*gulp*

Well, today didn’t quite go the way I thought.

Arron came home from work with his mission papers.  The mission date we’ve been struggling against for the last month because he was supposed to leave at the end of May and we were worried we wouldn’t have all of this house shit taken care of by then.

Um, ya, well now he’s leaving APRIL EFFING 20th!!!  For those of you not good at math…that’s like THREE FREAKING WEEKS.

On a personal level this is bittersweet…

It’s a major milestone and glorious moment for him to finally (after two years) have an itinerary in his hand that guarantees he is indeed going.

It means he has to drop absolutely everything and get on a plane this weekend to go visit his son before he leaves the country for six months.  That eats up pretty much all of the time between now and the deployment date.

Which means that between now and FOREVER I will only see him for maybe FOUR more days TOTAL.  I mean, we knew that once he left, then I moved, we might not see each other again…but I thought I had two more months to come to terms with that.  :(

This also means our mortgage company needs to get off their ass and get our paperwork freaking processed so we can ensure everything is going the way we need it to.  Like yesterday!!

Bloody hell.  

Oddly enough I actually got hungry once this news settled.  I put together a quick salad and topped it with a Sweet Potato & Black Bean pattie…

Spinach, carrots, tomatoes, a drizzle of Ranch, a scoop of TJ’s habanero lime salsa…and added light cheddar…

Yum!

Then my tax paper sorting evening was cancelled in lieu of a much needed Starbucks visit with my friend Sarah.

Grande non-fat half-sweet vanilla rooibos tea latte…

And yes, an amazingly deeeeelish super-glazed apple fritter.  If this isn’t an emotional food band-aid I don’t know what is, but it was totally worth every single bite.

Thanks for sticking with me through the drama y’all.  I swear I had no idea my life could be this interesting.  I’d give my left arm for it to go right back to boring any time now.  *sigh*

Eat Like a Soldier

This post sponsored by FH!  Something a little different for y’all!!

Eat Like a Solider Day!

When FH was away for training in November he brought home some treats for the blog.  Military issue Individual Meal Packages.  aka: IMPs.

These packages have been sitting on top of our cupboards ever since.  Honestly because I was afraid!!  These packages are reportedly like 3000 calories each!!  I mean, they are intended to feed starving soldiers that have been toiling away in the boonies under serious physical duress for a couple of days.  Those boys need their big eats.  Um, but this girl does not!

So last night we chatted about it and agreed that today we would open them up, but I didn’t need to feel obligated to chow down.  Taste testing, sharing and tossing out were all viable options.

Phew!

FH felt that I needed to be dressed like a soldier in order to make this authentic.  How unflattering! 

We had breakfast, lunch and dinner packages.  Each package has the main meal, dessert, bread, and all kinds of condiments, drinks, treats, etc.

The main meals and desserts are boil-in-bag (but can also be eaten cold which is generally what ends up happening because of time constraints in the field).

I was happy to discover that the meals themselves were no more than a few hundred calories each.  If you ate every last bite of stuff included in the package I think you might top out at 1500 calories per meal.  Still high for a normal day, obviously…but not so scary for our tasting party!

Breakfast consisted of Sausage & Hashbrowns…

Review:  not too bad at all.  Kind of just tastes like those breakfast sausages you would get at Denny’s or some place like that.  The potatoes are a bit mushy, but all in all totally edible.  I had a few bites.

Lunch was Chicken & Gravy…which I apparently didn’t photograph.

Review:  gross.  Chicken floating in flavoured water.  Water flavoured like what I think cat food would taste like.  Neither of us made it past one bite.

Dinner was Beef Bourguignon…

Review:  Well, it ain’t Julia Child’s beef bourguignon but it was tasty enough.  Basically tasted like Chunky soup.  Beef and spuds in beefy sauce. 

Side dishes were strawberry oatmeal, buttered rice, onion flavored mashed potatoes, and cream of celery soup.  Each of these is just an add water thing.

Oatmeal was yummy (haha, of course).  It was actually “crispy cereal” which can be mixed with hot or cold water.  We used hot and I ate almost the whole thing.  It was better than regular instant oatmeal!  Kind of granola-like.

Rice was fine.  Like minute rice.  I hate that it actually said “MSG added” on the package.  I don’t wanna know!

The potatoes smelled horrible and tasted worse.  Blech.

Same with the soup. Disgusting.  Although I did get a mouthful of undisolved powder so maybe that did me in. I spared you a photo.

And then there is the bread.  The bread that is packed up airtight with one of those anti-moisture packets you might find with your new shoes.  FH calls it the “good for 10 years bread”.

 

I don’t want to know what they put in it, but it was actually fine.  Looked like bread, tasted like bread.  I had a couple of bites but it freaks me out so I stopped.  LOL.

FH also stirred himself up one of the powdered drinks.  Basically it’s a Gatorade-type mix for the soldiers to keep their electrolytes up.  This one looked just like Tang!

We saved the desserts and a bunch of the condiment packages.  No peanut butter in this selection but lots of honey and such.  We threw out the instant coffee and powdered creamers. There is a mint hot chocolate I have dibs on!

FH got the Hershey bar treat from the lunch kit and I get the Peak Freans from dinner.

At the end of our “meal” I said that all in all it’s not terrible.  I mean it’s not like they can eat gourmet in the field, but it’s nice to know that most things taste pretty good.  Too bad for all of the preservatives and lack of vegetables (that’s why the desserts are fruit I’m guessing) but everything is designed by dieticians so I’m sure they have their reasons for everything. 

Pretty fun experiment though!! 

(don’t worry I only had a few bites of everything…I’m guessing maybe 400 calories worth…if that)

Followed a little later by a yummy green smoothie to help flush out all of that sodium…

The basic green:  ice, 1/2 banana, flax, Amazing Meal, spinach, UVAB

And dinner tonight was just some leftover Chicken Alfredo…

Canada vs USA in Olympic Hockey tonight!  I think a few snacks might be needed for this!!  There is a bag of popchips with my name on it. I hope it’s a tense game that ends well for our Canuck boys!!

Go Canada Go!!

Happy Day!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! Honey’s home!

This return was a little different in that they flew him home from New York so I got to pick him up at the airport instead of from his ship. He starts a course tomorrow but his ship wasn’t due home until Wednesday so they had to make different arrangements for him.

It took FOREVER for him to get through customs…busy day apparently…so even though his flight was technically early, I still waited almost an hour and a half for him. OMG…talk about time dragging and crazy anticipation! Every time those frosted automatic security doors opened I thought it would be him, but nooooooooo.

A nice surprise that he came walking through wearing his fancy white uniform!! I’ve never seen him wear it because he got it specifically for this sail. They were in NYC for part of Fleet Week and wore their “whites” everywhere, so he decided to keep wearing them for his final day. Hot.

I didn’t get a photo at the airport (because I didn’t know!!) so I made him pose on the deck when we got home. :)

And then I played with his cap when he wasn’t looking. hehe.

On the way to the airport I stopped for a coffee. Starbucks double tall vanilla non fat latte. Also dug a Kashi bar out of my purse…thankfully…since I had to wait so long once I got to the airport.

FH was a starvin’ Marvin after his lengthy wait in customs, and since he’s been away for weeks he was craving some easy drive-thru. I obliged…hello McDonald’s. :) McChicken, fries and diet Coke for me. (ya ya, I know!)

After a little lunch, a little visit, and a looksee at some of his photos (they had a weekend in Washington DC…NYC pics to come later), FH needed to nap. He’s had a long couple of days! So I took the opportunity to run to the grocery store and to catch up here. Not sure when he’ll wake up for dinner (or if we’ll even bother with dinner) so I had a little snacky of Liberte Svelt vanilla yogurt with blackberries and a sprinkle of trail mix I found hiding in my pantry.

I think I’ll go give him a poke soon so we can visit some more!