Tonight I thought I'd try my hand at food blogging. I don't style myself an amazing or singularly interesting chef but, honestly, it gave me a fun reason to play with my new camera. The reason I chose to document this particular recipe is mostly because of the colors of the ingredients. It's also one of my absolute favorite recipes, is fairly simple, and is my go-to for parties. While I can eat it myself even after my bariatric surgery, I generally avoid it because of the sugar and carbs involved. That said, I've been known to sneak a bite.

Mike and I live in a small house and have two cats. This cuts down the amount of entertaining we do. Because of this I take it upon myself to help out or bring a dish to any get together that we're invited to. If someone else is volunteering their house for a party I feel that the least I can do is whip together a little something to bring with me. This colorful recipe is one of my absolute favorites to bring because of its vibrant colors and flavors. I usually like to make it fresh, a few hours before heading out to the gathering but this time I made it the night before. The party we're going to is at the home of some of our good friends and is on the 4th of July. The morning of the 4th Mike and I always attend the Kirkland parade so I just wouldn't have the time to make it that day. Anyways, sitting in the fridge overnight will really give the flavors time to mesh together. Without further ado:

Southwestern Corn Salad
I originally found this recipe on Allrecipes.com and modified it for my own tastes.


Ingredients

• 8 ears fresh corn (preferrably in husks)
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 orange bell pepper
• 1 red onion or 1 bunch green onions
• 1 bunch fresh cilantro
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic
• 3 limes, juiced
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Cumin to taste
• Paprika to taste
• 1 tablespoon hot sauce
• sesame oil to taste

As of yesterday I am officially two months out from my Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass surgery. It's been a whirlwind of activity, emotions, and food. I wish I had made an update post a month ago because now it seems like there's almost TOO much to catch up on. So, to avoid getting off topic I'll try to keep things in chronological order. Sorry if this ends up being a long read!

"Obesity is a worldwide epidemic, and is rampant in the United States. It is newly recognized as a major disease. Obesity not only affects the individual's physical appearance, but also increases health risks and incidence of death. To know that in the United States alone, there are more then 300,000 preventable deaths yearly, about 34 each hour, is very serious and frightening."*

Psst...do you want to know a secret? I'm fat and I've never really had a problem with it. When I think of myself, I don't think of a fat person. Walking in front of a mirror is always a sad surprise. It seems like it's always been all the OTHER people around me that have had a problem with MY body. Even though I'm over 100 pounds overweight, I'm in almost perfect health. My blood pressure and cholesterol are totally normal. Sure, I might get out of breath going up a lot of stairs, but I can still get up them with no problems. Plus, I really do enjoy food. I enjoy the act of creating a big meal and sitting down to eat it. So, the night before my life-changing weight loss surgery, I've started to ask myself who, exactly, I'm doing this for.

Don't get me wrong, months..hell, YEARS of research have gone into this decision. I've weight the risks and the rewards. I've tried other methods but after six months of a medically monitored weight loss program where I was eating right and seriously working out five days a week without much of a dent in my weight, it's become apparent that weight loss surgery is my last option. But who does the shape of my body matter most to? My husband...I'm sure he wouldn't mind a skinny wife who can lounge next to him on the beach in a bikini. A wife who can hike up a mountain or around a foreign city with him. My family...obesity is huge (pun intended) problem with my family. When my psychologist first asked me why I was doing this the only response I could think of was "I don't want to end up like my grandmother." I'm not trying to be mean when I say this and she's one of my greatest supporters when it comes to having the surgery. The rest of the world...even with the vast obesity statistics it's still totally counter culture to be overweight. In the end I want to live my life to the fullest...not be afraid to get on planes because of my weight or stuck in bed when I'm older because I'm too heavy to walk anymore. Mostly I WANT to be doing this for me.

I don't want these outside opinions to matter as much as they do. I want to be skinny for my husband because that would make ME happy. I want to be skinny for my family because it would make ME happy to break this family curse. I want to get thin and healthy so that when Mike and I have children they have the best possible chance from the very beginning. Not just through gestation, but as their own habits develop as they grow.

"To the patients with a status of 'morbid obesity' - 100 pounds or more above their ideal weight - the treatment of choice becomes surgery, since nonsurgical methods are projected to have an almost total failure rate."*

So, tomorrow promptly at 8am I'll be walking confidently (well, nervously) into Overlake Hospital for my Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass surgery. Yes, it's drastic. Yes, I'll mourn food. Yes, I'll wonder over and over what the HELL I did to myself...but maybe in the end I'll be able to look in the mirror and see the person I've always pictured myself to be.


* Excerpts from Before & After: Living and Eating Well After Weight Loss Surgery by Susan Maria Leach

Well, new and exciting for me, anyways.

I've always love to cook and recently I've really begun to enjoy sharing, not just the food but the experience of making the food, with other people. Most recently, I made my first lemon meringue pie and posted pictures of every step along with the recipe on my Facebook page. I even included a super easy recipe for fondant to make cute decorations with! Sorry, only friends and family can see currently but if anyone asks I'll post a blog about it. All of the people I shared the pie with expressed their enjoyment of it (they -could- have been lying to me) and several stated that it was the first time they'd had a lemon meringue pie made with real lemons. This surprised me since it was actually VERY easy to make.

In this light, I've decided to make a small blog series on cooking. I'm going to do one or two meals a week (as my motivation drives me). I'll post step by step pictures along with recipes and I'll even include a recipe for a pet treat to go along with the meal. The twist is that I'm going to base each meal around one of my favorite Disney movies. I'll make the meal and as we sit down to enjoy it, we'll also watch the movie. Hopefully the great food distracts Mike from this torture.

Keep in mind that I am, by no means, a chef. Most of these recipes I'm going to make for the first time and there's going to be a lot of winging it. The whole project is just for fun.

Here are my meal ideas so far. All of them are tentative and might change. If anyone has any good ideas, please let me know!

Lady and the Tramp: (For us) Healthy spaghetti with 'surprise' meatballs
                                    (For the dogs)Lady's puppy pasta

The Lion King: (For us) Injera ((an Ethiopian flat bread))
                                        Boboti ((South African meatloaf))
                         (For the dogs) 'Zebra' mash

Sleeping Beauty: (For us) Petite 'dragon' legs with 'dragon's blood' sauce
                                            Veggies with a Sleepytime tea sauce
                             (For the dogs) Woodland creature cookies


Aristocats: (For us) Sushi
                   (For the pets) Special salmon treats

Cinderella: (For us) Happily Ever After cake
                    (For the dogs) Prince Charming cookies

Ratatouille: (For us) My mother-in-law's Ratatouille
                     (For the dogs) Ratatouille with a poodley twist
                                      

Have a happy New Year and I look forward to hearing what you all think!




                                

I've never like having my picture taken. I'm sure I'm not alone in that sentiment. So, you can imagine that it's a bit mind boggling to me that this past year I've actually PAID to have people follow me around with a camera. Not only that, but I've begun to enjoy the process, as well as the results.

It started a little over a year ago when I met Kimberly Gauthier. At the time she was an aspiring pet photographer who had photographed a few play sessions of the poodle meet up group I was a member of. I commissioned her to take some fun pictures of Caly with maybe a few of us thrown in. The session ended up leaning more toward a session for us with a few photos of Caly here and there. Looking back at the pictures, I can still see how uncomfortable I was in front of the camera. Except in the candid pictures..like when Mike was spinning me around in circles on the tire swing. -_-


I had a bit of a break through last October on the cruise where Mike proposed. I realized that I was able to actually -smile- in photos without looking like a drooling idiot. It was all down hill from there.


This past June, Mike and and I got married. Our photographer was the AMAZING Chris Schmauch. I can not sing his praises enough. The photos he got for us were beyond what I could have hoped for and his work just keeps getting better! With these photos came the realization that even though I might not always be happy with the way I look, I can still see myself as beautiful. It helps to have that 'bridal glow'. I still regret that I had the lack of will power to get my body weight to what I wanted before the wedding but it's hard to be TOO upset when I look at the pictures of that special day. I still have the hope that a few years from now I'll be able to look back at them and say, "Can you -believe- how fat I was back then? I feel SO much better now." At least I can say I'm actually working on it (the soreness from my last trainer session is a testament to this).



A few months later we did another fun shoot with Kimberly just because. I have nothing but love for Kim. Over the past few months her work has evolved and grown in amazing ways. I'm proud to say I was one of the people that encouraged her from early on and I can't wait to see what she's doing a few years from now!


The final nail in the coffin came this past weekend when I again hired Kimberly to take do a Christmas card shoot for us. Oh, I could have sent regular Christmas cards with puppies or kittens with milk mustaches but no....I just HAD to have photo cards. It's in these photos that I believe I've finally been able to go from looking awkward and uncomfortable to letting my true happiness show. And, yes, I am truly happy. My life has become complete since I married Mike and I'm exactly where I want to be. I'm glad that I can finally show this in pictures.



Of course, the poodle will always be the photogenic one of the family.

I bugged Mike to make me a real blog for months. But I didn't just want a real blog, I wanted it to perfectly match the scheme of my website. He did it! ...and then it took me a few more months to actually get around to setting it up. But here it is and here I am.

I don't think I'm very good at blogging.
Oh well. I'll just keep talking and maybe it'll get good enough that someone will listen.

Summer's over and winter is coming. They're predicting our first snow this Saturday. I'm so excited! I love snow and so does the poodle. She'll spend hours zooming around in it....losing her mittens and collecting snowballs in her leg fur. However, despite all the fun we have here I still can't forget the many dogs who spend every hour of every day out in the snow...alone and freezing. There are so many dogs who are left chained in backyards no matter what the weather conditions. Many lack food and water as well.

It's very popular nowadays to compare a dog with a wolf. I'm not an expert by any means but I simply can't follow those methods. The dogs we see nowadays are more human creations then they are wild creatures roaming the mountain valleys. Many of the more extreme animal rights groups out there want to release all pet animals into 'freedom'. Can you imagine a Labradoodle out in the woods? Rubbing it's huge mats off on rocks maybe? Apparently they have not read the news articles about the stray Shih Tzu who's hair got so out of control that it became a prison shell that did not allow the dog to eat or walk.

Even if I don't believe that there should be wild Chihuahua herds roaming the plains, I do believe that dogs are still pack animals. Even if we bred most of the 'wild' out of them, we DID encourage their dependence on us. That makes the existence of the dogs spending their entire lives chained even more depressing. This is even more astonishing now that we're in the era where dogs are less pets, and more family. Many clients at the vet where I work refer to themselves as their pet's 'parents' instead of their pet's owners. However, there are still a few that only bring their dogs in for once a year shave downs. The dogs arrive in horrible condition. One this year even had maggots. These dogs are 'outside' dogs. I'm not talking about animals that are farm dogs in charge of a herd of animals. Or even guard dogs on 24 hour duty. These are 'pets' that people 'love' and are left outside in a backyard to live a lonely life. All these dogs are aggressive, obese, and filthy.

So, when you're outside enjoying the winter sports this year, please take a few minutes to remember those we have made dependent on us who are outside...alone and lonely. Find a local organization focused on helping these creatures and see how you can help as well. Maybe gather some neighbors to make simple dog houses to give out. Even donating a bag of food helps!

Happy winter!!