The Oil Spill

While this post has nothing to do with wellness, I couldn’t leave the Alabama coast without jotting down my thoughts about the oil spill.

Arriving on Thursday, it was apparent that something was amiss. Sepia-colored oil floated on the waves, staining the beach. Crews in white Haz Mat foot coverings worked in teams with shovels and garbage bags, scooping up tainted sand and carting it off. Occasionally, a bulldozer would roar by, scraping the top layer of earth from the beach.

Uh Oh

“Life happens while you’re making other plans.”

This is one of my mother-in-law’s favorite sayings. And it is now the theme for Stage Two of Le Tour de South—Orange Beach, Alabama. Although I’m changing it to, “Michael happens while I’m making other plans.”

I had every intention of saving my caloric indulgences until Texas, but then I walked into our rented condo. With a perfect view out the balcony of the oil-soaked beaches and gentle Gulf waves, I pictured myself sitting on the lounge chair sipping a beverage and munching on some high-caloric snacks.

Michael, reading my mind, said, “Wow! This would be a great spot for happy hour!”

Crap, I thought. He’s not going to help me out on this wellness stuff at all.

Le Tour de South

In honor of the Tour de France, Michael has christened our summer voyage, Le Tour de South. Stage One of the tour was a quick stop in Atlanta, Georgia.

Between visits with several sets of college friends, a tour through CNN headquarters, a stroll through Centennial Park, and a drive around my college alma mater, Georgia Tech, I managed to squeeze in a workout. At a gym. How about that!

It turns out I have another avenue for completing my fitness regime, one I hadn’t considered—sponging off my friends’ gym memberships.

Battle of the Sexes

“Quarter-white. Dirty rice. Sweet tea.” The cashier’s voice rang out over the Bojangles intercom. Memories of high school washed over me. I was a cashier at Bojangles during my junior and senior year. Although back then we had to wear a hideous orange and brown striped shirt, matching scarf and brown pants. I envied the jeans and t-shirt attire the staff now sported.


Serving up southern cuisine in my orange outfit, I looked like a 1970’s reject, and worse, I consistently reeked of fryer grease, buttered oil, biscuits, fried chicken, and teenage angst. It was a potent concoction. No wonder I didn’t date much. Who wants to go out with a greasy-smelling, emotional cashier from Bojangles?

Packing for Wellness

Three weeks on the road requires some discipline in packing. Since this isn’t our first long road trip, we have it down to a science. Which is another way of saying, Michael made a list. He’s a list-maker. And thank God because without it we’d be ten miles down the road and realize we forgot Janelle’s blanket, or Grant’s ipod, or my computer.
With his three-column spreadsheet detailing all the activities we needed to accomplish before leaving, Michael ordered us around like Napoleon commanding his troops.

“Grant, collect all the trash around the house and throw it in the dumpster.”

“Amanda, finish washing the dishes, dry them and put them away.”

“Janelle, go flush all the toilets.”

And then finally, he called out, “Where’s your mother?”

Road Trip!

The Wellness Project is going on the road.

Michael and I are taking the kids on a three-week road trip to visit friends in Texas. Yup, that’s right. Three weeks in a minivan with my husband and children.

Actually, it’s no big deal for us. A couple of years ago we took the kids on a cross-country trip for ten weeks. And then we did it again the following summer. We’ve logged 25,000 miles touring America’s amazing landscape.

Lobster fishing in Maine, a Broadway show in New York City, hiking through the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite; these are just a few of our spectacular adventures.

Over the course of those two summers, my children tracked how many states they’ve slept in—they’re at forty-three. Not surprisingly, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Arkansas are among the missing seven. There’s a reason for that. When you think about visiting America’s premier attractions, no one goes, “Hey, let’s go to Selma, Alabama,” or “I hear Jackson, Mississippi is fantastic.”

Justifying My Alcohol Consumption. It’s Not Going Well.

Since I’m always trying to justify my red wine consumption as a healthy choice, I was disappointed to read an article on Livestrong.com about the adverse affects of alcohol and weight loss.

The full article is here, if you’d like to read it and join me in my depression.

I knew about the lowering of inhibitions leading to poor food choices, the empty calories, zero nutritional value, blah blah blah. What I didn’t know was the following:

 “… when your body is attempting to metabolize alcohol and food that have been consumed together, it will use the energy from the alcohol first and store the food as fat. Because the body perceives alcohol as a poison and because it cannot store the energy from alcohol, its first priority is to eliminate it, while digesting and processing the food becomes secondary. That means your meal gets stored and synthesized as fat while the alcohol gets burned off.”

CRAP! Not only am I ingesting empty calories from alcohol, but the food I’m eating goes right to my fat stores, a/k/a my thighs.