Food dudette

On thishereblog post, I am going to talk about food. 

I've lost 20 pounds since November, mostly due to dental work, a retainer that I hate wearing, and not eating in public spaces or around people because of said dental work and retainer. 

I'm all about the weight loss, but I think it needs to be done in a healthy way. I don't know that losing a front tooth and having to take nausea medication to wear a retainer is the healthiest of ways that weight could have come off, but it is what it is and here we are five months and 20 pounds later.

That being said, I've been trying to eat more. 

Last night, I made honey garlic lemon salmon, rice and veggies. This morning I woke up like a true geriatric millennial and had avocado toast. 

Here is the recipe for the salmon that I found on Tik Tok. The recipe for the toast is as follows: Smush an avocado with salt, pepper, crushed red pepper flakes and lemon or lime juice, spread that magic on a piece of toast, top with cherry or grape tomatoes that are cut in half.

And that's it, kids. The salmon is one of the best things that I've ever cooked. One minor adjustment I would make is to substitute lemon juice for orange juice. I am not a chef or even that good of a cook, I just think orange would taste better.

Maybe?

Anyway, all is well in Monicaland at the moment. I'm trying to cook more, drink more water, see my family and the kids more, and just do everything in general more these days. 

I don't want to brag, I don't want to boast. I always tell them, I like toast. Toast!

One of the best things I've ever cooked. I ate every single bite of this salmon. 

Blood, sweat and tears...over Uno.

Picture this: There are six people sitting around an old kitchen table in western Kansas. There's a curly haired kid who is my favorite curly haired child ever, there's the youngest, who is my favorite youngest ever, and there's a pretty awesome red-haired kid who shares a middle name with me.

Each kid is literally my favorite kid on the planet.

My parents and I are also there, and we're all sitting at the table, getting ready to play some card games. I mentioned casually to my parents that my blog is 10 years old this year. (Happy birthday, blog!)

A few minutes later, we are deep into playing a game of Uno. A great family trait that we have is that we don't like to lose — the curly haired kid has cheated at card games since she was three years old, all to avoid losing.

So we're playing this vicious game of Uno, with 9-year-old twins and a 7-year-old, and suddenly, the baby starts crying. I did not see what happened, but she was hysterical. Whatever happened was a very big deal to her and she was sobbing. I invited her into my lap for some sympathy, and she gladly accepted.

The sandy-haired baby crawled into my lap and cried into my chest. I patted her back, rocked her, and told her it was going to be okay, and then I asked her what happened.

It turns out that middle kid, the curly haired one, punched her in the mouth. Over Uno.

(Full disclosure: I did not see the mouth punch. Middle child claimed it was an accident and not a punch, but instead just a "poke.")

I pulled down the baby's lip and saw blood. Over a game of Uno?

The baby got over it pretty quickly and want back to her seat, which was beside her curly-haired sister. Each time it was the baby's turn, she asked who went after her. Then, she grinned this little evil grin and spent the rest of the Uno game giving her big sister all of the 'Draw 2' and 'Draw 4' cards, and also some 'Skip' cards thrown in there for good measure.

At one point, middle curly haired child did not play a blue card. It was at that point that I asked her: "You have a million cards. How do you not have a single blue one?"

Middle kid was not having it and ended up with a million cards. There were dirty looks and attitudes and cards thrown everywhere.

She was ticked and the baby got her revenge.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll run out of things to write about, 10 years after I started writing on my blog. And then my family gets together and there's blood, sweat and tears during an Uno game, and then I realize that I'll probably never stop writing.

Also, please note that the red-haired child is introverted like her aunt and stayed out of the drama.

And for the next game that we played, the youngest one and the middle child did not sit next to each other.

Vicious. 😆

At the end of the night my parents asked me if I was going to write about this.

How can I not?

(Please note that all the kids in this story are fine and lived through it with no permanent injuries.)

On Church

Me: Hey Dad, I want to watch ESPN College Gameday.

Dad: I knew you’d finally get smart one day.

🤣

Other quotes: 

- He looks like a desperate man. 

- His heart is on fire for North Carolina basketball. 

❤️‍🔥