Are you sure, Father? There's cocaine in it!

You may have noticed that on the side bar, there is now a new page--I'm working on putting all my recipes up. Do any of you have recipe pages? Drop me a comment and I'll put a link to yours on mine!!! So far I've only got Dani and Olivia Lee...

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I haven't done this in a really long time, so...........

Some low-cal snack ideas!

This first one is particularly genius. I've been bringing hummus and lettuce to work for a long time, but got sick of hummus a few weeks ago. 

(I get Cedar's gluten free in either tomato or garden vegetable, because I'm the only one at home who eats it and they come in pretty small containers.)

But I got sick of it, so had the brilliant idea of getting some salsa to bring to work instead. 

'Tis a pretty awesome snack at 5 cals per tablespoon. And I started out dipping iceberg lettuce in it instead of crisps/potato chips. 

But I'm seriously so sick of lettuce I could die. And I can hardly eat crisps.

Carbs?!? No thanks. As y'all probably know by now, I try to avoid carbs at all costs. Because if I give in to just one small carby food, I will face a militaristic attack from all sides, by every carbohydrate in the house, and I can't handle it. 

Then last night I came up with this genius idea:

Hard to tell what it is in a photo--It's that rice paper broken up into potato-chip-sized pieces. Since one big sheet of the paper is only ~30ish calories, it makes a pretty good replacement for crisps. Especially since it takes a while to chew it, thus making your snack last longer. 

Moving on....

I am a beef jerky addict. These are my favs:

Bridgeford original beef jerky - 50 cals per ounce

Bridgford Turkey jerky - 70 cals per ounce

and Jack Links beef tender whatsits - 60 cal per ounce

Delicious!

And look, SAFE bread! Low cal and low carb.

Weight watchers rye - 45 cals a slice. They do other kinds as well, whole grain and multi grain and bagels and junk. 

Pepperidge Farm also makes yummy low cal bread. I made today's lunch with the Multi-Grain. I think they call those low-cal breads "Light Style," or something like that. I had two slices, toasted, and I had cut up some pickles to go on top:

I think I've mentioned these before: Dry roasted edamame is the shizzle.

The salted and the wasabi ones are 130 cals per 1/4 cup. The goji blend is 120. 

And...

Where would we be without coffee? I shudder to think. I would like to kiss the person who came up with the idea of making coffee taste like snack food. This is my newest:

Entemann's crumb-cake flavoured coffee. Amazing.

Those Keurig machines are an environmental disaster (they don't make the K-cups recyclable, so unless you're a psychopath like I am and you rip out the insides of the K-cups when you're done so you can recycle the plastic bit, they're all headed straight for the nearest landfill). But they make some delicious coffees. My favs are Green Mountain's Island Coconut, and Wild Mountain Blueberry. 

You can actually get the blueberry one in regular ground coffee. 

New England Coffee Co. also makes a nice Blueberry, like the one I got for Cinnamon. And she had me stalking their website the other day, during which time I discovered that they make some truly magical flavours. I've ordered the chocolate raspberry and maple cinnamon French toast ones to try. (Don't worry Cinna, I'll be sending you samples <3). 

On the opposite end of the subject of snacks, you would do well to avoid the following:

I figured the Walden Farms stuff wouldn't taste that amazing. I mean how can you possibly make no-calories peanut butter? But I thought it might at least be edible, so I bought a jar of the peanut butter, and a jar of the fake Fluff (had to get 2 items so I could use a coupon and get free samples of all their salad dressings and their chocolate syrup). 

OH MY GOD. 

Disgusting. Like really. I wish I had a video from the night friend and I tried it. I spat my spoonful of peanut butter out. He started gagging and nearly vomited on my couch. The Fluff and salad dressings were all similarly horrific. But the chocolate syrup actually isn't that awful, if you can handle the chalky aftertaste. 

Personally, I'd rather just have my 20-cal hot cocoa, or use cocoa powder and Splenda. It tastes much better. 

Boss actually let me out early today for the holiday weekend. I'm off to the gym now (what's new?). And bringing some homework with me to do on the elliptical:

It's almost finished and ready for Amazon!! :D Just one final edit for grammar and whatnot, and then finished typesetting once Elk is finished illustrating, and it will be ready to go. I'm so excited I can barely sit still.

Hope you all have a good start to your weekend! <3

AND NOW for something completely different...

Here is the award I have created... A blogger-medal:

I love stories. (duh--writer.) So to kick off the new blogger award thingy, I am going to tell you all the story of Mich.


Mich arrived on this earth on September the 21st, 1984.

Prepare yourselves, for you may actually DIE from the epic cuteness.

Yes, I know--I was the cutest baby of all time. 


And Mum was super stylin' back in the 80's.

Mich did not grow hair until she was three years old.

My childhood was largely uneventful. Most of the time I was left to my own devices.

Age 2 - attempting to drink alcohol

Age 4 - I don't even know

There were some fun birthdays.

5th birthday - pony rides in the yard!

7th birthday - the year everyone had their party at the roller rink

There were summers spent in Ireland.

And vacations to Disneyworld.

That trip scarred everyone for life. Literally, in my case--I fell in the airport when we were going back home and cracked my head open. I got a free giant stuffed Shamu and 3 extra days in Florida, as well as a 3-hour wait in the emergency room and 6 stitches. Before that, my friend and I (we were 5) spent the week alternately being bff's and trying to kill each other. We had a massive kicking-and-screaming fight in the Sea World parking lot because I had insisted we sit in the splash zone, and J had not wanted to get wet. 


But the best night was when we all went out to Jungle Jim's. J and I discovered that every time our mothers ordered a mai tai, they got a little plastic animal. 


By the end of the night, J and I had 9 plastic animals. Each. 


Good times.


I can't find any fun photos from the mid-childhood years. So let's jump ahead to the Awkward Stage.

Mich and Little Sis, circa 1996.

That photo has made the rounds on Facebook like 20 times.


Here I am the night of the 8th grade "Social," age 13:

Mum chose that dress. I hated it.

I can't find any photos at all from age 14. That was the year I officially ditched Grunge for Goth, and discovered the joys of hallucinogens. By age 15, I think my spasticity was fully developed.

Yes, that's a Sailor Moon wand.

Fifteen was a rough year. I was doing A LOT of drugs. And I was in my second year of an all-girls Catholic high school (after 9 years in the Catholic grade school hellhole). I tried EVERYTHING to get Mum to let me go to the public high school. I tried failing my classes, being a Rebel, being an Extremely Angry Teenager..... Nothing worked. And it's pretty much impossible to get expelled from a private school because your parents are paying a lot of money for you to go there. 


So when I was 15, I chopped all my hair off and told my mother I was a lesbian. And that I had become a lesbian because I was in school with all girls. Mum was raised strict Irish-Catholic, so she was horrified.


I got to go to public school the following year.


Sweet 16 - best birthday cake ever:

I lost count of how many people were sneaking me alcohol. You can tell from the redness that I am quite drunk.


Because I didn't want to give Mum a stroke, I had to slowly ease out of being a lesbian. Hence the choice of cake and jewelry. 


I kind of calmed down with the drugs by the end of high school. I found a new drug in hair dye and makeup. 

I went through a different hair colour and style like every 6 months, for the next several years. I wish I had photos from college, but alas--I spent most of college either drunk, stoned, or behind a camera. This is how my hair looked right before I went blonde:

The Bettie Page phase.

There's not much interesting after that. :D


SO for the award--I'm going to give it to the last 8 commenters from the last post, because I like the number 8 and I want to make it fair. 
- Dani
- Suldog
- Moonlight Mistress
- Cinnamon Brown
- All.That.Wander.Are.Not.Lost
- Eloise18
- Amber
- Ayden


I'd really love to hand out to all of you, but it seems like it's a bit more fun if you guys can pass it on. So you eight lovelies go and taketh yonder medal, and tell us a story--a true story, your story, a fictitious story, a hybrid true-fiction story... whatever the heck you want. Just tell a story. <3