Good morning!

[judecorp]

The Survivor Finale at my boss's place was interesting, at least on the food front. My boss is a gourmet cook, but she decided to only serve food found on Survivor. Our first course was white rice with black beans. Followed by one fish stick each. Followed by stuffed quahogs which, thankfully, I really like. For dessert, Coworker Gina made dirt cake (you know - chocolate pudding, crushed Oreos, and gummy worms) which I .love. And then after I'd had two servings, she mentioned that it wasn't so bad for you because she used sugar-free pudding. Argh, so much for avoiding all artificial sweeteners! Oh well, it was delicious.

For some reason, I had myself convinced that I had a really easy day today - just 3 home visits, home at 4. Except that I just realized I am totally WRONG, and have 4 home visits and an assessment, home around 7:15. Sucktacular. What was I thinking when I agreed to help out with that late assessment? Sometimes I am too nice for my own good. I'd really much rather be home at 4 or 5. Maybe it will get cancelled.

Two of our friends have no hot water because the pilot light for their hot water heater is under the water line of their basement flooding. Ugh, flooding is just awful. I want them to come stay with us instead!

I don't have anything going on at work today until 11. Nearly everything is compacted after lunch. Not the best way to schedule a day, but I'm enjoying the lounging in bed. I just wish Jen was awake so she would snuggle with me. Poo.

Comments

[thatpatti.livejournal.com]

why are you avoiding artificial sweeteners?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I'd been doing some research for a while and didn't really like what I saw. It makes me a little nervous to put a bunch of fake stuff into my system and I'd been thinking for a while of getting back to basics and using real stuff, like real butter instead of margerine, real sugar/honey instead of fake stuff, etc.

There's a bunch of food that has always made me a little uncomfortable, but I would just do the whole, "Eh, everything's bad for you" thing. But now that we're TTC and going to hopefully raise a family soon, I want to really get on the right track with avoiding the stuff that squicks me out, like rBGH in milk and stuff.

[thatpatti.livejournal.com]

yeah, i don't like them either. i do some drinks with them, but mostly because i'm not a huge fan of water and i don't want to always be drinking sugary stuff.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there will be a time or two when I indulge, like if I absolutely can NOT go without an iced decaf coffee or if I start fiending for crystal light or something (of which there is a TON in my cupboard and I miss it, miss it). I've always been a big water-drinker so it's not usual for me to drink a ton of water, but for the last several years I had one can of diet soda at lunch time. When I cut out caffiene to support Jen's quest to cut out caffiene (for her blood pressure) we switched to caffiene-free diet sodas and flavored seltzers. Now I'm just doing the seltzers at lunch, and I like them so it's not so bad.

Although I had half a glass of root beer (real root beer with sugar, not diet) at my boss's house on Sunday night and holy crap, it was like syrupy, sugary heaven. So delicious!

But yeah, the one switch that makes me the happiest has been to find milk and butter made without rBGH. It scares me to think about the crap they stick into cows to make them "more productive," and I just plain don't want that crap. Yuck!

[thatpatti.livejournal.com]

yeah, i've given fisher organic milk almost entirely. lately i've been buying regular just because the organic is SO expensive where i normally shop and they don't have just regular non-rBGH milk.

i can't wait till they open the costco here! apparently they have it...

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I've been pretty luck to either find non-rBGH milk that is not the pricey-pricey organic kind (usually from local dairy farms). And one of our grocery chains (Stop and Shop) has its own line of organic products that are cheaper than, say, that Laughing Cow kind that is wicked expensive. I think the store organic costs about 60¢ more than the store brand regular milk.

Good luck with the Costco. We have that here but I've never been in one.

[thatpatti.livejournal.com]

yeah, the organic milk is like $3 a helf gallon! and i've been drinking it like crazy since i've been pregnant so between fisher and i we're drinking about a half gallon a day! i can't spend $90 a month on milk!!

the whole foods brand isn't as expensive, but it's also not terribly convenient to get to. and i don't have room in my fridge for more than a couple of gallons at a time.

*sigh*

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Well, $3 a half gallon is what I pay. The expensive organic milk here is like $3.79! (And a regular half gallon of milk is usually like $2.59 so $3 isn't too much more.) It's weird, sometimes a gallon of milk is cheaper than a half gallon. WTF is up with that?

I don't like Whole Foods because it always seems so much more expensive than some of the other stores, like Trader Joe's. But their brand of milk isn't organic.

[thatpatti.livejournal.com]

see, i can get a gallon of milk for like $2.50 or even less. that's why it totally kills me to pay $6 for a gallon of organic.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't know how much a gallon of regular milk costs because I never buy gallons. But I imagine they're something like $4. But I could also be totally making that up! Maybe I should do a little reconnaissance!

maybe you should come to noho and make a night of it!

[hope-persists.livejournal.com]

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Re: maybe you should come to noho and make a night of it!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

That sounds quite interesting, but I don't think we can go, sadly. We have Memorial Day type events on Saturday and Sunday, one of which is a bit of a drive, so heading out east the night before isn't as appealing to me - especially alone. (Jen's working.)

Sorry! :(

[ladyoracle.livejournal.com]

mmmm I love dirt pudding!

What are quahogs?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Here's a little bit of info about quahogs: Click Me! (http://seagrant.gso.uri.edu/factsheets/fsquahog.html)

But in this case, they were stuffed quahogs, and they were yummy! (Most people just call them "clams.")