on the day he came home before he skittered off to  hide in the basement for 5 days straight. We did not catch a glimpse of him for that long, but knew he was alive simply because the litter box was still being used. He was rightfully a little apprehensive about the dogs, who were joyously curious and scared the hell out of him. Now that some time has passed the cat (who we have named Clembough, Clemmie for short as a nod to Groupon’s $1,000 baby-naming deal which may or may not have been a total publicity stunt) cautiously comes up from the basement, pausing at the top of the stairs and meowing loudly for a little attention, please. The dogs oblige immediately, which causes him to flee back down the stairs to his secret lair. The only time he is comfortable going as far as the kitchen is when he hops onto the kitchen table, which is more than a little bit gross.

Since he has taken up residence in the basement, we put his food and water down there. Unfortunately, the dogs can reach it. And since Ryder is afraid of his own water, he is delighted to be able to steal the cat’s non -threatening water.

Allow me to explain. Ryder is what you may call a scaredy-dog. I love Ryder. In fact, of all these animals, he is by far my #1 favorite. But he is also a purebred Golden Retriever and inbred enough to be a bit dumb. We found one of those continuous water dispensers at a yard sale for $3 and picked it up, thrilled that we didn’t drop $40 for the one I had been eyeing at Target. The dogs took to it just fine – until that horrifying moment when the 3 gallon water jug made a GLUG GLUG noise and traumatized Ryder for life. Now he refuses to drink from it, approaching it only when I stand beside him and stick my finger into the water, indicating that it is in fact NOT a giant monster poised to attack him. Since I don’t always stand there with my finger in the water, he tries to find alternate sources for thirst quenching. Every time I take him outside, he drinks rainwater from the lip of an overturned pond that’s waiting to be installed in the backyard. He noses his way into our showers every morning to lick the suds in the tub. And he steals the cat’s water from the tiny dish. The whole thing is maddening.

I know, I should just give him back his old (non-scary) watering dish and stop torturing the dog. But wouldn’t that just be pandering to his insecurity? Giving credit to inane neuroses? Ok, so he’s just a dog. But Bird has no problem with it, and it GLUG GLUGGED at him, too. I’m at a loss here. Poor scaredy dog.

 

Naughty Bird & the stinky chickens

If I ever start a band, that’s what I’m naming it.

This week was interesting, to say the least. It culminated with me on my hands and knees last night, furiously scrubbing chicken shit off my dining room walls and cursing the chicken coop man who refuses to return phone calls.

Here’s what happened: the chicks got too big for their cardboard box, and around that same time Eric stopped cleaning out their cardboard box. This resulted in a filthy, smelly, chicken filled cardboard box caked in excrement on my dining room table. Not cool. Last garbage day I made the decision that I could not, under any circumstances, continue life for one more day with that pit of despair contaminating the air of my home. The box got tossed, but the chickens remained. I had to find a quick solution.

I should also mention that I found someone on craigslist who sells beautiful, hand-constructed chicken coops for $250. This is a fantastic bargain considering Green Acres wants $700+ and the materials to build one would probably cost $200 alone (not to mention the manual labor, time spent, and so on). The dude answered the first time I called but hasn’t since. Hence, the homeless chickens were relocated to the dog crate.

The problem with that solution, of course, was that we no longer had a functioning dog crate. So at first we let Bird run free, a privilege that Ryder earned a few weeks ago. He thanked us by peeing on the bed (daily), chewing my glasses beyond recognition, eating one of Eric’s expensive tools, and eventually pooping on the bed. Clearly this was a bad plan.

Someone had suggested that we close him in the bathroom instead. This turned out to be a worse idea.

The yellowing linoleum that came with the house, while ugly, was perfectly functional. Now we have half a floor missing, which looks quite ghetto if you ask me. Bird also managed to chew through 2 bath towels, 3 rolls of toilet paper, and a very soft and comfortable bath mat that we got as a wedding gift. He was just about to start work on my bathrobe when we got home.

As angry as we were at Bird, this whole fiasco did force us to take action – quickly. Eric found someone else on craigslist with a smaller, “transitional” coop for just $35. We spent last night cleaning out the layer of solidified bird droppings that had formed in the bottom of the dog crate in the space of just a week. It was a grand time. The mess in my dining room was epic, but now it’s cleaned up and smells pretty and the chickens are outside! Yay! They love their new home and I love that because of a naughty Bird, the stinky chickens are officially where they belong.

finally, a home

turn off the faucet

Today was mildly pleasant at work. To clarify: most days I enjoy my basic job function. But there is one major drawback. It affects every minute of my day in an all-consuming way that’s impossible to ignore.

It is freezing.

I don’t mean, “Oh, they set the temperature a little low.” I mean that every single day of the year, from January 1st through December 31st, there is a constant icy cold stream of air steadily blowing from the moment I step in the door until the moment I leave. It is relentless.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Most people wear their winter coats for the entire workday. I’ve seen everything from fingerless gloves (for easier typing, of course) to floor length blankets with sleeves, scarves, hats, thick socks, and year-round cable knit sweaters. Sleeveless shirts and bare legs in the summer is a laughable concept. You might as well strip naked and spend the day in a walk-in freezer.

So why? If it’s so cold, why don’t they turn on the heat (or at the very least… turn down the air)? Poor building planning is the short answer. The offices in the building are windowless and small, and seem to have been added on as an afterthought. They have terrible ventilation and therefore cause their inhabitants to swelter, even while the rest of the employees chip icicles from their chins. And as you may imagine, the people in the offices carry a little more clout than the lowly cubicle workers. So no matter how many times I email the facilities manager with desperate pleas for a temperature boost attached to pictures of the arctic Tundra, the constant frigid blast continues day in and day out.

Today, however, was a breakthrough. Someone who sits close to me unearthed a space heater from an empty office and turned it on full blast. The air conditioning tried its best to keep us in our frozen state, but that little heater won out and provided a cocoon of warmth that allowed me to shed a layer, stop shivering, and actually be a little more productive (thawed out fingers have that effect).

The whole thing reminds me of something my dad used to say: “We’re too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet.” That has always resonated with me. I prefer solving the root of a problem rather than constantly cleaning up the aftermath, which is why when other coworkers share their keep-warm tricks I often exclaim, “But why don’t they just turn off the air conditioning? It’s snowing outside.”

I don’t know the solution, nor do I have the power to “shut off the faucet” in this situation. As with most offices, the thermostat is literally kept under lock and key. But I am eternally grateful for that little space heater that gave me hope again.

Chickenworld: the opposite of China

This is a sad post. All other burnt toast sympathizers should abandon it now.

Still with me? I warned you. Ok, here goes.

In our attempt to create what can only be classified as the Harding Family Farm, we adopted 8 chicks. In fact, I’ve been meaning to write about them for quite some time, but then they got really ugly. When we first got them they looked like this:

"I'm so cute!"

Now they look like this:

"I'm pretty awkward."

We had toyed around with the idea of getting chickens for two reasons. First, the notion of having fresh eggs was appealing. Second, it sounded cool. Now, Eric was definitely the instigator behind this whole plan. If I’m being completely honest it was one of those ideas that I hoped would go away and never come back. It’s not that I didn’t want chickens – it’s just that I assumed (correctly) that they would be more of a hassle than we were bargaining for and we were probably romanticizing the notion of owning them.

Then my uncle sent an email saying that his children had embarked on a 4H project hatching chicks from eggs. At the end of it they planned to donate the chicks to a farm. Unfortunately or fortunately for me, they wound up coming home with us this past Easter Sunday.

Obviously we didn’t know the genders, though we crossed our fingers for 7 girls and 1 boy. Sadly, the odds were against us. As the weeks passed it became clear that we had 4 girls and 4 boys. Not the worst outcome, but not what we were hoping for either. And unlike China, the boys are next to impossible to get rid of.

No one wants male chickens. All you need is one. If you keep more than one, they will fight to the death (so I’ve been told). So what do you do with them? I can’t figure it out. I called a family friend with a farm who sounded delighted that I wanted to give away chickens until I mentioned the gender. “Well, I don’t want males. I need layers,” he explained. So what the hell do people do with the men?!

There are different types of chickens and the kind we have are meant for egg-laying, not for eating. Apparently they aren’t tasty and tender. So now I’m stuck with 3 male chickens who no one wants and who will fight each other into a bloodbath of rooster carnage in a few short months. I’m really at a loss here. Plus, I feel so terrible for them that I can’t even go into the dining room where their cardboard box resides. It’s totally out of sight and partially out of mind on this one.

So my question is this – does anyone want 3 awkward-looking and not delicious male chickens? Free delivery.

Totally fit now (sort of)

As the Insanity 2-month full body assault ends this week, I have a few moments to reflect. Reflect on how much stronger I am, how much more endurance I have and how I still don’t fit in those damn jeans.

I figured it was going to impossible to stick with the program. I figured I would give up at some point and wonder, “What if?” I never imagined I would actually do the whole thing and not get the results I wanted. Improbable!

Oh sure, I got results. I can do more push ups than ever before, I can run without dying, I can jump up and down for 50 minutes straight and smile the whole way though. But who cares? I mean, when’s the last time anyone asked anyone to drop down and do 50 push-ups? (In an office, I mean. Not in the army).

I can feel my muscles, they’re rock hard. The problem is that they’re hidden under this stubborn layer of extra stuff (I refuse to utter the f-word, but that’s totally what it is) and I can’t get to them. I think it has something to do with all that Easter candy and that 5 lb. bag of Hot Tamales that Kevin brought into the home. Those things are like crack to me. And I’m talking about the Mike & Ike candy Hot Tamales, not actual tamales. I’m sure those are much more low cal.

So what now? I finish this thing on Sunday and then… start over? Will that even help? And let’s say I do manage to swap out my crack-laced Hot Tamales for carrots and celery sticks. How long does it take for the muscles to disinegrate or whatever they do? These are just questions I have no answer for. I think the short answer is that in the grand scheme of weight loss and body sculpting, what you eat is far more important than what you do. At least it is for me and my shoddy metabolism. So rather than celebrating and photo taking on the 6th of May, I’ll be sighing and repeating. It’s very, very frustrating.

But in other news, I’m one year closer to 30 as of Sunday! That’s really exciting. It probably sounds like I’m being facetious, but I’m not. My mom always said her 30s were her best years. So I’m looking forward to being older and wiser but still not wrinkly and gray. And you’ll never guess what I have planned for the weekend – eating! Lots and lots of eating! I think I may have found the root of my problem here.

Bird is the word

The girl who doesn’t like dogs seems to have adopted another dog. And if she would have stayed at the SPCA one second longer, she probably would have come home with 5 more. That place is burnt toast central.

Bird came into our lives in a roundabout way. My dear friend Emily sent the below picture with no descriptive text.

This is Bird.

Side note: this is the same Emily who sent a photo of another very adorable pup a few weeks ago who was gone before I could answer. So I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

We went to meet Bird last Sunday and fell. in. love. For some reason when I said “Jack Russell terrier” to anyone, they became alarmed. “Those dogs are crazy” was all I kept hearing. Well, he is crazy, I’ll admit that. But he’s crazy just like Ryder, so he fits in well around here.

Sunday and Monday were a blur of anticipation and nerves. Apparently, Bird had sparked quite a few inquiries and we weren’t the only family interested. It was such a different experience than getting Ryder, where we just said “Yes, we want the dog.” Five minutes later, we had a dog. Easy.

For some reason the SPCA was obsessed with us having a fenced in yard. It was just really strange that they were so picky over unwanted animals – the whole application process surprised me. I figured we were doing them a huge favor by taking the dog off their hands, but then I suppose it makes sense to screen potential owners. These animals deserve the very best homes. Anyway, Bird was being fostered at Leader of the Pack in Kuhnsville. The owner there, Lisa, is amazing, and long story short she recommended us over another family even though she knew the other family personally. She was very impressed with the way Ryder and Bird played together when they met.

This may sound strange, but I could tell these two crazies were meant to be brothers. They just have the same… face. Maybe it’s the look in their eyes. While the transition has been a little bumpy (not for Bird, mostly for a jealous attention-seeking Ryder), they are already having a blast hanging out together. At this very moment, Ryder is sharing his favorite bone with Bird. OK, so Bird stole it. Whatever. They’re cute.

Sharing so nicely

Insanely doing INSANITY

I have held off on posting about Insanity because frankly, I didn’t know if I could stick with it. Now here I am on Day 23 and finally ready to say that I will not give up/die from exertion. Either of those things would have happened already… and they didn’t.

I must be insane.


For those of you not acquainted with the late night infomercial circuit, Insanity is an intense 60-day workout program that promises a better body by torturing you with 6 days a week of sadistic cardio workouts. The program was designed for people dissatisfied with their workouts who wanted to take things to the next level – and quickly. So basically, it was made for fit people who wanted to be insanely fit. As a couch potato who literally went from never working out to attempting this ridiculous regimen, it’s fair to say that it was a bit of a shock to my system. A bit.

The first three days I couldn’t walk. I mean that literally. If I sat down at work and let my muscles get cold, standing up to take trips to the bathroom became a lurching, Frankenstein-like freak show that prompted coworkers to ask if I had seriously injured my leg/foot/ankle. “Just Insanity,” I had to mumble while hobbling by. The second week was much better. Much better meaning that I was able to walk without any disclaimers – but it still hurt like hell.

The program is set up to include measurements, weigh ins, and a fit test every 15 days. After the first 15 days I assumed I would have reached my goals already. I mean, putting yourself through that kind of intensity should result in super fast results, right? Wrong. While I did lose inches (I think 4 overall and mostly in the boob area, of course), I looked exactly the same. Oh, and I lost exactly 1 pound. I know what you’re thinking: muscle weighs more than fat. Blah, blah, blah. But the reason that I’m doing this at all is because I’m sick and tired of not fitting in my cute jeans. I hate being “that girl” that gains weight after marriage, even if the marriage part had nothing to do with it. It’s the damn sitting-at-a-desk-all-day job. And maybe chocolate, just a little bit.

Anyway, I assumed that my body would be whipped into shape in no time. I was even considering posting pictures at every milestone since the program makes you take those horribly embarrassing “before” shots. At 15 days I was discouraged. Now at almost 30 days, things are looking up.

Almost overnight I noticed how much stronger I feel. My flexibility has increased dramatically and I’m finally starting to notice a difference in the mirror (though I doubt anyone else will yet). I have given myself a strict “no scale” rule except for milestone days, so I don’t know about weight loss. I don’t care about the number at all, I just need to slide my butt into those goal jeans. And that will definitely deserve a picture post.

So that’s where I am. Without doing it intentionally, it seems that I scheduled so that the final day of Insanity falls on my birthday. Fun, right? I have heard rumors that the second month is when the real work begins, which is a ridiculous concept if you’ve ever attempted the first month. Even with my improved physical condition I can only make it through 85-90% of the workout (and trust me, that’s a real accomplishment). So we shall see. At least I look forward to doing it every morning and feel even better after doing it. Now if I can just get Eric to stop making fun of me while I’m jumping around like an idiot…