Girl Scout Cookies are officially on sale in our service area as of midnight tonight!

Last year the blog was absolutely pummeled with requests for cookies. It seems like a lot of people live in rural areas and don’t have Girl Scouts come visit them. I can’t tell you how many boxes I shipped out! I hope those of you who asked me for them enjoyed them…especially one sweet woman who cleared out her deep freezer to store two cases of cookies…not a bad idea!

Gillian will be schlepping her sweet little body (and dragging me behind her) door to door as well to reach her goal of 300 boxes. We’re also giving boxes to our local children’s cancer hospital, so we’re hoping to have people buy boxes to donate as well.

My calendar is totally clear after school tomorrow, because she’s going to start right after she drops her books off at home – even homework will wait until evening. The good thing is that we live in a condo complex, so there are a lot of doors close together:) I’ll help her out on Friday as well (and our darling Aidan also is happy to walk her around, I love my son). Matt will take over on Saturday and Sunday.

I’ve actually mapped our complex with a spreadsheet, so that she can mark off the doors she’s knocked on, whether they were home, and if they have ordered or not, so we won’t bother them more than once. It took me the past 2 years to get this down to a science…having the list is a huge timesaver, and helps Gillian reach more people more quickly before she starts to melt down. No one wants to buy cookies from a whiny Girl Scout who’s hit the wall:)

We’ve changed bakeries this year, and some of the cookies are different. They’ve gone back to some of the ‘old’ names of cookies they had changed, like Samoas, and added some new ones, like Dulce de Leche.

I wish they had kept the low fat 100-calorie packs they offered last year, and maybe made some new ones with Truvia (those of you with blood sugar issues, Truvia is fantastic). Here’s a link to what we’ve got this year…

So wish us luck, and warm weather. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, and the start of a long, long weekend!

I’m frustrated.
This past year I spent mostly in bed testing drug after drug for debilitating depression and anxiety. It has been hard on my body.

After my gastric bypass 7 years ago, I had stabilized my weight at a place with which I felt comfortable. My body just found where it needed to be, and stayed there. I didn’t think about calories, I didn’t weigh myself often, and I really didn’t fluctuate more than 3 pounds or so. My weight was just something I didn’t have to worry about any more.

So I knew there would be side effects from many of the drugs the doctor wanted to try in the hopes of finding something that worked, but weight gain wasn’t something that came up on my radar. I began to ‘Carb-load’, an almost heroin-like need for carbs that’s nearly insatiable. My weight ballooned.

I think what upsets me so much is that I was stable for *so* long… the weight is coming off now that we’ve finally found the right combination of drugs, but it’s slow, and I’ve got a closet full of clothes I can’t wear. I have two pair of capris I keep switching off with, and all my shirts are tight.

And I have three formal events before the end of the year, one with the partners of the firm my husband works for, and a very high-society wedding in Manhattan.

My self-esteem used to be WAY caught up in my weight. I’m glad to say I don’t feel that – shame – to the degree I did before. It’s just terribly inconvenient and I don’t look good in clothes, which frustrates the shallow vain aspect of me.

I’m grateful that we finally realized that SSRIs completely numbed me out – totally dead emotionally – and that there are options. I guess if the price I had to pay for myself was my pride – and a little bit of my physical health – it was worth it.

My family paid a price as well, having a very low functioning wife and mother for an extended period of time. That’s another post.

So, we just celebrated Mabon with Juniper and co, and I baked something called a Harvest Loaf, although it could be argued that it’s a heavy cake. It’s certainly not what I think of when I think of ‘bread’.

When I first tasted this back in 2000 or so, I never would have eaten it if I knew what was in it. I *hate* cloves. I really dislike pumpkin. But I took a bite, and my eyes rolled back in my head. EVERYONE who has tried this has had the same reaction. It could have something to do with the butterscotch and chocolate chips…

I made this gluten free and Celiac friendly for Gillian by using a little baking powder (as well as the baking soda that’s in the recipe already) and All Purpose Celiac Flour from  www.kinnikinnick.com . Don’t add the baking powder if you’re not using the Celiac flour, you won’t need it. Stick to the recipe below.

Not only is it good for cakes and ale this time of year, it fits in well at any social occasion. Just make sure you bring a few extra copies of the recipe…you *will* be asked for it.

Thanks to Margaret Blood for sharing this at a Newcomer’s Meeting back in 2000…

Harvest Loaf

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter
1c. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
3/4 c. solid pack pumpkin
1 3/4 c.flour
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ginger
1tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. chocolate chips
1/2 c. butterscotch chips

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 325. Grease bottom of pans. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and beat, then place to side. Combine all dry ingredients in a seperate bowl. Add pumpkin alternating with dry ingredients to the egg mixture, and beat. Stir in chips.
Bake as follows:

Small loaf pans (2) 50 minutes
Tube or Bunt pan 70 minutes

It’s Girl Scout Cookie time. We can officially start selling cookies on October 1st, and I just keep telling my friends to write down what they need, and they can hand me the paper on Thursday:). Gillian beat her goal of 300 boxes last year, and wishes to beat last year’s goal. If you pray, to whichever diety you pray, pray for my household to weather the pattering storm of Girl Scout cookie season. Or a less driven daughter, whichever is easier for your diety.

Instead of seeing this situation as her turning into a rabid Girl Scout, I’d rather see her as a deeply motivated Leader’s daughter who wishes to set the bar high for her sister Juniors (she just graduated from Brownies at the end of the last school year).

Unfortunately for our neighbors, she was raised by people in the wholesale/retail business, and after pleasantly greeting her neighbors, asks how many boxes they’d like to buy. When they choose 6 boxes of Thin Mints, her reply is “And how many boxes of Samoas would you like?”

Then she lets them know if they’d like to contact their relatives and friends, we will find the cheapest way to ship, should they wish us to.

Is is illegal to let a 9-year-old take the car to UPS and USPS to compare rates? Shall we buy her a weight belt so she can load them into the car and ship them? (Despite my joking, we have shipped them out to friends, family and readers (AKA friends) for the last two years. It’s our pleasure.)

God(dess) forbid someone should wish to refrain due to dietary restrictions, Gillian will happily ask them how many boxes they would like to buy to be sent to the local children’s cancer hospital or to be sent overseas to our troops (we haven’t decided which yet).

She’s very hard to say no to. I have no idea where she got that from….

I’ve been in bed for the better part of a year, totally shut down, trying different combinations of drugs to make it so that I could function. Poor Matt has been working a 60+ hour a week job with a 3 hour daily commute, then walking in the door and taking care of the kids.

I’ve been completely off of the SSRIs for a little over a month, and after some severe withdrawal symptoms (despite stepping down slowly), I’m now on a combination of drugs that are handling the highs and lows without taking away all my emotions. This was the original intent in working with a doctor who specialized in ‘cocktails’, and it’s taken a while, but I finally feel like I’m on the right track. I’m feeling more human. I’m feeling. That’s new and different.

The house has suffered, it’s actually *dirty*, something that really disgusts me. I’m trying to play catch-up a little every day, but it’s hard, because the kids come home and the clutter reappears. My concentration right now is cleaning the surfaces under the inevitable clutter, and then making the kids handle their own clutter. I feel like a hamster on a wheel, but at least I’m functioning.

The kids are back in school and doing well. More on that later. It’s been so long since I’ve blogged that I don’t want to overwhelm myself, so I’ll go one post at a time….

I’ve missed you. I’ve missed me too….