Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Check Please!

You likely will not hear from me much this month because it is Brainy Day month! You can visit www.brainyday5k.com for more details.  The cliff's  notes history behind this great event is that in January of 2007 I had to have emergency brain surgery to treat inexplicable hydrocephalus: to learn more about hydrocephalus visit http://www.hydroassoc.org/hydrocephalus-education-and-/learning-about-hydrocephalus/ to say that it was a traumatic event that left a mark on my life would be a vast understatement.  So once I recovered from the whole ordeal, I founded the Brainy Day 5K Trail Run/Walk.  It is a celebration of life, a way to honor those struggling with brain conditions, a memorial of lives lost and an opportunity for the community to advocate and raise research money for those who suffer from brain conditions.  Consider this your personal invitation to join us!  It is a wonderful family event and I would LOVE to see you all there.

Stanley is our Family Pet.  

Stanley was supposed to be a hunting dog, but my husband never trained him.  Plus, it turns out he is just good at being an amazing family dog so we LOVE him and snuggle him and we call him...STANLEY! 

One side note, there was a week of time a few weeks ago when I dined out (at a variety of real, honest to goodness restaurants) a total of seven times.  Now to set the stage a bit for this story, I will share some background information.  We don't really eat out much. By not much we are talking like once a month TOPS. So seven times in a week is definitely a RECORD for us! So while I am still not grocery shopping much, that particular week we ate out A LOT!  In all honesty, I realize this was totally not cool in lieu of my plan to eradicate all old food from our domicile, but it was just so much FUN!

We ate world class BEST in Michigan onion rings at www.turksinn.com ; a pair of incredibly fresh and locally grown lunches at  www.eleganceoftheseasons.com/ ; a delightful dinner at my personal favorite restaurant Hearthstone www.hearthstonerestaurant.com; I also enjoyed a dinner at www.redlobster.com because we had a giftcard from Christmas that was burning a hole in my pocket and more importantly we ended up without kids unexpectedly for a night.

 One of the main reasons we dont eat out much is because of our kids.  They make it way expensive to eat out; they never eat the food that well; they behave like wild chimpanzees or mustang and we spend the entire time coaching them instead of enjoying our meal.  It is just your basic train wreck when we drag our kids out to eat so we reserve it for very special occasions. Like Book It-the school reading incentive whereby kids can earn coupons for free Pizza Hut pan pizza!  I committed to this program the past two years because my daughter's class participated and because I struggle to motivate her to read.  Anyhow, the last time we ate out to redeem her coupon, my kids literally tipped the table over. Dishes flew EVERYWHERE. There was some lame explanation my kids gave me, but it really boiled down to the fact that they were indeed acting like wild animals as I tried to grab another slice of pizza.  It was the worst feeling in the world and we truly didnt eat out for a very long time after that little episode.

Anyhow, back to the current story.  I followed this all up with a delicious breakfast at the Village Baker www.villagebaker.us/ after a tedious project at work left me feeling weak and extremely hungry.  It was truly a smorgasbord of dining out frenzy for me that week and I remember it with fondness.  However, it was not in the best interest of my ambition to empty my pantry or Chester for that matter so I am renewed in my mission to do just this.  I will eat out no MORE (at least for awhile) Besides that I will be much to busy to eat out or grocery shop during Brainy Day Month, I mean August!

Did you know that 1.5 in every 1000 births in the U.S. is a baby born with hydrocephalus?! Sad, but true. Stay tuned for more random statistics!

Have a good one and I hope to see you at the finish line on August 23rd!

PS I also ate out at Old Boys Brewhouse for lunch during the EATING OUT CRAZE and that is actually the one restaurant that I took my kids to last summer and they not only behaved like little angels but they also cleaned their plates and mine too www.oldboysbrewhouse.com! So if you like to take your kids out to eat I recommend them!

Vern Out

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