Edgy Mama

My column for Mountain Xpress this week examines the stresses of end-of-grade testing. Fun!

My new priority list is as follows: family first, friends second, work third, home construction fourth, exercise sixth, bloggie seventh, everything else eighth.

So the blog has been pushed down the priority list by home construction and exercise. Because, OMG, I’ll be at the beach in three weeks.

So, for the next three weeks I’ll be upping the workouts and taking on Dr. Manny Alvarez’ Hot Latin Diet: the Fast-Track Plan to a Bombshell Body.

When Manny’s publicist e-mailed to ask if I wanted an ARC of the book, I said, “Well, who doesn’t want a bombshell body? Send it to me, baby.”

I’m perusing the book, though I have yet to commit to Manny’s suggested pantry restocking.

The book’s full of good nutritional and exercise advice, but the primary thing that differentiates it, as far as I can tell, from other diet plans, is the identification of the seven Latin power foods. These are tomatillos, garbanzo beans, avocado, garlic, cinnamon, chiles, and cilantro.

I love Latin food, and I already eat quite a bit of these power foods–but usually accompanied by cheese and tortilla chips. Of course, the seven power foods aren’t the only foods you’re supposed to eat on this diet, but if you concentrate on the food groups that these foods fall into, and try to ignore the chips and dairy accoutrements, you’ll probably drop some fatty deposits.

Cervaza, sadly, is not a Latin power food.

Dr. Manny mostly writes aboutcutting out processed and fast foods, which I rarely eat anyway, and making lifestyle changes that I’ve already made, so this book is not particularly helpful for me. But there are some good recipes that I’d love to try, such as  ginger-spiced chicken with some vegetable I’ve never heard of and pan-seared red snapper with grapefruit-avocado salsa. Yum!
Focusing on Latin power foods while avoiding the sour cream might help me lose a few pounds, but, in truth, it’s nearly impossible for me to develop a hot Latin bombshell body.  One, I’m too old now for  bombshell. Bombshells typically haven’t birthed and nursed two kids and dealt with forty-four years of gravity. Two, my gene pool springs from tallish pasty Northern Europeans. I could do lunges for two hours a day and only eat garbanzo beans, and my heinie still wouldn’t resemble J. Lo’s.

In my experience, Latin women are sexy because they think they’re sexy, not because their bodies are perfect. In fact, a bit of extra chub lends to more curves and thus, more bombshell. They do seem healthy though. Which is what we all really want. I just want 8 less pounds healthy. And a lot of spicy. Which is why Dr. Manny’s plan might help me out.

I’m getting some heated comments over at Mountain Xpress over my belief that children, even those who live in a religious sect, shouldn’t be separated from their families unless there’s clear evidence of abuse. I totally understand Child Protective Services’ take on this issue–and yet, I’m a mother. Just try to take my kids away from me. As one of my girlfriends said last weekend, “Mess with my kids, and I might bite you on the neck.”

She said that because we were talking about what breed of dog we’d be–if we were dogs–and I described myself as a German Shepherd–disciplined, protective, but affectionate. The same girlfriend told me that there are on-line tests to determine what breed of dog you are (I should’ve known). I took three different tests and was identified with three different breeds: Border Collie, Labrador, and, yes, German Shepherd. The one similar characteristic of the three breeds is that they all need lots of exercise. That’s me for sure. Exercise is as much mental as physical health for moi.

My home construction has resumed, after a two and 1/2 day city-forced hiatus. At the moment, it’s all very dull stuff–lots of digging, spreading gravel, and roughing-out pipes. But we may be pouring concrete on Monday. I still have a child-like fascination with those huge concrete mixer trucks. A truck with a huge rotating barrel on the back must be one of the brilliant inventions of the 20th century. I can’t wait to photograph the big pour!

Unless you live in an underground bunker, you know that North Carolina held a primary yesterday. I canvassed some at one of the precincts for my friend, Holly Jones, who is running for Buncombe County Commissioner. She rocked the primary. Hurrah!

I also ended up at the HUGE Obama party at Asheville Brewing Company (see some of my photos here). Wow! I had no idea the local Obama contingent are so organized. And so much fun! I even had a Republican tell me that he might vote for Obama because all the man’s supporters are just so nice and non-aggressive. Wow.

Today’s North Carolina’s chance to make a difference in the future of our country. VOTE! If you want advice or information, e-mail me at edgymamaatedgymamadotcom.

This week, I wrote my column about what’s happening to the families of a religious sect in Texas. Scary stuff, on a bunch of different levels.

We’re hoping the city permits for our construction work come through today. Already I miss the noise and bustle from the workers. Strange, I know.

Otherwise, I’ve been single parenting while E-spouse is in D.C. explaining to the powers-that-be how screwed we’re are by our own hubris and dominating natures. In other words, human-induced climate change bites–on all our heinies.

Funny that E-spouse has been in this field for over 20 years, but only when people get frightened do they actually start listening to him. If you’re interested in what he’s presenting to in D.C., go here. Then take a Prozac.

In other news, the pets have been more work than the kids recently. The thin cat, Houdini, seems to be bulimic. Each time he’s eaten anything for the past two days, he’s vomited it back up. On the oriental rug, of course. Eighty percent of my home is hardwood floors, but everybody (human and non-human) throws up on the rugs. I think the kitty has a bit of a virus. Hopefully, his symptoms will clear up soon and I won’t need to engage in feline intervention. Actually, I read somewhere that humans are the only animals that willingly deprive themselves of sleep and food. See what having big brains does for you? It makes you tired, hungry, irritable, and power-grubbing. Thus inducing climate change.

While we’re talking pets, the Dorkie Poo is in the dog house. SOMEONE left the gate unlatched, and when I let him out to pee at 2:30 a.m., he escaped and ran barking through the woods. Typically, he returns after a few minutes of chasing whatever he needs to chase, but this time, he didn’t. In fact, he stopped barking rather quickly. I immediately imagined a predator–a bear or mountain lion–swooping in to snack on my obnoxious 12-pound dog. Of course, when I say “woods” I mean the copse of five trees behind my neighbor’s house. I grabbed a flashlight and the dog cookie jar (he hears the top come off the jar and runs straight home–usually). Then I wandered down the street in my jammies and my motorcycle boots, feeling like a crazy person. After I slammed the top of the cookie jar around a few times, Biscuit came running–from the front of the house, where I imagine he’d been sitting on the porch waiting for me to open the door. I was angry and told him so.

This morning he’s been pitiful pup. He crawled over to me, shivering, when I got out of bed, and gave me the “you yelled at me” look. Even though I’ve been loving all over him, he’s still giving me the sad brown eyes. Of course, him feeling guilty now doesn’t mean he won’t run off into the night again. I know he’s torn between minding me and doing what he thinks is his job. I guess I need to find a new career for him. How do you take a dog who thinks he’s a security guard and make him something else? Like a pastry chef.

View from my home desk yesterday

Surprise, surprise, the city of Asheville changed their permitting policies, but failed to tell my builder of the changes when he applied for a permit. So when the city’s engineer showed up this morning, the work on my home was forced to a screeching halt.

Because of the steep slope ordinances, which I support fully, now ANY grading, even that on a flat surface that covers only about 30 x 20 feet (my side yard), must be pre-permitted and approved by city engineers before work can start. This was not the case a month ago, but when my guys applied for a permit, they were not told the policy had changed. Oh yeah, and now my builder will be penalized because no one told him the law changed.

So now my guys have to wait for approval, which could take a couple more days, though the permit’s been with the city for over a week. In the mean time, I have a huge muddy hole in my side yard and a huge pile of dirt in the front. We were moving the dirt to a neighbor’s yard, who wants fill dirt, but it turns out we can’t do that without a permit either. Yes, we can dump the dirt into the landfill without a permit, but we can’t move it across the street without one.

  Bad hole! With old oil tank dug out of ground in back.

I think I need a nap.

It took a bunch of researchers to tell us what we already knew: marriage increases the female’s housework significantly! Read my weekly EM column all about it at Mountain Xpress.

Construction on my home started Wednesday.

In addition to DITLOA, Dining Out for Life, my regular work, and kid wrangling, I’m now dealing with fairly substantial construction. I’m excited, though. I love these kinds of projects, and I’m typically not too bothered by a little chaos.

When we moved into this house almost seven years ago, we anticipated adding to it one day. That day has come. Or I should say that eight to ten weeks has arrived. Our home is a 1920s cottage-style home with about 1,600 livable square feet. The addition will add about 600 square feet. Most importantly, it will add a small master bed and bath and a laundry/mud room. Hooray!

I put the project off for longer than I’d hoped because I knew it’d be a  time sink for me. But I think I’m ready. And I’ve certainly had plenty of time to think about what I want to do and how (retrofit, renovate, add on–all as “green” as possible).

I once heard an interview with Christie Brinkley where she was asked, “What the most difficult thing you’ve ever gone through?” Her answer? “Renovating my house.” At the time, I remember thinking that Ms. B was both lucky and spoiled if the most difficult thing she’d ever experienced was renovation. So I’ll try not to whine over the next several weeks.

Here are a few photos, so you too, can follow the process. Or not.

Here’s the old deck on the back of the house. The railing and gate are newish, added when we put a screen and front porch on about 5 years back. This is now gone!

As we removed most of the deck, we discovered that when a previous owner had bumped out the back hall to add a 1/2 bath, they’d rested the entire 16-inch bump-out on the porch. No support whatsoever. And the flooring support was barely enclosed and full of rot and leaking insulation. We’re now under strict instructions not to jump with joy while using the 1/2 bath. At least until we can get this rebraced.

Here’s the door that once led from the kitchen to the back deck. My son now calls it “the door to the deadly cliff.” I like “the door to nowhere.” We’re closing this in to add kitchen storage and a kitchen desk area. We’re also rebuilding the remaining 1/3 deck with Trex (recycled plastic). The area under the deck that’s gone will, I hope become a gravel parking area. Although we have to see if our neighbor (whose house is both a wildlife habitat and a major fire hazard) will let us back our cars two feet onto his part of the driveway.

Oh joy! Anyone else undertaken a project like this before?

I just now submitted my last five photos to Day in the Life of Asheville. Yes, it took me four days to come up with 16 decent photos out of over 700 frames. And yes, more than 1/2 of my shots are of children.

Damn, do I find judging my own photos difficult. Almost as difficult as judging my own writing. But I have editors for the paid stuff, at least.

This has been the most exciting DITLOA ever as the participation has more than doubled! We have more than 50 fotogs submitting, and almost 10 hours remain until the submission deadline.

There are some amazing shots here. If you don’t have time to check them all out, I’ll have a link to the judge’s choices next week. Because there are over 800 submitted photos to wade through.

Thanks to all who participated and all who are watching and supporting our creativity. Wow!!!