......are basically one and the same. God love her. She's nutty as a holiday fruitcake, but I love her. Only me and my sister, and our immediate families are allowed to make fun of her. Anyone else says a disparaging word, they get their ass kicked pronto.
But as to her cooking.......oh my. When I was growing up, I could never quite figure out what was wrong with it. All my friends' sandwiches tasted better than hers. Didn't matter if the sandwiches were turkey & cheese, tuna fish, chicken salad, etc. - they were ALWAYS better somewhere else, but for the life of me I couldn't pinpoint the exact ingredent or ingredients that were lacking in my home. When we attended potlucks, everyone else's potato salads and cole slaws were far and above our household's. What the hell was going on?
One day I left home and got married. As we were walking down the grocery aisle for the first time as husband and wife, my first husband stared in horror as I took one particular item off the shelf and he quickly came running over to me.
Him: What are you doing?!?
Me: What? We need mayonnaise.
Him: Honey, that's not mayonnaise, that's Miracle Whip.
Me: What's the difference? It's mayonnaise, isn't it?
Him: NO! It's like a sugary white goop - but it's definitely NOT mayonnaise.
It took a few days, but the lightbulb finally came on when I made my first sandwich with real mayonnaise. OH. MY. GOD. That's what was missing in my childhood. Flavor!
Turns out Miracle Whip isn't quite the lovely miracle from God that real mayonnaise is. And real butter, not diet; and real salad dressing and real sour cream (my mother is, and always has been, on some diet or another), and real cream cheese! I could now begin to live a real life with real food and real flavor.
So, now I find myself on the Weight Watchers' Core Program. (Yes, I finally made it to a meeting after 7 or 8 days of procrastination. Shut up) And, lo and behold - if I don't want to count points - and I don't want to - I must succumb once again to fat-free butter, mayo, cream cheese, salad dressings, etc. My heart sank. And then I read the fine print. In addition to all the wonderfulness that I can eat, I get 35 points to play with throughout my week. Guess where they're going? Not to chocolate cake, or beer, or brownies, or enchiladas.
No sirree. They'll be spent on real mayonnaise and real butter. I will NOT go back to the horridness that was my childhood palate. As George Bush senior would say: Not gonna happen.
I'm not going to put my starting weight out there just yet. I may after I've lost 20 or 30 (or 100) pounds, but for right now, that's between me, the lady who weighed me last night and God. But I will post updates, good and bad, comments, etc., and hope you'll do the same. I'm also going to add (somewhere, somehow) a place for folks to post recipes - so if you got 'em, please share. One of my favorite web places is: http://www.allrecipes.com/ and I'm sure they have plenty of meat, veggie, fruit and soup recipes. Share your ideas, thoughts, experiences, etc. After all, that's why I started this blog in the first place. Send a recipe my way every now and again.
As for exercise, there's a gym on the second floor of my building in Baltimore, and I've been a member since I came back to work here last year. I try to hit it on Mondays and Wednesdays for an Interval class; Thursdays is Yoga, and Fridays is a Weightlifting workout. I wish I could say that I get exercise on the weekends too, but I'd be lying - not that I'm above lying. I usually reserve weekends for family, groceries, laundry, cleaning, entertaining, etc. However, we do have an entire gym in our basement - so there's really no excuse not to get in a little something on Saturdays & Sundays as well.
Fatima is Motivated! 
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