Days 27 & 28: Celebration and My Body Revolt

OK, weird title, right? Let's talk celebration first...I love my new job! It's going to be so exciting to be covering REAL news in Georgia (not fire, murder, baby killer type news) and the fact that this is an election year is doubly exciting. The people I'm working with are so intelligent, well spoken, and just genuinely NICE. It's so funny to say this, but being assigned my little cubicle almost made me weepy since it's been so long since I've had a "real job." I feel such a renewed sense of purpose. Even though it's been 2 1/2 years since I reported for a news station, for me, writing and reporting is like trying on an old, comfy sweater-- it's what I've always known and it's what I'm best at. It really feels like coming home.

Speaking of coming home and continuing the celebration theme here....I got home from my first day on the job and JP had a rack of pork ribs on the grill, a bottle of red and a triangle of brie to celebrate the fact that Mistress of Major Money Issues will finally be getting a paycheck!

I looked at the spread and just thought, UH OH. It's cleanse week-- and I obviously didn't make that clear to Mr. Man. I had gotten up at 5:15am (or rather, bolted out of bed before my alarm went off) to do a full 45 minutes of Dance Cardio '08. I was planning to do the MS when I got home....but ya see, the ribs, the wine, the cheese....SH*T.

You can imagine how that turned out. Mistress of Moderation Mayhem veered off the diet rails...AGAIN. I didn't STUFF myself like I did over the weekend, but let's just say, brie ain't on the TAM cleanse for a reason. That said, JP being the King of all things Grilled, declared the combo of his grilling and my dry rub and barbecue sauce to be "the best damn ribs" he's ever eaten. Our collaborations in the kitchen are always triumphant-- just not so much of a triumph for my diet, or my digestive tract, as I would soon find out.

Alarm went off this morning at 5:15am again, I put on my workout clothes, turned on the space heater, and, well....this video will sum up what happened next. Glad I didn't have on a wedding dress....just sayin'.

Here's where the second part of my title comes in: My body revolted. It was as if my body was saying, "REALLY, Parker? You're going to give me clean food and then fill my gullet with fattening crap??? I'll show you, PORKER!"

I don't think it was food poisoning. As much as I love all things pork-- pork chops, pork ribs, pork tenderloin, pork roast, pork butt-- yes, all things pork-- I have come to realize the hard way, that my body does not process pork well. (After this morning, that's an understatement). The last half a dozen times I had pork, my intestines went to war with me the next day. This time, was a little more, uh, violent than previous incidents!

Once everything was out of my system, I pulled myself together to get ready for work. I felt so sick that I didn't make my cleanse lunch to take with me, so I had to find something comparable today on my lunch break. (Fortunately, by the time I got to work, I felt 100% better!) I settled on a little Asian place down the street from the office where I ordered edamame, a small miso soup and one chicken skewer.

TAM cleanse "lunch"

Tonight, I stuck with a "non-soup" soup of simple chicken and veggies.

3 more days of the cleanse. I may add an extra day to make-up for my brie bash...

It's almost 11pm and I'm just now getting to my workout-- but I'm GETTING it done.

A quick shout out to my girl Jae, who's French Fries and Thunder Thighs blog is awesome...She was kind enough to nominate me for a Liebster Blog Award!

Liebster means 'favorite' or 'dearest' in German and the award is intended for those "under the radar" blogs that have less than 200 followers, but deserve a gold star in the blogosphere world for their charming posts!

In order to accept, I must share 5 things about myself that you may or may not know and also nominate 5 other blogs to receive the Liebster award.

First things first...The Mistress officially nominates:

1. Jen Tam's fabulous blog, Jen's Tracy Anderson Method- 30 Days and Beyond

2. Nina's Metamorphosis blog

3. My Unpublished Life

I'll let you know when I have #4 and #5...all my other fave blogs have more than 200 followers!

Last but not least...5 things you may not know about the Mistress:

1. I can rock out to karaoke singing 2 (and only 2) songs: "These Boots are Made for Walking" by Nancy Sinatra and "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" by The Georgia Satellites.

2. Sometimes I wear pure Vanilla Extract as perfume. (Can you tell I love to cook??)

3. Doctors told my parents when I was a baby that due to my being in the 20th percentile for height and weight, that I would be lucky to make it to 5 feet tall. I grew way beyond expectations-- to nearly 5'11"!

4. My real hair is a horrible, stringy, thinning mullet of dishwater brown-- so I wear Malaysian weave extensions to make it long, full and fabulous!

5. I was voted Latest Bloomer in High School...and was Homecoming Queen--- without a date. Go figure.

xxoo