MuffinTop Monday - week 2

Okay. I owe you a report. And just as a side note that is not MY muffin top, I have no naval ring, nor do I have camo pants.

I went to the gym on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. I did the elliptical every day, and the bike (oh baby, that made me hurt in more places than I knew I had that could hurt) on Saturday. On Friday I did yoga. I am still trying to sell myself on the whole yoga thing. I know my old crochity seventy year old self who falls down and does not break her hip will thank me, but man, it sure seems cheesy doing Yoga and I am not so good at it.

I only had ONE treat this week, a piece of chocolate eclair cake which was to die for. It's funny how when you exercise restraint everything tastes a thousand times better.

Okay drum roll please....

My weigh in tonight was 135!

That's a loss of 3 lbs. Woot!

And I know it seems weird to report all of this on the blog, but really if I didn't have to report it to you (oh anonymous ones) I wouldn't have gone to the gym on Saturday or tonight, because I really didn't want to...and I probably would have stopped at least once for a frosty. So thanks.

Bookshelf

If you were to glance at my nightstand today, the three books you would see are

Teach your child to mind, without losing yours!
Fussbusters at home; an everyday guide to keep children happy
and finally
How to BEHAVE so your Preschooler will too!

Can we tell I've got a problem? Right around the time Bentley was born things went South with mine and Gwen's relationship. Lots of frustration, lots of anger, lots of hurt feelings, and one person left feeling like they were a horrible mother and the other likely feeling like she wasn't much of a daughter. I even caught myself sometimes having to remind myself "I LOVE GWEN". I knew it deep down, but sometimes in the midst of the anger and frustration it was hard to feel. I still knew I would do anything for her, but something had gone horribly wrong in our relationship.

Blaine thought it was interesting that I picked up parenting books. I didn't read any when Gwen was a new baby, things went great. I relied on advice from friends when I was struggling with Bentley. But no one can help me with this problem Gwen and I have. So, I thought I would turn to the experts (or at least to someone's amazon list of the top ten parenting books) and give it a shot.

If anything in this world is worth fighting for, it is my relationship with my daughter.

I've been trying harder to be more patient with Gwen, and I have definitely seen rewards for that.

Yesterday I tried particularly hard. I knew that Sundays are hard days for us. By the time we get out the door for church; ten minutes late with mismatched shoes and uncombed hair, we are all frustrated with one another. So I got up early. We have 11 o'clock church for cryin' out loud, it shouldn't be impossible (keep in mind we have to leave about twenty minutes early to get there on time). I had three hours. I fed the kids breakfast (avoiding the trap I often fall into of making homemade waffles or something, that's a big time suck!). Got them dressed, 100% ready, from head to toe. Then I stuck them in front of a home video while Blaine and I got ready.

It all was going fine until our neighbors dog, who we were pet sitting, ran into the house from the backyard and out the front door just as we were walking out the door to leave. We chased her around (she was just trying to get back to her house) and she was ticked when we caught up to her. So ticked that she pretty much attacked me.

After that fiasco we hopped in the car and still made it to church on time! Amazing. It was a great feeling to get there and not be mad at anyone and to be all groomed properly and what not. Definitely going to try to make that more of a habit!

Then in the afternoon I took Gwen and Ben on a little walk to hunt for rolly pollys. We had a great time just toddling up and down the street.

I was on a roll! Gwen and I hadn't had a bad interaction all day!

At night I wanted to read each child a story and spend some personal time with each of them. I don't know that I have ever read Bentley a story (that's another emotional drama for another day, poor poor middle children, seriously). It was so sweet to sit with him on my lap and read him a story.

Then it was Gwen's turn. I read her a story, and then seeing how sad she was that our special time was over so soon, offered to read her another. We read a Barenstain Bears book about the "wishing star". Then we had a great discussion about wishing stars and I took the opportunity to be mom of the year and take her outside to find a wishing star, recite the little poem and make a wish.

She made her wish quietly and when I could tell that she was saying it outloud in a very hushed wisper, I leaned in close....

"I wish....I wish I wish for a pink and purple teddy bear".

When we got inside she asked Blaine how wishing stars give us things. And Blaine took the time to explain to her about how really we should be doing our best to work for things and then ask Heavenly Father for them.

He came in from saying her personal prayers with her to say that she prayed for a pink and purple teddy bear.

Uh...

Hmmm. Well it was Sunday night, couldn't really run to the store, but I thought it would be sweet for her to get her wish. So I found a coloring page online and meticulously colored a pink and purple teddy bear, after all, I didn't want her wish to go unanswered.

I left it on the table for her to see during breakfast. I knew it wasn't exactly what she wanted, but I had hoped that it would help her feel loved and perhaps like the wishing star had heard her hopes.

This morning I woke up to the sound of toy boxes being dumped out. I went in to Gwen's room to find a disaster of toys; all the bins had been dumped, closet sorted through, and she looked at me with a big smile and said, "I'm searching for my wish!".

Despite the mess a big grin spread across my face as I led her downstairs. She got so excited when she saw the picture. I've never seen a smile so big. My heart was full, my sacrifice hadn't been in vain. I was making progress in our relationship. Then she studied the picture carefully and said, "this must be a MAP to my real pink and purple teddy bear!" and proceeded to go and look outside for the real deal.

I better keep reading those books eh?

Hail!

Holy Moses.

That was sooooome hailstorm

Too bad the one time it actually hails like this I had convinced myself to not be toooo paranoid and go out to cover the car with a blanket.

Seriously.

TTST - Tip the scale Tuesday!

This blog post contains full disclosure. You've been warned.

I cruised through highschool weighing about 98 lbs. That was pretty small, but not as small as it sounds for someone of my stature. I'm not sure how I managed weighing less than 250lbs when I reflect back on my diet of 1 pkg Little Debbie nutty bars 1pkg Cool Ranch Doritos and 1 Dr. pepper for lunch every day. Not to mention that at our house oreos were always in stock and there were no limits on ice cream consumption and such.

I am about 5' feet tall, 5'1" on a good day. According to www.weightwatchers.com a healthy weight range for someone that is 5' tall is 102-128lbs. After I got married I was about 105, then right before I got pregnant with Gwen I was a whopping 110lbs.

During my pregnancy with Gwen. I gained about 55lbs. Two and a half years after she was born I was tipping the scales at 129 lbs (technically overweight). Blaine had a big to lose too weighing in at about 40 lbs higher than his recommended weight for his height.

Blaine and I were quite discouraged about our weight so we joined weight watchers for a five week trial program.

I hope he isn't upset that I share that, because he made amazing progress with weight watchers! He was shedding pounds like crazy! So much so that they had to tell him to stop losing weight so fast. I think he lost about 35 lbs during those five weeks, and I lost about 13lbs. Just when I was feeling comfortable with my body again...we found out Bentley was coming!

Keeping up with tradition I gained about 50-55 lbs while I was pregnant with Bentley (give me a break, have you seen the kids head? That thing alone weighed a ton ; ).

To my complete amazement and happiness, my baby weight with Bentley practically melted off. Every time I stepped on the scale I was 5 lbs lighter, it was a great feeling! The kid had a ferocious appetite plus Ralphie was hauling me to the gym three times a week. Within about four months I was back to not just my pre Bentley weight, but my pre Gwen weight. I was thrilled.

And then the next day I found out I was pregnant, again.

What a weight rollercoaster.

Gained 50 lbs while pregnant with Ivy.

And I think this weight loss journey is following closer to the tracks of how it went when I had Gwen, unfortunately, and not the magical weight loss that happened after Bentley.

After Ivy was born I lost 20 lbs in one week. Not bad! If I were a normal person who only gains 20 lbs in a pregnancy I would have been back to normal. Unfortunately, that left me with 30 lbs to lose, and I haven't lost a one since that first week. Not one single pound.

Not sure what's going on there. Hardly seems fair.

So. . . not like you care, but I am going to update you on my weight loss progress. We'll call it "Muffin Top Mondays" or something. I know, today is Tuesday, whatever...this week it is "Tipping the scale Tuesday".

This week I set a goal to go to the gym three times a week, and only eat two sweets per week. I am one day down and I'm doing great so far. Anyway, just thought I would let you know.

So, let the race begin, and in the interest of full disclosure....and since if you really cared you could do all the math by yourself from the numbers I have already given you.... the scale at the gym yesterday said 138. I am hoping to get back to 110.

So let the journey begin and tune in next Monday for additional goals I will be adding and my weigh in. Geez, it's like weight watchers all over again, but for free this time!

Gmail just got ten times better!

Have you ever visited the "settings" link in your gmail? If not, do it, now!

Gmail has all sorts of features I never knew existed. For example, you can turn on a feature that lets you retract an email you just sent (only for a few seconds after you hit send though!)

You can set it so after a certain hour at night you have to answer three math problems before you can send the message...so you don't accidentally tell your boss he's a jerk while you are wasted (or whatever, I can't really imagine not being able to answer simple math problems, but hey...)

Best of all you can create a task list that will sit in the corner and remind you of what a time waster you are - emailing your friends while you should be getting your oil changed and what not.

Also you can add your google calendar on the side so you can be reminded of appointments, etc.

You can hit a "take a break" button which will make it so you can't access your email for fifteen minutes. Good if you just are a mindless email checker, like myself.

Anyway. The good folks at google never disappoint me. Unless their map program takes me to the middle of nowhere instead of to the work party at the local ice skating rink. But that was just the one time....

Fifty Nifty

We have some forced vacation coming up and we are looking to go and see some new places. Especially places where we know people who live there. Like our friend Jed lives in Kentucky, we'd probably never really go to Kentucky, but hey we have forced vacation coming up and can only afford to drive somewhere...so, why not! I have absolutely no idea how Jed feels about it though.

Ideally we would combine our two weeks of forced vacation and do something really adventurous like drive up the East coast (dear 50 family members that are now going to comment and say, hey why don't you drive to New York for the family reunion....let me just get it out in the open that we can only combine our two weeks if we take the last week of June and the first week of July...which doesn't coincide with the reunion, bummer, I know).

So I was checking google analytics and it turns out I know people in almost every state, or at least they know me and have read my blog....so, anyone want me to come visit them for forced vacation week?

Or anyone have any secret awesome inexpensive vacation spots within a 12 hour radius of the Austin metro?

Kristi's Backyard Garden, take 2

If at first you can't succeed, try try again. If a horse bucks you off, get right back in the saddle again. These are my new mantras.

That's right folks, after the gardening disaster of 07 I am back in the saddle again.

After all "The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed." Right?

So I recruited some friends whose spring break schedule had recently been freed up due to an unfortunate case of the plague at Kayla's house.

It's really nice when you can recruit people to dig a garden for you while you sit and nurse your baby on the back porch and watch.

As a side note, would you look at the quality craftmanship on those soccer goals? That took Ralphie and I a good two hours.

Carrying on.... I know it's a little late to be planting from seeds, but..

And here we have it, my "bit of earth" which I must now fill with a mixture of all sorts of expensive things, like garden soil.

I assume that in the olden days they didn't have "garden soil" and pete moss and all that. They dug a hole in the ground, took a seed out of the tomato they were eating and put it in. Let nature take it's course, you know? So it kind of gets my goat that I have to mix in all sorts of sand, and yadda yadda in to have any hope of growing things.

Which hope will be smashed if I can't jimmy rig some kind of fence to keep out dogs, birds, children and so on. Any ideas?

Thanks Bart and Janssen for digging my garden whilst I ate pizza and made witty remarks from the porch!