History Lesson...

 

It's payback time, all right...  

All those times my parents took my brother 

and me on trips to see majestic mountains 

and witness historical places.. 

I understand why they turned the car and pop-up trailer abruptly around 

in Cheyenne, Wyoming when my response to a gorgeous vista was, 

"Ya seen one mountain, you've seen 'em all..." 

Don't they say that youth is wasted on the young?  

Clearly, our dear youth care more about IPods 

and Sponge Bob on the car DVD player 

than the grandeur of Mt. Rushmore...  

So, today I decided to shake up 

the pool/beach routine for a little history... 

Down the road a piece is Fort Clinch State Park...  

It is a fortress built in 1847 at the mouth of the Amelia River... 

The fort was seized by the Union forces from the Confederates during the Civil War... 

The buildings were refurbished so visitors could see the uses,

such as a kitchen, barracks, officers rooms, etc... 

There was even a guide dressed 

as a Civil War soldier on premises. 

He looked oh so excited to be dressed in a wool 19th century uniform...

It was cook an egg on the brick drawbridge hot... 

There weren't pop machines every 35 feet... 

The park had the nerve to not have 52" flat screen TV's around every corner...

And the vista of the sea from atop the fort, 

flanked by huge cannons was SO boring!  

You'd have thought I had shackled my children, 

dragged them to this site, 

only to dehydrate their poor souls 

on this barren state park wasteland...   

 

The park was crafty, too... 

The only access to the fort is through the information center, 

replete with soda machines, maps, and trinkets at all prices... 

My son's true weakness is a gift shop.. 

It doesn't matter if the shop is in the MOMA, 

Disney or a truck stop in Effingham, Illinois...  

He becomes crazed to buy SOMETHING.... 

Cost is not the issue... 

He just wants to walk away with some talisman, 

knowing full well that his interest in said trinket 

will fade before we have left the park... 

Drives me to distraction...  

If I was smart, I would have set aside a five dollar budget 

for these visits to preserve my sanity... 

After barely surviving the gift shop drama....

(Jack did not get anything, because I was penniless...)  

I suggested a quick hike in another section of the park.  

The kids seemed excited to embark on a hike, 

that is until we viewed the flora and fauna plaque 

a few yards into the trail...

The plaque indicated that we might be lucky enough 

to spot various birds, fluffy animals, alligators and snakes on our stroll...

Yes, Aunt Sarah....snakes....

At this point the interest level dropped dramatically 

as Kate clutched onto me 

and Jack declared that he was phobic of spiders...  

Lucky for him, we had to duck the webs 

with much regularity...

Saw some doozy spiders, too... 

Perhaps I should have thought ahead 

and slathered the kids with bug spray... 

We were fresh meat 

and were attacked with relish 

on the steamy, hot, airless trail...   

Instead of enjoying the meandering nature stroll, 

we trucked it through the swampy wood 

as if gators were nipping at our heels...  

My city kids seem to lack the nature gene... 

I might confess my preference for the Four Seasons 

over the canvas tent may have been passed to my offspring...

  I had to laugh when my son declared 

that he loved to camp while whimpering 

about spiders, boring trails and the heat...

Perhaps I shall send him to Outward Bound... 

After the state park trauma, 

I had to salvage the day with a good lunch... 

What better way to  do that 

than to enjoy a burger at a gas station?  

T-Ray's is well known to the Fernandina locals 

for the best burgers in town... 

Situated in a converted former Exxon gas station, 

this hole-in-the-wall serves up a great burger, 

with big, fat steak fries, no nonsense and a do it yourself attitude... 

Place your order, get your own drinks 

and bus your own table is the deal...  

The old guy who owns the joint walks around 

and dishes with the folks, 

telling stories about his beloved Georgia Bulldogs 

and Green Bay Packers...  

Yep, this Southerner is a Packer fan...   

Maybe some day, 

my kids will remember this piece of Civil War history, 

or perhaps the steak fries at T-Rays will be more memorable... 

All I can do is keep the history coming 

and hope some of it sticks...

Catching Crabs....

The kids and I have been in Amelia for the last ten days... 

It sounded good on paper....

Three idyllic weeks in Florida... 

Letting the kids play in the pool, make sand castles on the beach, 

forget about schedules, camps 

and baseball games and just be kids for awhile...

 

And it's been mostly that...

Well, not counting the time outs, whining 

and Kate nearly losing her front teeth 

on the granite countertop today....

You can thank Jack for that one... 

Friends with kids close to the same age 

as Jack and Kate spent last week with us...

Let's face it... 

You gotta have buddies to keep the kids from killing each other...  

And it worked... 

They went nuts in the pool...  

They performed shows for us of great gymnastic feats... 

Posed with giant shrimp....

Hung out with pirates...

Ate liked starved dogs... 

And wore themselves out everyday...

We moms enjoyed conversations 

that lasted three minutes at a time versus thirty seconds... 

We drank a few glasses of wine.... 

Okay a lot ...  

Life was good....  

Now that the kids and I are on our own for a week or so, I am panicking... 

Without friends for distraction, I needed to find things 

for my darling children to do instead of devising ways to:

A. irritate each other...  

B. irritate me.... 

or C. destroy the planet...  

Luckily The Plantation has plenty of activities to amuse kids...  

The Nature Center offers kayak trips, beach digs for clams and shark teeth, fishing, turtle feeding and hiking.  There are tennis lessons, golf lessons, Segway tours and bike rentals. 

At the Beach Club pool, there are daily things to do, 

such as crafts, balloon busting contests, water relays, dive in movies, 

smore's roasts on the beach and volleyball games.  

We hit the clay courts this morning....  

The pro has a blank slate with Kate, but she listened and tried her best... 

Jack's swing looks good... 

and he actually enjoyed it after resisting 

and complaining that tennis is not intense enough...  

Little does he realize being his mom 

is a high intensity, high impact sport as it is....   

Next on the fun list was the "Crab Grab"...  

We golf carted to Walker's Landing 

and met Jessica from the Nature Center to fish for some crab...  

The floating dock faced a marsh 

and the intercoastal waterway... 

Jessica baited two crab traps 

and two sets of string and weights with chicken necks...

Apparently crabs eat mor chikin...haha! 

The kids dropped the bait off the dock and anxiously waited. 

They wanted to check the lines every three seconds...

Crabs take their time to nibble, I guess...

In the meantime, the kids caught miniature shrimps 

and tiny crabs that hung out on the dock posts...  

Easily caught, they provided instant gratification... 

Within minutes, Kate caught a good sized blue crab in her crab trap... 

They are feisty little buggers, but such an exciting catch... 

Luckily, Jack caught his own crab in his trap soon after.. 

God forbid this crabbing competition not be even... 

I would certainly not hear the end of it should be bounty be uneven....

Jessica then released the cranky crabs onto the dock 

and they scuttled into the brackish water, pronto.  

After the crab adventure, the kids pooled it 

and later watched a scratched version of Alvin and the Chipmunks 

at the Dive In Movie...  

At one point the blow up screen collapsed 

after they monkeyed with the bad disc for about twenty minutes...  

They must have used the dvd's from our car.....  

Overall, today I wore the little buggers out

and I even got to enjoy a cool and swirly beverage... 

Tomorrow will be a session at the beach 

to dig for clams and search for shark's teeth, 

followed by more pool time... 

Amazingly, the kids are tired of the beach and pool...

If any of you, preferably with kids, would like to join us next week, 

COME ON DOWN!  

I could use a wingman!

21 days

 

You may or may have not noticed 

that I have not posted much about food lately... 

No recipes or odes to raspberries in season...  

Well, it was because I put myself through a cleanse; 

The Clean Program, to be exact.  

Perhaps you heard of it, made famous by Gwyneth Paltrow 

and Martha Stewart...  

For several years, I have wanted to do the Cleanse, 

but did not have the three hundred odd something dollars for the kit...  

Of course, my husband, encouraging as he is at times, 

told me to just stop eating...  

I considered practicing my backhand with a cast iron pan, 

his head the ball, but I refrained and rolled my eyes... 

If only abstinence from food was that easy...  

Some people eat to live (Tom) 

and some people live to eat (me).  

I'm a low level foodie....

love to cook...

clip out recipes...

watch Top Chef and The Next Food Network Star... 

and, most of all...EAT!  

So to put myself through sure, sheer torture, 

to say no to that which gives me comfort 

and a hobby, notwithstanding regaining my pre Kate body, 

was a withering thought... 

Finally, when I realized I was at the water's edge of the next size up in shorts, 

I'd hit bottom, so to speak...  

I was ready to forego all that is tasty for a loss of flab...  

I was ready to embark on The Clean Program... 

All those Clean folks say that the cleanse is NOT about weight loss...

that it's about detoxing one's body of all that processed crap, 

and they are right... 

But dang, if I didn't shed some lbs after all this effort, 

I'd be one ticked off Clean gal!  

There are two ways to skin The Clean cat; 

buy the expensive kit and have the shakes and supplements all laid out for you 

or buy the book and do it all yourself...  

I bought the book...   

It's 21 days of homemade shake for breakfast, lunch and shake for dinner...  

Shakes consist of fresh fruits and veggies with approved sweeteners 

like agave and fillers like almonds 

and flax to give it oomph...    

Lunch is chicken or fish with approved veggies, 

brown rice, millet or quinoa...  

The approved/not approved foods are part of the "Elimination Diet", 

which in essence is a list of foods that you can't eat, 

like bananas, strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, 

any and all sugar, carbs and meats... 

Everything that's left is what you can eat....

blech...  

It's a sobering page of food rules... 

So I pulled out the blender

and hit the store for all the foods 

I could have and looked for some support...  

Luckily, a good FB friend just completed The Cleanse, 

so she was hugely motivating...  

She lost nine pounds and looks fantastic..  

Also, one of my BFF's agreed to go on the Clean journey with me, 

so I had a buddy to help me through. 

The Clean Program also has a great support forum 

on the website.  Those folks cheer you on!

The first few days were like prison...  

I felt trapped in this goal, with a long road ahead...  

The smoothies were okay,

but the lunches were so spartan...  

Then I started to get into a groove 

and just accepted the deal and kept trucking along...  

There were weak moments, 

like when the kids had salty, fresh McDonald's fries in the car, 

or when Tom poured a chilly glass of Pinot Grigio for himself,

but I held strong...  

I made it until the end of Day 19, 

when we were invited to dinner at a friend's for the first time...  

How could I tell them I wasn't eating or drinking anything?  

I caved and that Lou Malnati's thin crust pizza 

and wine tasted SOOO GOOD! 

Today is day 22 and I learned the following:  

If you put your mind to it, you can do it....  

A buddy helps ALOT...  

Even though I am headed to vacation in FL this week, 

I won't be having any pina coladas.  

I am so sick of pineapple smoothies I might upchuck if I see one....  

Hummus crusted on chicken or anything else downright sucks....  

Fitting into dresses that are 8 years old feels REALLY GOOD!...  

I have more confidence in myself 

and I guess that is better than a stick of butter....  

I plan to keep making the smoothies and watching the portions.... 

Next Cleanse will be January 2012....  

So Sunday would have been the last day of The Clean Program, 

but since I ended it on Friday, 

I cooked for Tom on Sunday... 

He had been eating like a rat, 

searching trashcans, 

while I was on the program, 

so I made him steak, fresh green beans, roasted potatoes 

and tomato salad ala Paula Deen...  

 

Here is her tasty recipe.....

Yield:

6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons seasoned salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
• 3/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 2 to 3 green onions, chopped
• 4 to 6 large tomatoes, each cut into 6 wedges

Directions

Combine all ingredients, except tomatoes, in a large measuring cup or mixing bowl. Whisk well. Place tomatoes in a resealable plastic bag and pour marinade over. Marinate at room temperature for up to 2 hours, turning the bag occasionally.

Nine

It was weather like this when Jack decided to enter the world,

three weeks early... 

Bags of frozen peas and buckets of ice water

were the only remedies to my immense cankles. 

Tom was test driving an armored car that day

 and was so excited to drive me to the hospital in it...

Too bad it was midnight

and he did not have to drive on the shoulder

or flash the lights...

 

After nineteen hours of fun, he arrived, 

all 7 1/2 pounds of John Fitzgerald Herlihy,

and he changed our world forever... 

And he still is.... 

Nine years today...

It feels like three years,

although some days it feels much longer... 

I should have known he would be my wild one... 

Jack crawled like a soldier crossing a minefield,

dragging one leg... 

And when I held him,

all he wanted to do was bounce... 

He tested the durability of his exer-saucer

and he tested our nerves with his joyful screams... 

He is like a border collie who needs to be exhausted

by the end of the day...

He eats every 23 minutes...

does your child do that?

He lives to drive his sister (and me) nuts...

does your kid do that?

He gives hugs so spontaneously

and will still hold my hand (if no one is looking)...

He gets excited about pasta and Ragu  (awesome)

My sweet, intelligent, crazy child is

athletic,

nerdy,

stubborn,

silly,

sensitive,

spendthrifty

music lovin'

and all I could have hoped for... 

Happy Birthday, Lovey....