Tuesday, September 24, 2013

My Bike Shoes Are In The Freezer... And Other Random Tales

So a couple weeks ago I put my bike shoes on and felt something unusual... wasn't sure what it was but took my foot out of my shoe only to find HUNDREDS of ants in there. Holy crap that was nauseating. You know how hard it is to get rid of all those ants?? Really hard. I won't go into all the details, but it turns out those ants are somehow attracted to the inserts I have in there and they will NOT stay away from my shoes. I've put cinnamon in there (didn't work), tried OxyClean powder (didn't work), ran those shoes through the dishwasher (didn't work)... If I leave them outside on the patio after I ride, the ants find them. In the last few weeks I've had to add 10' to my bike ride prep time to de-ant my shoes, which I've been doing with a power hose outside. Those things hang on though it's amazing how strong of a grip they have. I've resorted to storing my bike shoes in my freezer. I am not kidding. I do put them in a plastic bag and in the bottom drawer so hopefully they're not contaminating the food in there. In good news, we eat more fresh food than frozen.

In related news, in Hawaii it takes like less than 10' for frozen shoes to thaw out after you start riding. :)

I followed the coverage of IM Lake Tahoe over the weekend and apparently it takes longer for frozen shoes to thaw out up there. But I bet nobody had ants in their shoes now did they?? In all seriousness, props to anyone who even started that race. Shit. I'm really not sure I would have.

Can anyone tell me why it is that husbands are incapable of loading the dishwasher in an organized manner? I don't understand that. They can pack a ridiculous amount of luggage and bike boxes in a car like nobody's business but figuring out how to organize plates and coffee cups in a dishwasher is beyond their scope? After 5+ years of marriage I'm finally just accepting this as not one of my husband's many skill sets... but to all the Mama's of the little boys out there... please do your future daughter-in-laws a favor and teach your sons how to load a dishwasher.

At the grocery store today I bought a bottle of coconut wine. Have you ever even heard of coconut wine? I had not. My husband came home and asked me what possessed me... Just a whim, I said. Turns out its super sweet- like syrup sweet (almost). It would probably be really good over fresh strawberries as a dessert. It also works to allow you to relax and not worry about how efficiently packed the dishwasher happens to be. :)

Yesterday at the playground 3 older girls told Moana she couldn't play with them because she was too little. She was upset and came crying to me. I wasn't exactly sure how to best handle that but we had a little talk about how girls can be mean (I'm sure this will not be the last time we have that talk) and I suggested she let it go... maybe we should just go home? She didn't think that was an acceptable solution. NO, she said. She insisted she was going to tell those girls that what they said wasn't nice and although I warned her that might not be a good idea, I just watched as she marched right over to those girls to give them a piece of her mind. They were out of ear shot for me so I just watched and sure enough within a minute or so they were all playing together. I was floored. My 4 year old has some courage. More than me, apparently!

Those girls aren't the only ones she speaks her mind to though. Somebody is starting to really speak out here at home. I predict some serious battles in this house in the coming years.

I finally read the book Wheat Belly. And as an experiment, I immediately stopped eating all wheat products (he makes a compelling argument). I'm not gluten intolerant or anything so this has nothing to do with that. It's more about how I typically feel a fairly ridiculous amount of hunger, and about how if I eat a Wheat Thin I'll eat the whole box before I even realize it, never feeling satisfied. The book suggests that modern wheat products affect our brains and in cutting them out over the past 10 days or so, I've found this to be true for me. I didn't find it hard at all to drop bread and pasta and english muffins, etc. And what I found was that my appetite evened out and I have not felt obsessed with food, for once. I'm not anti-carb or anything, so I still eat potatoes and bananas and oatmeal and basically anything that is not wheat. You know what though? You have to pretty much prepare 100% of your own food if you want to eat wheat-free. Apparently everything processed has wheat in it. Why does soy sauce need wheat?? I don't really get that but now that I am carefully reading labels looking for wheat it has opened my eyes to part of the issue with food addiction that so many of us battle.

Enough of the random stories for tonight!

5 comments:

Angela and David said...

If I had a nickle for every time I've made Zach do something (like properly load the dishwasher) and said "I am not going to do to your future wife what your grandmother has done to me" I'd be a very rich woman.

Anonymous said...

You would have started the race and loved the challenge! Wheat Belly does make a very compelling argument and I find his words to be true, at least for me. Also, you can use tamari in place of soy sauce. Unfortunately wheat is pretty much hidden in everything. I went 100% GF leading into Tahoe after I got the bad news about my blood work. I 'think' it's made a big impact... think.

Anonymous said...

You would have started the race and loved the challenge! Wheat Belly does make a very compelling argument and I find his words to be true, at least for me. Also, you can use tamari in place of soy sauce. Unfortunately wheat is pretty much hidden in everything. I went 100% GF leading into Tahoe after I got the bad news about my blood work. I 'think' it's made a big impact... think.

Anonymous said...

That is crazy about the ants. We had psychotic ants living in our walls once, but they never attacked my shoes.

And, apparently, it's all about how our modern wheat is milled? And messed up.

Julie Dunkle said...

Brags Amino Acids - perfect soy sauce replacement- no wheat and lots of good AA!