Sassy Water, Flat Belly Diet and Excruciating Heat

Written by Lee

Oh Lord, what would I do without the wisdom bestowed on me from my beloved Today Show?

Once again, I was buzzing around the kitchen doing all the stuff a morning in our home requires and all the while Matt and Meredith and Ann and Al were chattering away in the background about all things grand and small and I was just about to turn off the television (because do I really need to watch the umpteenth hour of the Today Show?) when I glanced up and saw two words that mean more to me than I ever thought they would - "Flat Belly."

And I dropped the dish towel on the counter and stood at full attention.

Flat. Belly.

Now for those who have known me in a previous non-mothering, university student, twenty-something stage of my life, you would know that well, I had a flat stomach. And a rather toned one I might add. Due to a young life mainly centered around sports, more weight-lifting than I care to admit, and well, lots of stomach exercises, I had no problem strutting around in a bikini. And if a picture was happened to be snapped by someone while I was wearing said bikini?  No problem. 

Twenty years and three kids later and well, my stomach is currently in a state reminiscent of some sort of alien creature. I am both intrigued and frightened by it.  On one hand, I can honestly admit that my glory days are so far gone that I feel an odd acceptance of my stomach's condition - a sort of badge of honor, if you will, of all that I have endured to grow and birth three 8+ pound babies. On the other hand, I have moments of complete and utter delusion where I believe that yes, I will return to my glory state and before I know it, I will be confidently cruising the beaches of So Cal with my three kids and bikini in tow.  

So when that one female reporter from the Today Show who reminds me of a young Maria Shriver but whose name escapes me this very moment was interviewing some chick from Prevention magazine about the life-changing Flat-Belly Diet, I was spellbound.

In typical Today Show fashion, there's never enough time allotted to really get all of the information I want and need.  So the reporter was rushing the Prevention lady through all of the secrets on how to achieve this flat belly that I so desire but through the hurried two-minutes I got the one main secret I needed to hear to really kick start the new flat belly me - "Sassy Water."

If I drink this fabulous concoction called Sassy Water (after some woman named Sassy who invented this miracle of a beverage) I could potentially lose 11 pounds and 5 inches off my waist in ONE WEEK!  

Holy shit.  Sign. me. up.

So I received this gift from the Today Show gods on Tuesday morning, drove from LA to Phoenix alone with my three kids on Wednesday, bought the ingredients for this sassy water in Phoenix today (Thursday) and as I write this post, I am sipping my first refreshing glass of flat belly spa water. 

I will return to LA next Thursday so I figure by the time I see my dude again next week, I can arrive in our driveway and jump out of our mini-van in a bikini.  

Who's with me?

To give proper ceremony to the beginning of my new/old life as a flat-bellied chick, I give to you a photo of the sassy water ingredients that I took in my parents' backyard in the middle of excruciating 110 degree desert heat.  I thought the sunshine on the sassy water ingredients would just look divine.

 

Okay, I'm not sure divine describes the end result but it sure looks .... hot.

For all of you who are interested in jumping on the flat-belly bandwagon experiment, this is what you will need:

2 quarts water

Lemon

Cucumber

Mint

Ginger Root

Directions:  

Slice one lemon into thin slices. Peel and slice one cucumber (or half if it's a big cucumber) into thin slices.  Pinch 12 mint leaves. And grate 1 teaspoon of ginger root with a fine grater.  Dump all prepped ingredients into a pitcher, add two quarts water, gently stir, and let sit in refrigerator overnight.

Start drinking away.  As much as you can stand.  And avoid drinking all of that other stuff that won't help you achieve a flat belly like Diet Coke, alcohol, and cappuccinos.

So it's 10:30 pm here in Phoenix and it's 100 degrees outside.  Right. Now.  So that heat coupled with my sassy water should be all the kick-start my alien stomach needs.

I'll keep you posted. 

Are you afraid of change?

I am not.

I actually like it.  I really, really do.

One of the reasons I was so deathly afraid to become a mother was I thought I would find myself standing in my kitchen one day with little kids running around at my ankles and I would feel like there would be no more change in my life. I would feel stuck. 

Boy, was I wrong.

Change is flying around so fast all around me all day long, I'm craving some stuck.

Will someone please stick me?

Somewhere? Please? 

I would like to get stuck preferably on my couch. With a plate of chocolate chip cookies on my lap. 

But since THAT'S not gonna happen anytime soon, I'm cool with the general vibe of change that circles around in my daily life.

I'm so cool with change actually that it's time I change some things up around here.

Yeah, that's right.  Around here.  Around this little white space of mine.  

Except it's not gonna really be just mine anymore.

Change is coming.

I hope you're not afraid.

  

Dive In

I consider myself a risk-taker.  Not a parachute jumping kinda risk-taker. Just someone who feels pretty comfortable with the general unknowns of life. I've worked as a freelancer my entire career and the thought of a steady job scares me in many ways.  Becoming a mom has forced me to "settle" more than I would have ever thought I would, but my brain is continually clicking towards some sort of new frontier - real or imagined.  

But yet, I admit I have fears. Don't we all? And these fears mildly gnaw at my insides keeping me from stepping forward at times.

When I started blogging, I didn't know what to expect.  I knew I wanted a creative outlet and that in itself scared the semi-creative person that I am. One of my greatest fears lies in this arena - putting my "creative" self out there for all to see - and maybe judge. 

I never realized or understood the social aspect of blogging. Before starting this writing space, I never spent any time at all meeting/connecting/re-connecting with anyone online in any capacity.  I'm a face-to-face person really. I love hanging with my friends in person and I love meeting new people - in person. 

The thought of "meeting" anyone that could be a "real" friend online seemed quite strange to me.  I guess I questioned the quality of it. And the general emphasis on quantity when it comes to blogging supports my original thought. 

Bloggers are into numbers, it seems, and really, I'm not that into numbers. Numbers don't drive me. I mean, it's cool when I get a lot of comments, but when I feel too busy to genuinely reply to each one, I feel well, kinda lame.

Let's just say, I'll take one quality interaction over ten surface ones.

So as I mellowly built this little place over here, I read comments from strangers and I wondered who they were, what they were really all about, why they came to my blog, what's on their blog, etc. etc.  And maybe I would email a little reply back, and then that was it.  Most often. 

And then sometimes they would send something back. But rarely. 

And I started to wonder if any of these people that I emailed with would actually move beyond just these little back and forth interactions that basically said....not much. Just little crafted comments to get a chuckle or express understanding or add a tidbit to the topic.  

I mean, can a relationship really be built on these quick faceless interchanges?

I started to wonder.

And then I read this. A post written by a woman a lot of bloggers know.  Her name is Braja and her blog is a special place called Lost and Found in India: Notes from a Waylaid Spiritualist.

This post I read was about her "imaginary" friends that she had met through blogging and how real they had become in her life. And she offered proof to her IRL friends who doubted that these blogging friends were real that they were indeed very real.

And I remember reading this post and thinking, "Wow, so this chick named Braja has this. These real friends she met through blogging. I wonder if that will ever happen to me."

And I wrote something along those very lines in her comment section.

And she wrote back a very simple, yet very powerful response:

Dive in.

Dive in, she said. 

And I realized right then and there that I hadn't been diving in.  I thought I was, but I wasn't. I really wasn't.  I was more like dipping my toe in at the edge of the water and maybe once in a while, I was hanging out up to my knees.  

But I wasn't diving in.

And I decided I should.  And ever since I did, let's just say, good things are happening. On the friend front.  And the blog front. 

With those two words, Braja was able to speak to my soul and show me something I wasn't seeing myself.  And that is what is so crazy unique about her writing space.  She has this gift to write about life to show us things we weren't seeing.

And that's why I'm hooked on her scene.

Now - Braja needs my prayers.  And although I've never "met" her and since we live on opposite ends of the earth, I'm not sure I ever will, I can honestly tell you that I'm diving in and sending up all kinds of prayers for her.  

And I hope you will too.  'Cause she's real like that.