Event Update

If you chose to stay on your couch today, here are just a few of the things you missed:

HFC Mr. BN Stilt doing knee bends:

HFC Mr. G. Ibis doing his warm up stretches:

Check out the events page to see all the rest of the stuff you missed! Hope to see you on the next outing.

Event updates

The Events page is updated. We are going down to Green Cay this Saturday. It's a neat place with a boardwalk and is a super place for wildlife photography. Reply here or drop me an email if you have suggestions for other field trips!

The terror of dress shopping

So, one of the biggest benefits of working from home is that I never have to shop for clothes. For decades now, I've worn the same brand of jeans and cartoon t-shirts. I made one exception -- when I got married, I bought a dress. It wasn't as traumatic as I was expecting, my mom in law came with me, which makes everything easier. I had seen the dress on line and just knew it was what I wanted. We went in to a shop, saw the dress in person and the deed was done.

A while back, a good friend of mine gave me the happy news that she is getting married. I made the plans to fly to the wedding, thought about a gift, all that fun stuff. And in the deep, dark recesses of my mind, there was this paralyzingly frightening thought -- I only have 8 months to get a dress. Fast foward -- it is now less than a month till the wedding, and I have successfully avoided going shopping. So now I am starting to realize that I need to face the music and go shopping.

There are many things I hate about dresses. I hate the general fact that when women dress up we are expected to show skin, but when men dress up, they get to wear suits that cover up all their flaws. It doesn't matter how much I work out, no dress will cover up the pasty, pudgy legs. I just don't have the body type for a dress, and that was true even when I was skinnier.

But there are even more things that I hate about shopping for dresses. I hate that stores feel they have to use euphemisms, and I have to deciepher where they keep my size. I was in a store once years ago, in the Ladies department. I asked the clerk where I could find my size and she looked at me with complete and utter disgust and said, "This is the LADIES department, YOU have to shop in the WOMENS department." Huh?  So fat chicks are women, thin chicks are ladies? I just walked out of the store.

Another thing I hate is that obviously, if I'm shopping in the women's department, I have a fat ass. So, if the store is trying to sell me a dress with a 60 inch ass, why do they put the racks 12 inches apart? Sometimes I really think that sadists run these stores.

But the thing I hate most about dress shopping is the stores that claim to cater to fat chicks, yet when you read their catalog or go into their stores, all of the pictures show the clothes on twig thin models. Sorry, but I really don't care what the clothes look like on a 14 year old 90 pound model.  Quite a while ago, I started boycotting stores that used 90 pound models to sell size 22's, and rewarding stores that used models who actually showed me what the clothes might look like on me. Actual examples from online:

From "Just My Size":

 from Lane Bryant:

and from Junonia:

I shop from Junonia.

Unfortunately, I don't think Theresa wants me to show up at her evening wedding in shorts and a sports bra, so I have to look elsewhere for a dress. It's a terrifying prospect, but if nothing else it shows how much I adore Theresa.

A Taste of Tuesday

Back when David and I were dating, his mom made us some spectacular ribs in a crock pot. Being the great mom that she is, she gave me the recipe. At the time, I had a beloved kitty, Rebel. Rebel was up there in years, and was dying of kidney failure. I knew it was time, but had not yet mustered the strength to have her put to sleep. She pretty much just sat around the house and didn't move, eat or do much at all. Well, I prepared a crock pot of this recipe, turned on the crock pot, and left the house for a few hours.

When I came home, the house smelled -- soooo very yummy -- and Rebel was not just awake, she was actually up on the counter doing a happy dance around the crock pot.  We all ate very well that night. Rebel passed away a few days later, but I have since called this recipe "Resurrection Ribs" because for a few brief shining hours, they brought my Rebel back to life. Enjoy:

Resurrection Ribs

• 3 1/2 lbs pork loin ribs (I have also made this with beef and chicken and it's just as yummy)
• Mix the following together in a flat dish, and rub on meat:
• 1/4 cup splenda brown sugar blend
• Pepper to taste (I tend to use a lot)
• 3 TBSP Liquid Smoke
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped (I usually use more -- enough to kill a family of about 17 vampires!)
• (optional) 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup cola (I use Coke Zero, it tastes almost exactly like real coke and I can't tell a difference in the end result of the recipe)
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1 1/2 cups BBQ sauce (non HFCS if you can find it -- check the organic aisle of the grocery store)

Spray inside of crock pot with cooking spray.
Layer ribs and onion in the crock pot. Pour in cola.

Cover and cook on low heat 8-9 hours or until tender. 

Remove ribs from cooker, drain and discard liquid. 

Dip the ribs into BBQ sauce, place in cooker, then pour any remaining BBQ sauce over ribs. 

Cover and cook 1 more hour. 

Note: This recipe is pretty lap-band friendly. The meat is tender enough to be tastey, and solid enough to stick around. The last few times I've made this, the meat has been so tender that it all just fell apart.  With the chicken, I saved 1/2 for chicken salad. For beef or pork, you can serve with veggies or fruit, or make open face sloppy joe type sandwiches.

Hi, All!

Welcome to the new and improved website/blog. I was unhappy with a few things on the old blog, and decided to consolidate and clean things up. I have moved all of the posts and comments over from the old blog. I'm also hoping that this blog will get more hits than the old one. It should be much easier to post comments to this blog, you should not be required to create an account and all the other annoying things the old blog requested. Please let me know if you have any problems leaving comments.

Another change I made (which I'm hoping won't get abused -- haha) is that instead of having the deemotivation twitter account linked, I deleted that account so now, anyone can contribute to the Right Now! section. To participate, simply post a 5-minute activity or link to a song or video to your own twitter account and include the keyword #deemotivationfcgoya -- the tweet will automatically show up here in the blog. It is my solemn promise that I will do every task that is listed there. In fact, in an effort to get other people to contribute, I hereby officially promise to take pictures of myself doing any activity tweeted by someone else.

And, finally, I plan to get back to blogging more regularly. Please let me know if you have any topics you would like to read about. People seem to enjoy my "stupid Dee stories" the best, and alas, there is certainly no shortage of them, but I'm not sure how motivational they are, other than the "there but for the grace of [insert your deity of choice here] go I" factor. But let me know your thoughts!

As always, thanks for any feedback!