melissa_whitener

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still struggling with that plateau feeling!

I am still losing, but OHHHHhhh so slowly.  I continue to try my best to eat healthy and I'm still working, but the hunger won't abate and it is a daily struggle not to eat everything in sight.  Good news is that I am now a "FTE", full time employee of Fluortek, Inc.  Of course, I have no vacation until 2013 and no benefits until October 2012, but hey, it beats being a temp!

So, I continue with my vitamins, continue working 40 hours per week, and continue looking forward to the day when I can schedule my surgery.  The weight that I have lost still leaves me at "morbidly obese" which is a step in the right direction from when I started out at Super Morbidly Obese.  With all my co-morbidities I don't see that continuing to lose could be a problem with getting my surgery approved, especially since I have so many other issues.

This last 10 pounds has come off so slowly, I can't see any difference in how I look or feel, but my size 18 jeans are fitting more comfortably now than they did when I bought them 2 weeks ago.  I was in a size 24 last summer, so it is working, but the day to day is so hard, so depressing,  with all my health problems still kicking my butt regularly.  

I am lucky to be working and I remind myself of that every day.  I am very lucky that my job allows me to work and bring home a paycheck, and that I can do the job without causing more pain than I can stand.  Fibromyalgia pain is my number two enemy, folowing closely behind hunger.  If I could just figure out a way to block out one of the two I would be so much happier and easier to live with.   I guess I will just keep hanging on until October, when I am eligible for benefits, and then schedule my surgery.  Hopefully after surgery my old buddy hunger will be gone for good.
 

it's a sub-continent!  I have been stuck between 211 and 214 pounds now for about 3 weeks. Since I am still pre-op, and in too much pain to exercise, I am  not surprised by this development.  I was actually expecting a plateau to happen sooner, and was really thrilled that the weight kept coming off.  

Where I am now, weight-wise, is where I was for many years.  My kids are 12 and 14 years old, and I was at this weight before my first pregnancy.  It seems that I am now back at my "set-point".  My guess is that I will stay here, hovering above 200 pounds, until my surgery.  The good news is that with more than 50 pounds off of my frame I do feel better and I do have more energy.  The bad news is that I'm still in a great deal of pain from my friends fibromyalgia and arthritis, so excercise seems like an unlikely step to start losing again. 

Four weeks ago I made a decision to start exercising, which I have not kept.  I am more active since I started working 3 months ago, but I am just hurting too much to exercise.  By the end of each working day I am so tired that I cannot even imagine exercising, and before work it's all about getting there with my energy a a maximum.  Maybe next month........ 

I did keep one of my little exercise resolution from early April, which was be more active around the house.  I am going up and down the stairs more, and using the kids less to be my "legs".  I have been doing ok with that, until I went a little nuts this weekend.  Instead of my usual friday night and saturday night of movie or tv show watching on Netflix, I did housework.  It was not a truly great idea, I am still sore from the scrubbing and bending and such.  So, maybe next weekend, a little housework and some movies, to keep me from being in too much pain to go to work when the weekend ends!

Meanwhile, I will continue to try to eat smart and healthy, and to try to say no to temptations at the table.  I walked right past a brownie today, it called my name and winked at me, but I turned away, slowly, but yes, I turned away.  A year ago I would have gobbled that little cube shaped beauty without a second thought, but today I am not gonna do it!

So, the plateau gets bigger every day, and I continue to toddle along, hoping to see the edge.   At only 5 feet tall, losing too much weight to be eligible for surgery is not an issue, so I'm gonna keep on trying to lose as much weight as I can the miserable and slow way..... very slow.

I'm able to keep a full time job!!  I have been fighting my fibromyalgia pain, and really, really hungry, but I have managed to stick it out so far.  My job is still fun and I still enjoy my coworkers, so it's all good.  Hopefully in another month they will hire me on as an actual Fluortek employee, with health benefits, and then my next countdown begins, the one to surgery!!

I went to a support group today and it was not really all that great, got a free sample of a protein supplement though, and it completes my requirement of attending at least 2 support group meetings prior to surgery.  One more thing "checked off" of my list and one less obstacle between me and my goal of a gastric bypass!

I  have been working 40 hours per week, or more, and that is quite an accomplishment for me.  I get so tired, and all I want to do is sleep.  I am getting about 10 to 12 hours of sleep each night.  I think that my way of dealing with all my pain is to "sleep it off"  and that the sleep somehow restores me so that I can go again the next day.  This is tough on my family, though, since I never feel like shopping, cooking or doing errands.  I am hoping that when my body gets used to my new work routine I will go back to sleeping 8 hours a day and will have more time for my family and other responsibilities.  It has only been two months, so we'll see.  

The weight continues to come off slowly, very slowly!  Last week I was premenstrual and SO HUNGRY!!  I think I ate more in a week than I did in the previous month.  This week was period week and I was still pretty hungry, but better able to control my behavior.  Head  hunger was my enemy this week, but I fought back by drinking a lot of water and that seemed to help, or at least make me feel better.  Even if I can't eat when I want or as much as I want, I can drink water when I'm hungry and keep myself busy that way.

I'm gonna have to work on training my family about nutrition and food choices.  I asked Bob to stop and pick up lunch today, and he shows up with a yummy selection of stuff I don't eat any more.  I understand that he and the boys are not eating as I am, but it would have been nice to have something in the mix that I could eat and enjoy.  The KFC mashed potatoes and gravy and biscuits and baked beans were all a big "no no" for me, and I peeled the skin off my fried chicken and ate the meat, but wondered just how much fat was added by the KFC fryers.  

I am really noticing a big difference in how I am feeling now that I'm eating healthy.  For the first time in more than 15 years I do not have gas, bloating, and diarrhea every day!  After about a month on my healthy eating plan I am having normal, regular bowel movements.  If I eat too many carbs or sugars, I will immediately dump and feel really sick for a while.  If I eat too much fat, I have diarrhea about 3 hours or more later, along with fun cramps and gas.  Now that I know eating healthy keeps me off the toilet, I have an even greater incentive to eat the right stuff, and to enjoy my carbs and sugars in moderation.

I can still eat carbs and sugars, but they must be with a big dose of protein, and not too much.  This is great for me, since it lets me enjoy a tiny taste of whole grains, or a lightly sweetened cereal or granola, as long as protein is dominant in the food.  Now to keep reminding myself of all the reasons NOT to eat stupid crap!

Now that I'm working I don't have the time to spend on web forums or on this blog, but I know it is a good thing to keep up with what's happening on OH and also to put my thoughts down as a way to deal with and vent.  Until next time, happy spring!

 to me!!  

Happy St. Patrick's Day, and go see eggface to win a very cool prize

Here's her logo, go see eggy~
 

 Go to the website and enter to win!

http://theworldaccordingtoeggface.blogspot.com/

You can also see some really great recipes which are yummy and tested by a WLSer!!
Great food!

I hope you have  a happy St. Patrick's Day.  My boys will be marching in their first St. Paddy's Day Parade today, in Bethlehem, PA.  They will be wearin' the green and tooting their horns and marching down the streets while wearing green t shirts and silly hats.  Yay!

I will be shopping for for ingredients to make home made meat sauce and lasagna this weekend, gonna feed my co-workers on Sunday night.  Since I work the dreaded midnight shift from 1030 PM til 7 AM, my week begins on Sunday nights at 1030, earlier this week since I'll be working overtime!

My plan, make sauce on Saturday morning, make lasagna on Sunday morning, eat lasagna on Sunday night.  I'm using extra lean meat and low fat cheeses, and then I'll avoid eating too many noodles.  This should help me to keep it high protein, low fat, and lower carb than the typical lasagna.  Sorry, I'm not ready to use veggies instead of noodles.

Hoping that my friend the heating pad will help my back to relax and stop spasming.  It would be nice to start the work week not sore!

Luck to you all!
Melissa

I refuse to give in to it and stop working.  My job is not hard.  I sit at a table in an adjustable chair.  I look at small pieces of plastic tubing.  I take and write down measurements of the tubing.  I get up, walk around, and sit back down.  I lift things that weigh less than a can of soup.  Why then, is my body screaming with pain every night when I have hours yet to work?  Simple, really, I have the bad luck to have fibromyalgia, also known as the mystery illness that nobody really knows squat about.  I have been working this job for about a month and a half now, and my pathetic muscles continue to cramp and spasm.  

The small, somewhat repetitive motions that are involved in my job should not be enough to cause anyone pain, and a normal person would find this job restful, even!  You get to sit, but not for too long, and there are a variety of tasks to perform so I can stand up and walk around fairly often.  There's no extended period of standing, and only a little computer time involved.  

I like my coworkers.  This is a big thing, since stress makes fibromyalgia pain so much worse.  I am fairly relaxed as I perform my various tasks, and I can take a break, roll my shoulders, stretch and walk around as often as I need to.  This is the ideal job for someone who can't stand to sit still for too long, or who can't stay on her feet all night.  It seems so crazy that I am having so much pain when this is a great job for me!

Every evening before work I get the heating pad out and sit with it against my back, then take a hot shower and have my husband rub my back down with Ben Gay.  Every morning when I get home I immediately get back on the heating pad to try to get my knotted muscles to relax.  I called my doctor earlier this week requesting something to take at bedtime to help the muscles relax, no call back, no prescription.  I keep thinking that my body will eventually get used to the job and the tasks that I am performing and this will stop.  There is no reason why I cannot have a full time job.  Really. Who am I trying to convince?
 

I'm still losing!  I got the chance to earn some overtime pay this past week, for the first time since I started my job back in late January.  It was nice to have the chance to earn some extra money, plus it shows that my supervisor has a certain amount of faith in me!!  I was happy to work the extra hours, but totally worn out and in a lot of pain by the end of each shift.  I am continuing to have problems with my back.  Not serious back trouble, just painful muscle spasms that won't relax.  Before work I spend time on the heating pad and get a Ben Gay massage from Bob, and after work I spend as much time on the heating pad as I can stand.

I am very happy to be working, and even more happy that things are going well, and that I have a good chance of being hired as an actual company employee, but also worried that my stupid back is going to continue to make me miserable.  I am having a hard time with the pain, and I don't want to turn down the offer of overtime because I want to be a team player.  I really need to figure out how to stretch and relax all these muscles in my back, the ones along either side of the spine, from neck to buttocks.  They are killing me!

On another front, I am this close (fingers about 1/2 inch apart) to getting hired as an actual Fluortek employee!  This means medical insurance, which means that I can get my surgery without paying for the entire thing myself!  All I have to do is keep working hard, not be late or absent, and keep learning the job.  I met with my primary care physician Friday morning to begin my 6 months of weight loss monitoring.  She is pleased with the weight i have lost so far (30 pounds in 5 months) and I will go in monthly to get weighed.  She also gave me a carbohydrate counter to help me out.

I am so glad that I am continuing to lose weight, it is very tough and I am really struggling this week.  It seems that the pain and the long hours make it much harder for me to "do the right thing."  I have gotten used to ignoring my body's constant crying out for food;  I have learned to ignore the hunger pangs coming from my belly.  What is hardest for me is the "head hunger" that tells me that I really need Mac and Cheese or Home Fries, to make me feel better and have some energy.

I am so, so very needy this week, missing my beloved carbs!  I have had a couple of questionable meals, but I have decided to look on the positive side of these choices.  Eating a double cheeseburger may be naughty, it was kinda greasy, but no fries, no soda, and the school system says ketchup is a vegetable, so??  I did break down and have a Chik Fil A chicken biscuit, but I had two servings of chicken and only one biscuit, gave the second portion of bread to the dogs! I didn't even consider those tater tots, although they called out to me in their sensuous, grease soaked voices....

March is here, and I am glad spring is almost here.  Longer days really help with my depression.  I hope spring is sunny and warm, and that my daffodils bloom like crazy.  They are up, but not quite ready to open yet.  My crocuses are also peeking up from the ground, they usually blossom first but this year the daffodils have a head start.  I wish I were able to get outside and work in the garden, I really miss digging and pulling weeds, planting seeds and flowers, and pruning.  If I were healthy I'd be out there this weekend, getting ready for spring to pop.  Hopefully, by this time next year I'll not only be slimmer, I'll also be able to get out there and garden.  It used to be my number one stress relief before the fibromyalgia took it away from me.

Be sure to check out my friend Shelly's blog, she is giving away protein this week, the good stuff! you can find her at http://theworldaccordingtoeggface.blogspot.com/
to sign up for the giveaway.

This is a great blog with excellent recipes and "food porn" to show off just how good looking as well as yummy post WLS food can be.  Keep your fingers crossed that I might win this week's giveaway, if you don't win!!

Melissa

 

PMS!!  These demons have joined together to make me HUNGRY!!  I feel like I did back when I first stopped drinking soda and cut waaay back on carbs.  I am craving carbs and so very hungry, and not sure how to get thru the day.  I am enjoying my job as a 3rd shift QC Inspector at Flourtek, Inc., and I have been sleeping well, but this week has been tough!  Cold medicine before work and again before bed, sleeping almost all the time I'm not at work, and still feeling at the low ebb of energy at the end of each workday.  Hopefully the upcoming long weekend will help me to whip this cold and get caught up on my rest.  My weight continues to drop, very sloooooowly, but drop it does, at least until today!

I have been  really hungry all day, starving in fact, and did not sleep when I got home from work.  Instead I caught up on my TV shows and deleted them from my DVR and tried to think about what the boys needed for their weekend.  They are camping with the Boy Scouts and competing in a Klondike Derby this weekend, so Bob and I have the place to ourselves.  Sadly, they did nothing to prepare for the camp-out, so today was a crazy as I got them to pack up all their gear and go over their list of required materials for their competition.    A quick trip to our favorite neighborhood market and they are all set for a great weekend in the Poconos with their friends, and I can look forward to having a nice dinner out with Bob tonight or tomorrow.  Meanwhile, let the hormones rage, I will just try to drink as much water as I can stand and ride out this hunger or maybe get some sleep eventually.  I know I have been a total meanie with my guys today, so irritable with my hormones all over the place.  Hopefully all will be resolved before the weekend is over and I return to work.

I have to say I am amazed and pleased that I continue to lose weight.  When I started the WLS journey back in November, I knew it would be a long haul before I could have surgery, and I committed myself to eating smart, and to really change the way I think and feel about food.  I am practicing the "I don't eat that anymore" attitude, instead of feeling deprived.  Today, my son Jack asked me if I liked lemonade.  I told him that  I really do like it, but the sugar in lemonade is really not good for me, and I don't like the flavor of lemonade with artificial sweetener, so I choose not to drink it.  

The other day Jack and I had a good talk about food and weight.  He has been quite chubby the last year or two, but since I got rid of all the junk food in my house we are all eating healthy and he has started to slim down.  He is very happy about this, but still doesn't completely get the connection between the change in eating habits  and his body changes.  I explained to him that I am not a dog, so I don't think of food as a "treat" any more.  Instead, I think of food as fuel for my body.  I try to give my body the fuel it needs each day, protein, carbs and a little fat, plus lots of water and my vitamins.  If the fuel is tasty that is a bonus, but all that I require is that the food provide my body with all it needs to be healthy and function properly.   He commented that I have really changed how I think about food, and I said yes, I am really changing how I think and feel about food and my body.  I'm hoping that he and his brother will begin to think this way too!

Working has been a good thing for me, surprisingly.  I pack a lunch each day and I enjoy Light & Fit yogurt or cottage cheese and tomato, or a lean sandwich on whole wheat bread.  Often I am so tired when I get home that I eat a yogurt and then go right off to bed, and I often hit the "snooze" button for a few extra zzzz s instead of getting up in time to eat a meal before work.  Luckily I am allowed to take a water bottle in with me, so I can practice sipping all during my shift as I work.  I started working on January 25, and so it has been just 3 and 1/2 weeks since I started, but I am feeling at home there, enjoying talking with my coworkers, and really enjoying bringing home a paycheck!  How nice it is to be earning again, to be contributing to the family's financial well being as well as doing the "Mom thing".  I have really missed this, and I am so glad to be working again.  

The next big question, "What to do with a 3 day weekend??"

but hopefully it will pass.  I am so excited to start my new job tomorrow, or today, depending on  your perspective.  I go in at midnight Wednesday and work until 830 am Thursday morning.  Still not sure what my regular shift will be, exactly.  I have tried so hard for so long to find a job, and now I'm totally stressed about how things are going.  

My boys are fighting a lot lately, at ages 14 and 12 pre-adolescent angst and total teenage misery collided again and again this week.  I was ready to pop out my wolverine style claws and slash their little heads off!  Funny how they can be best buddies one day, and ready to kill each other the next.  I am hoping that once I am working they'll be helping each other out around the house and not killing each other!

Got back on the scale again this week, and I'm now down more than 20 pounds from my heaviest weight!  This week has been tough, trying to turn night into day and vice versa has seen me missing meals and forgetting to drink water and never knowing which way is up.  On the plus side, I am tired all the time!  Hopefully I will go to sleep around 730 in the morning on Wednesday and sleep all day, so I am well rested for my first night at work.

Hubby is totally supportive, he is glad to see me back to work, because we need the money, but much more importantly, I think, he has seen that working really helps me to feel less depressed.  When I am working I sleep better, eat less, and have less time to sit around and worry.  The only issue is, he is going out of town next week.  This means that for 3 nights I will be at work and my boys will be at home alone, no adult present.  This is NOT a comfortable feeling for me.  If I were six months into the job it probably wouldn't be such a big deal, but we are just getting ready to establish a new routine, and now it's going to get all messed up.  I think I'll get my dad to come for a visit!

He lives over 400 miles away, and hasn't visited in a while, since the drive is very tough on him.  I'm just hoping he can stay here so I won't have to leave the boys home alone at night....I'm sure that between now and the weekend Bob and I will come up with a solution that works for all of us.  My boys are very immature and I cannot imagine trusting them to wake up and get ready for school and be prepared to catch the carpool in the mornings without adult supervision.  This work thing is going to be more work at home than it is at work!!

***************************************


I recently connected with my first ever "best friend".  She was a neighbor of mine growing up, and I haven't seen her in over 35 years.  It was so wonderful to connect with her on FB, and then she sent me a photo from when we were kids:





Although the picture quality isn't great, this really was me all those years ago.  So serious!

I am guessing that none of the people who know me know would ever recognize this kid, but this is still how I think of me.  Crazy, huh?

Really hoping for a long and restful sleep before I start the job, I want to make a great impression on my shift supervisor and get off to a great start.

 

here in Pennsylvania!!  I have been hoping for snow since we had a crazy early October snowfall, and finally we have more snow!!  We got about 4 inches of the white stuff today, which means the kids and dogs are all tired out and sleeping quietly now!  


Hubby took the day off yesterday and I forced him to cooperate with me for most of the day.  We organized and cleaned his room, in preparation for a cat adoption later on this winter.  We are adopting a Maine Coon female.  She is a mother, and is currently nursing her last litter of kittens.  We will be adopting her from the breeder after she gets spayed and heals up from the surgery.  I am very excited because she is a real sweetie and also I can't wait to have another pet in the house!

So, by the end of the day Friday we had Bob's room totally rearranged, a cat tower put together and in place, and we even got her litterbox set up (no litter yet, though).  Now we just wait until we get the call that she is ready to come home with us... Hopefully in February.



"So", you ask," why do you and Bob sleep in separate bedrooms??"  Well, it's a funny story really. When we were first married I was a short and stocky 135 pounds, but this was within a healthy BMI for me, so my weight and health were not so bad.  Bob was a Very Loud Snorer.  At first, I just had to get to sleep before him, and then the snoring wouldn't bother me.  In those days I could sleep through anything.   As the years went by, though, he got louder and louder, and eventually developed apnea.  He would make really loud SNORTs during the night which woke me up.  

I then began to really listen to him and realized that he was having apnea, not just snoring.  By this time I had been sleeping with this combination chain saw and snorting bull for about nine years!  I finally got tired of lying in bed and waking him up so he could breathe, only to be kept awake by the snoring.   I set up a bed in and slept in a separate room and started to nag him about his snoring.  Fast forward a few years and he FINALLY went to the doctor, he immediately got a CPAP device after his sleep study.  

As many of you know, this device is not silent, it hisses.  So, I found that I still couldn't sleep with him, it was too creepy to try to sleep in bed with someone who doesn't have audible breathing.  Plus, that CPAP could shoot morning breath 5 feet easily...

The years rolled by and the pounds packed on my five foot frame, and we continued to sleep apart.  About 9 and 1/2 years ago we moved to our current home in Pennsylvania.  I said, "You know, Bob, we could get one of those Sleep Number beds, and sleep in the same bed again! "   Guess what?  After all those years of my suffering through his snoring, he told me "Sorry honey, your snoring would keep me awake!"  

This, coming from the world champion snorer!  

He did, however suggest that I get a sleep study, since my snoring was so loud, and sure enough I now have my own CPAP in my room!  Maybe someday we can sleep in the same bed, but for now I'm just as happy to retire to my own room, which I share with our two dogs.  They love to sleep in the same room with me, and sometimes they kindly get in my bed to keep me warm.

So, very soon Bob will have Belle, the white Maine Coon Cat as his sleeping buddy, and I will continue to "go to the dogs".

I got some great news yesterday!  I have been hired as a temporary employee at a company that is only 10 minutes from my home!  The pay is not as high as I would like, but I am confident that as the price of gasoline goes up, the pay will seem better and better!  I will be working 3rd shift, and I start Wednesday night, which is 4 nights from now.  The plan is for me to sleep during the day starting on Monday, and hopefully I will be able to make the switch without too much trouble.  I have worked 3rd shift once before and sleeping during the day was no problem.   I will be a temp for at least 3 months, but as soon as I am hired on as a company employee I am going to purchase myself some health insurance and see my surgeon!



This is very exciting for me for many reasons, but mostly because I have been job hunting for so long, and this company is so close to home.  Now all I have to do is work hard and learn a lot so that they will hire me on as a company employee when my 3 month probationary period is over.  I am really looking forward to having a work life, and the boys are certainly ready to have Mom out of their hair.  I hope that I will be awake when they get home from school at 3:30 each afternoon, and that seven hours of sleep plus a nap in the evening will be enough to get me through.  

I am going to miss some things, though, like the luxury of going to lunch with friends and having my days all to myself with no agenda.  Having more money for the family, and getting a surgery date that might be sooner, and covered by insurance, are SOOOOO worth it!!  Another good thing, the dress code is very relaxed, so I don't have to spend money I haven't made yet on clothes.  The jeans and shirts I have now will do just fine!

And so, as I continue on my weight loss journey I also embark on the back to work journey, which I hope gets me closer to my surgery date!  What a relief it was to remove myself from all the "job search" mailing lists I have been on.  

and again with the cold shower!  It started out OK, got Bob and the boys out the door and then went back to sleep, since I had no morning obligations.  Somehow, sleeping during the day is sooooo nice, I love the luxurious feeling of being under the covers when the rest of the family is off at work and school.  The dogs like it too, they are champion nappers.

After ten I got a call inviting me to a second interview at Fluortek, a plastics company nearby.   I interviewed with this company once in 2011 and never got a call back, so now I'm wondering why they are calling me now, and what's up?  I gather up my interview duds and head to the shower only to find..... wait for it......NO Hot Water Again!!! Holy Cow it's way below freezing outside and there's no way I'm taking a cold shower again today.  NO WAY!

One hour, two phone calls to Bob and three trips downstairs to the hot water heater and I still have no hot water. I do, however have an aching back and screaming knees, so I just give up on hot water for today.   I finally resign myself to a shower-free day.  The interview will have to ride on the effectiveness of my deodorant!  OK, so put on the dress clothes, comb the hair brush the teeth, put on jewelry and minimal makeup and I'm out the door.  The interview goes fine, I get the tour of the factory and best of all it looks like I'll have an offer coming soon.  I'll be temporary for 3 months and then get hired on permanent, if all goes well.  Now I just hope they have good health insurance and all my troubles will be over!

When the interview was over I had about 45 minutes for lunch and then a scheduled appointment with my gastroenterologist.  Picked up a yummy salad from Chik Fil A (love that place) and proceeded to spill it into my lap.  Used choice language and then ate what was left.  Had five minutes left before my appointment, but I guess Dr. was running late because I was in there waiting for what felt like forever.  I think I'm going to start billing all my providers for the time spent waiting.  A phone call saying that the Dr. is running late isn't too much to ask, is it?

I finally saw his PA and then the Dr.  He wants to take a look and see how things are going in my esophagus and stomach.  I told him of the theory of bile reflux gastritis and he looked doubtful, but we'll see.  Getting an endoscopy in a week, so we'll know better then what shape the old tummy is really in.

Meanwhile this is a HUNGRY afternoon!  I ate only a banana before my interview, and was starving by the time I ate my salad at 230.  Now I am ravenous and can't seem to feel full.  Consequence of not eating breakfast, I suppose.  Got a butternut squash in the oven and I have no idea what else we are having for din dins.  I am just worn out from the aggravation of my day, and too tired to drag myself to the kitchen and cook.  Dinner fairies, where are you?