Choices

An Internet chat group that I am proud to be a part of had an interesting discussion a week or so back. Basically there were a few posts that said if you do these things you will make your life healthier. There was also a post in response to it where the poster said that they just could not understand why someone would continue to live at an unhealthy weight knowing all the health risks it poses.

As someone who has struggled with weight my entire life, I of course got hot under the collar when I read this statement. I wanted to shout "Do you think it's easy to desperately want to lose weight and fail over and over?" But I didn't. Then I began to think about it more and more and realized that despite that I didn't want to hear it....she was right. Why am I doing this to myself? Why do I continue to struggle with weight and not able to lose it? How close am I to making this a problem for my children to face as well? Of course it isn't easy to lose the weight. If it were, would there be a popular reality TV show with overweight people stepping on the scale scantily clad in front of America if it was easy?

It made me take a good hard look at myself and realized that I need to make some important choices. I can't change it all in one day. But I know that when things start to get hard or when I am not seeing the progress like the contestants on the Biggest Loser are seeing that I get discouraged and just say I will try it again tomorrow, or Monday or whenever the next easiest deadline I want to give myself arrives.

Well it's here. I have hit it. So instead of making a New Year's resolution I am making a mid-February promise. I am going to get healthy. I am not entirely sure how I am going to do it. I know that Weight Watchers while a great program and one I have succeeded on in the past isn't doing it for me. I also know that the ones like Jenny Craig or Nutrisystems where you get all of your food in ready to eat containers will give you portion control but I like to cook. I want to know that I don't have to depend on cellophane wrapped meals for the rest of my life to maintain a healthy weight. And kudos to those who have undergone the gastric bypass and have been successful, but I don't want to do it that way either.

So far my approach has been to eat less, move more. I stepped on the scale and when I have enough courage I will post the starting weight. Needless to say it isn't pretty and it starts with a "2". But, it's all downhill from here. I have my sparkpeople profile set up. I have my exercise regime started with 5 days per week of doing something whether it's a DVD in my bedroom or actually going to the gym.

So send some encouragement my way. It's going to be a long road. I know that people with thyroid issues that I have can encounter a tougher weight loss but it can be done I am told. So here it goes. I will check in at least once per week and let you know how it is going. Thus far I have run 6.2 miles this week and I have stayed below my 1500 calorie per day intake.

Onward and downward!

Too Much Stuff

As evidenced by my blog title, I work part time. I am lucky enough to have a position that allows me to work 24 hours per week. It's a great gig and I love my position. You would think that having kids, I would have grown a thick skin because almost every request I make of them is instantly met with the word "no". Apparently this is not so because inevitably I still come across the occasional person who in one little sentence can send my day into a downward spiral.

This instance was last week when I was on my way into the office building from the garage underneath. I was walking in with my laptop, jacket over my arm and my pocketbook. We have a key card that grants us access to the building and typically just a quick wave in front of the device will open the door. Knowing that the card was somewhere in my bag and that just a simple wave of my pocketbook in the correct place would open the door, I did a little dance and tried to open the door on the wrong side of my pocketbook apparently. I did eventually get the door to open and managed to get myself inside the building to the elevator where a man was holding the door open for me. I rushed in with all of my items over my arms, etc. and the man inside looked at me in disgust and told me I had too much stuff. If it had been said in jest or with a smile I might have come up with an equally funny retort. Instead I was left to seeth about how he didn't know what I had in my bags and why I had that stuff and thank God I wasn't nursing anymore so that there were no pumps of any sort because I would have gladly explained that to him.

Third Year

While I was on hiatus, we had another birthday here. Nicole turned three on January 9th. In typical me fashion I hadn't quite recovered from the holidays when I realized I should probably get off my duff and arrange for some celebration for her. Good thing she is young. I hope she doesn't think that I jipped her in any way. We are still in the family birthday celebration mode where no outside friends have really been invited yet to our celebrations. Last year for Aimee's birthday we did invite a few of her friends to a paint your own plaster place that was great. But she turned 4 and I think it was warranted. So any readers I have left, be sure that you remind me at Christmas time to prepare something for Nicole's 4th. At least by that time she will be in preschool and have a few friends of her own.

I can't believe that Nicole is 3. Seems like it went by all really fast. It's a good thing that most of my pictures are dated because some I think were taken last year were really taken almost 2 years ago. You would think that I would realize it but my kids are the slowest with getting their teeth and Nicole is so slim I haven't noticed any difference in her facial shape from 2-3, even in pictures. Strange for sure.

We had her 3 year check up and she tips the scales at 27 pounds and is 35-1/4 inch tall. So she is still on the small side but at least she is proportionate.

Happy Birthday little girl....just minutes old...

And then, from her actual birthday day...please note trying to still wear the holiday sweaters....

Jack of All Trades...

And master of none. The least of which is updating my blog. Bad, bad blogger....

To say that we have been busy would be an understatement. I left off back in October I believe. Since then we have hosted Thanksgiving, an open house and Christmas. Not to mention various birthday gatherings in between.

Thanksgiving was awesome. I think it's my favorite holiday of the year. As a child of course nothing compared to Christmas but now that I am older I can appreciate Thanksgiving more. No shopping besides for the meal. The house smells great all day long from Turkey cooking and overall it's just a great time of year.

Then Christmas rolls around. This year we hosted an open house here and I invited about 75 people thinking they would waltz in at all times during the day. Not so. They all stopped by probably at about 2PM. The open house went from 12-5 and everyone came smack dab in the middle. One dear friend of mine from NJ who I was maid of honor for her in her wedding surprised me and came up with her daughter who is about 8 months younger than Aimee. That was the best Christmas present I got this year. It was early but it was just so heartwarming to see her and know that she thought enough to come. I also had a lot of other people I had not seen in a long time show up to visit and overall it was a great day. I think that giving people an outlet to get together is awesome. At one point I looked around my new house and saw no less than about 50 people in my house. Some were in our living room, some gathered around the kitchen and others just mingling about the family room. We have decided to make it an annual event.

Then Christmas itself actually rolls around. We decorated for the open house so we were done early this year. It was also the year where the girls were at the best age. They got it all this year. Santa, the elf on the shelf, writing lists, getting their picture taken, etc. etc. I hope that it lasts like this for a few more years.

Now we are onto January and the new year. So again my resolution is back to what I typically do. Lose weight. It has been on my list forever, even higher up since having kids since the pounds packed on during pregnancy seem to linger still.

"I a Mean Old Witch"

This is the sound filling our house these days. It's a cute little number and quite in the season. But it is so damn funny to hear Nicole singing it. It sort of reminds me of the grinch song but she does it with her not quite formed words and sings her hearts content out over it each time. The lyrics come out a bit different each time but overall it's the same story...

"I'm a mean old witch with a hat
And I ride on my broom with a cat
I have pointy shoes
And my chin does too
I'm a mean old witch with a hat
And you better watch out 'cause I might scare you
I'm a mean old witch, BOO!"

She loves the Boo, even more so if you jump a little after it. Of course when she sings it, the "I'm" is dropped to just "I" and each time she sings it, she giggles every time and listening to her do it that way makes me giggle too. There are even little hand signs that she does with it. I figured she learned it at school/daycare. But it turns out when I was at Aimee's school on Thursday for their Halloween party and they sang this song. So it turns out Aimee actually taught it to Nicole. So it's even more funny that Nicole makes it her own. So when she gets into the Pre-K class in two years that Aimee goes to now, she will be that much ahead of the game.

Of course we are still the family that sings Christmas Carols in the summer because we know all the words.

Why I Hate Molars

With the move to the new house, I was concerned that our bedroom would be a considerable distance from the girls' rooms. Before we have always been about 3 steps from either of them during the night. Turns out, however, that they have no issues with getting out of their bed and finding me in mine. I will also admit that Gary now has the side closest to the door so after 4 years of being the one who gets out of bed for any issues, it's now his turn since he is closer.

Anyway, last night or realistically early this morning since a glance at the clock told me it was 1:45AM, I rolled to the side of bed to see Nicole standing there with her cute pout and asking "uppy". So I pulled her into bed with us and she normally will just cuddle in entwining herself into me and snuggle there until morning. However, this time she decided that she needed to thrash around a bit and toss and turn. Suffice to say I got about 5 hours sleep before the alarm went off at 5AM this morning alerting me to get up and out of the house. But at about 3:00 I had the bright idea to ask her why she couldn't sleep. She looked at me, rubbed her jaw and say "my mouth hurts". DUH. Her 2 year molars are coming in. My kids have been notoriously slow at getting their teeth so she only has one partially in so the others must be right behind it. So I meandered downstairs at 3AM, grabbed the children's Tylenol and poured the 1 tsp. dose. Brought it back upstairs, gave it to my groggy toddler and she tossed and turned about another 1/2 hour and then she was out. Mother of the year, right here.

It's funny that we spend so long not really knowing what is troubling our children. They don't communicate well for a while. But you would think that as a mother I would know that the kid who knows whether she wants a bagel or waffle for breakfast and either butter or cream cheese on her bagel would also be able to tell me that her mouth hurts. But she didn't offer so I didn't ask. I did all the other check list items. No fever, no runny nose, no coughing, no monsters in the bedroom, etc. but the simple task of just asking her what was wrong, oh no, far too difficult.

I don't know why I have to make things difficult for myself, it must be the whole love of a challenge thing.

Hiatus

Yes, I have been on a hiatus. I assure you it was not intentional, it was coincidental with a lot going on in our lives. It's been a busy fall so far as we have been adjusting to our new schedule after summer. Our biggest news is that we moved into a new house which really took up the majority of our time. So we no longer live next to Nana and Papa but we now live less than 1.5 miles down the street. I have found it is not nearly as convenient as being next door but that's life. Plus with us vacating the house we were in for the past 4-1/2 years it left the door open (literally) for my brother and sister in law to come to town. So they too participated in the dreaded moving activity. So on October 3rd, with torrential downpours, we had our hired movers take our heavier belongings and bring them to our new house. Then it took us about two more weeks to get the rest of our crap out of the old house. Then my brother and sister in law painted and prepped the house for their arrival which just happened over the weekend with a Uhaul rental and many hours of manpower and oh by the way did I mention that my brother also broke his foot and was not able to help at all? Yes a whole different post I suppose but suffice to say he broke it and the guy who owns a truck and has moved everyone he knows at one point in his life was left incapacitated to move himself. But his actions were paid forward and the dozens he had helped did return the favor and they got moved in. So now everyone has moved. It was like a giant game of chess involving packing tape, boxes and paint.

We are starting to settle in and find the idiosyncrasies of our new house. It is a beauty of a house too and we pretty much stole it away from the previous owners. They are going through a very nasty divorce and had to unload it quickly. Truth be told we have heard more than our share of stories about how terrible they were to each other in those final weeks even after he had moved out. But, their misfortune was our gain and we are finding we have more storage than we will (hopefully) ever need as well as more hard wood to sweep than I care to think about. I love the house, the kitchen is to die for and everything in it is top of the line. Though what we are finding is that with top of the line items, come top of the line price tags.

First they took the speakers out of the wall that went with their surround sound. It was an exclusion in the purchase and sale so it didn't exactly take us by surprise. But now I have four little holes with speaker wires sticking out that need a home. We researched the systems out there and for a mere $4K we could have their exact system put back into the house. Um no, I would rather eat for a year or send my kid to daycare for 5 months thank you very much.

Next they took the fridge. Okay again it was an exclusion in our purchase and sale but I didn't think she would actually take it because they were both renting (in different locations obviously) and don't rentals usually come with a fridge? Anyway, the fridge was gone and we needed a new one. So we went to scratch and dent central in Braintree which I love and found the most beautiful black double door top with freezer drawer bottom fridge. We love it except that it sounds like small freight train coming into the station when the compressor kicks on. So of course it is under warranty and the appliance pros will be coming out this week to look at it.

Lastly, the cooktop. It's such a different idea to have a cooktop separate from the oven. A foreign concept to me but apparently a very popular idea since we have now seen them sold everywhere. Why you ask? Oh because the previous owner broke the glass on the top of the cooktop apparently sometime between the home inspection and the closing. (Biotch) So while the burners still work the owners manual highly discourages using these broken burners because boil overs or spillage could result in ruining the entire range. So we have researched our options on replacement cooktops. For a mere $800 we could have a new Jenn Aire stove top. Um no. That is about 4 months of preschool tuition or a month and a half of daycare. So again, the appliance pros can come out and insert a new glass top if only we can now just figure out where the alleged sticker is on this unit where the model and serial number reside.

So the lesson learned is that top of the line appliances cost you much more when they break. The end.