Tastes like bad

This is the only photo I took of our beautiful Christmas tree this year, and I took it this morning with my iPhone when I was headed to work:

Tree 2010.jpg

I didn’t take many photos at all over the holidays because I was either eating or my hands had food on them and I didn’t want to mess up my camera.  I’m not even joking.  Scuba and I both overdid it and so we are now all committed to getting back in shape so we can fit into our wetsuits again and get in the water this spring and summer.  (He probably still fits into his wetsuit, but I know better than to even try mine.)  And so of course yesterday was our first day of being good and not drinking beer and laying off the cheese and butter and chocolate.  At lunchtime I sent him this text: Someone in the office has fast food fries that smell REAL good and I just have an apple & an orange. Wah wah wah.  Miss you xo

He replied: I had progresso chix and rice.  180 calories

And so, after work on my way home and before I stopped by my mom’s, I went to Trader Joe’s and got chicken and spinach and a can of plum tomatoes and thought I’d make my own chicken and quinoa soup in the crockpot so that I, too, could have a healthy lunch that wasn’t just fruit.  Cause let me tell you, I was starving all day yesterday and I didn’t even say in the text that I also had two bananas and a pear (and a beer with supper when I got home – whoops). 

At some point in this story I should mention that I didn’t get any sleep Sunday night.  On my last day of being bad, I had a couple of Dr. Peppers at lunchtime and that kept me up till about three in the morning, and then I get up for work at about five.

Ok, so I finished at the grocery store and then I went to my mom’s to pick up some of the things that she had sent home for me from my grandmother’s house.  One was a little white wicker rocking chair that Tooty wanted the girls to have, and they just love it.  There are at least three boxes nearly as big as my bed full of my great-granny’s Fostoria.  I didn’t bring those home yet, because I’ll need Scuba’s help to get them out of the van.  The other thing I’d asked for from my grandmother’s house was my Poppa’s cowboy boots.  I put them by my fireplace:

Poppa's Boots.jpg

After I got everything put away and finished some work stuff, I decided to make the soup. 

I was really, really tired and had the beginning of a migraine, so I ended up just dumping two frozen chicken breasts, a box of chicken stock, a big can of plum tomatoes, a scoop of quinoa, and a big bag of spinach into the crockpot.  It was so full it nearly spilled over.  Then I turned it on high and went to bed, thinking I’d get up when the kids came home and turn it off or down or something.  I wasn’t really thinking, honestly, because why else would I have put the spinach in at the beginning like that, duh?

When the kids got home, Lex came in and gave me a kiss and I asked him to unload the dishwasher and turn the crockpot to low, thinking I’d get up and turn it off in a bit.  Instead, I woke up at five this morning to the smell of really well cooked chicken soup, and not in that Yummy! way. 

I went to the kitchen to see what was what.  It wasn’t looking too terribly awful, boiling away there on the counter, so I decided that I’d shred the chicken and then let the whole thing cool a little so I could see if it was edible enough to compete with Scuba’s 180 calorie lunch.  I’m right handed, but there I was with a rubber spatula in my right hand, trying to shred the chicken by using the fork in my left hand to, what?  I don’t know — press it against the spatula?  After cooking all night, the chicken shredded up all nice and fine, but of course I ended up doing a total Mary Katherine Gallagher move and flinging a spatter of it onto my hand and face.  And holy crap did that burn.  But, you know, I like to keep my eye on the prize, so I kept at it, and then I flung more of the boiling soup onto myself, only this time it went all down my chest and onto my other hand, which burned even more because there were clumps of spinach stuck to me. 

Then I ladled it all into a bowl and shredded the chicken and added some salt and tasted it.  It was bad, but by this point I was committed to not throwing it out.  Is there a moral to this story?  Probably not.  But I was reminded that I’m only a good cook when I have a good recipe.  Also it’s hard to wash your hair in the shower when you are trying to keep hot water off your stinging hands, but it can be done, and if you are working on getting back into shape, you can even count that as exercise because it involves more than enough twisting.  

2 thoughts on “Tastes like bad

  1. laura

    this reminds me i need to get out my crockpot. but not pull a “jen”
    (also, scuba and his 180 cal soup? bitch! we can’t do that ’cause we’re GLUTEN FREE. woe, woe, woe)

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