Easter and our newest addition to the fam...

On Easter, Ricky and I woke up to lovely Easter baskets. (We have decided that Rick reeeeeeeeeeeallly wants grandkids.) This one is mine...

Ricky lost it and tore his open before I could take a picture of his too...

Then yesterday, we made a new friend! We haven't named her yet, (and honestly, we don't even know if it is a her, but that's what we are going with.) but we are debating. She is a four-foot long Colombian Red Tailed Boa Constrictor. I never really considered myself to be one of THOSE people who have snakes and whatnot, but she is really cool.

4/9 (How is it April already??)

Today I was bad. In fact, I've just finished being bad.


I have been thinking about starting Diane Sanfilippo's 21-Day Sugar Detox. I have a hard time buying anything, so I was just going to give it a shot on my own using common sense. No sugar. No sugar alternatives. Nothing that turns into sugar in your body relatively quickly. Obviously, no grains or dairy, but also no sugar, fruit, honey, agave, whathaveyou. I was doing well this morning. Honestly! I had coffee with coconut milk (I don't know how Ms. S. would feel about coconut milk, but it isn't dairy and it's unsweetened, so I figured two teaspoons wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.), then an egg with onions, garlic, yellow bell pepper and a portabello mushroom for breakfast. I ate relatively late, so I had some pistachios as a snack then blackened chicken with avocado sauce for dinner. I was feeling hella cocky. I had almost made it through this day sugar-free! 


Then 8 o'clock hit. It was incredible. I was walking to the refrigerator saying to myself, "Don't do this! You will not feel good about yourself after!" but did I stop walking? Not even a little bit. I think took two cake bites out of the refrigerator and enjoyed them thoroughly. 


So. I fell off the wagon. 


What should I have done then? I SHOULD have gone upstairs and brushed my teeth to get the taste of sugar out of my mouth, then had a huge glass of water. 


Did I do that?


No.


I did not.


In fact, I did something worse. I went to the refrigerator again (damn you!) and pushed aside the bell peppers, carrots, broccoli and eggs to get to Rick's cottage cheese. Now this cottage cheese is not only NOT made from organic whole milk, it is also pasteurized. I'm sure it is full of hormones and steroids and all those bad things that grain-fed cows eat or are injected with. I then went to the pantry and pulled out Rick's unopened bag of Sour Cream and Onion Lay's potato chips. I then brought them both out to the living room, without premeasuring them to maintain portion size and ate both out of the packages they came in.


Baby did a bad, bad thing.


And you know what? I feel a little bad. I should have been better.


But I know that tomorrow I WILL be better.










Because now, when I'm bad, I confess on the internet.

4/7

Today Big Rick came home after taking off for a couple days. He brought home a chair:

And brought home some major excitement about buying a house on the beach. It is pretty destroyed but super structurally sound. We are going inside on Monday, so I will post photos then. It is an incredibly exciting prospect, and Rick is very happy about it. His new plan is to buy the place on the beach, fix it up while living in the current house, move into the beach house, fix up this house and sell it, and then buy land in the country where Ricky and I will have a separate house to ourselves.


Update: The house is no longer for sale. We are reverting back to the old plan, which is also my favorite plan!

3/27

It's only Tuesday and we have already had an incredibly eventful week! Two days ago, Rick and I were driving in Big Rick's truck and it started to make a funny noise (of course, it HAD to be when we were driving it and he was not with us). When we got home, we told him about it and he went and checked it out, then decided to deal with it tomorrow, also known as yesterday or Monday. So the boys went and started it yesterday and it sounded worse (oh, also, Rick installed some new parts on Big Rick's truck. Nothing big, just bolted on a cool air intake, changed the oil and the fuel filter) so Ricky took it to the mechanic, slightly panicked that he may have broken it somehow. Turns out, the flywheel cracked and won't be done until Thursday. Which is all fine and dandy, except Big Rick had to go to Louisiana last night, so he had to take Ricky's truck. The problem with that was that he needed new tires, so we went to get new (used) tires and found a place that had the right size on the third try. BUT, their balancer wasn't working because it was struck by lightning last week. When the tires were off the truck, Rick looked at the rotors and found out that they are in dire need of replacement, so we had to go to the car parts store. After buying rotors, inner and outer bearings, seals and grease, we headed to a tire store close by to get the tires balanced. At that tire store, they took the tires off and found that one of the tires was ripping apart. So we bought ANOTHER tire, and they balanced all four. $630 later, we went home and started constructing our new backyard furniture! Actually, to be completely accurate, I constructed the furniture while Rick got his truck in tip-top shape to be driven to LA. Then Rick and I built the gazebo together.


Needless to say, we relaxed today. I started my morning off with some coffee with coconut milk and coconut oil in it.

Then Rick and I headed outside to have an afternoon meal.
This is what we were working with before:

We didn't use it much.


Now we have:

So Rick, with his reheated pizza, and me with my sweet little broccoli-zucchini-asparagus egg muffins went outside to eat. Feel free to be jealous at any point.

The dogs are pretty pleased with the new arrangement as well.


Then I spent the rest of the day sewing on my brand new machine! (Thanks Big Rick!!)

3/25

Today was beautiful here in Mississippi, so we started some spring cleaning. We went to replace one of the hanging ferns and look what we found!

Big Rick saw a bird leave the fern (maybe a sparrow?) and found a surprise. Then we went shopping and in classic Googins-moderation bought a great deal of stuff. It is way more than necessary, of course, but will end up being beautiful! Next post, I will put up some pictures of my garden and the new outdoor furniture we bought when it is all set up...