On My Way...

Holy cow I am loving My Fitness Pal!  I am 4.2 down and logging like I did post pregnancy. I am feeling great and have been exercising every day (almost!).  A BIG  change in attitude for me and 127.8 this morning put a big smile on my face.  Now, to keep the momentum going....!
-a

129.9

Borderline rude.
Hello all - A here, i have now been 129.9 for 2 days straight and while I'm happy that its not 130 I'd take even 129.8 at this point!
It's that teeter totter of you are on the brink of getting back into the 20's and feeling like you are getting back to a good place or the just .01oz and you are back to 30's land.  I feel really good as I've been dedicated all week (yes, that's a big feat) and I've come in under my calories every day and have logged everything.  The Fitness Pal tracker has really helped me keep on track with my exercise too, I am heading to Cardio Funk today, a new one but it's supposed to be really fun.  We shall see!!
-later,
a

Trekkin Along...

Hello all - A here, so I am trekkin along with the Fitness Pal deal and loving it so far.  I have been exercising a good bit and the fact that it calculates everything for me is perfection.  I like that it adds the basics together like "milk and cereal" so I don't have to do 2 entries.  its the little things lately that make the biggest difference.  I am down 2 lbs and I am now convinced that my scale was wrong for the last few years.  I am at 129.9 now and I cannot BELIEVE for as good as I've been its not coming off quicker. Must have done some real damage along the way - sweet.

Anywhoo - hope all is well in weight-loss land you y'all are continuing to do great things!!
-stay skinny webbies!
a

Forever + 1 Day + 10lbs

OMG - its been forever that i've blogged and the reality is that I am up 10lbs and I want to CRY.  I have kicked it into full gear (again) and have joined the "My Fitness Pal" deal.  I've been tracking for a full 24hrs (yes, it's a big step) and I even went out and exercised this morning.
Getting older kinda SUCKS as what I used to be able to eat and not think twice about now stays...and that BOTHERS me.  I am making conscious efforts to not do my "new normal".  Yesterday at a Bday party I didn't a) have a cupcake b) eat cake but I did c) drink wine and chose veggies as opposed to chips...though after a few glasses of wine a LARGE cheese piece of pizza went down without a thought.  DAMN IT. sigh.
Baby steps and I will get back there!  I am adding my Fitness Tracker thing to this site in hopes that I will get back on the right track.
PLEASE HELP!
-a

I think the God's are trying to tell me something...

Well after running on Monday and all the crazy tightness I felt in my rear... Tuesday night my right knee started to swell up with fluid. This happened to me twice, right after I had S. My knee swelled up to the size of a grapefruit. I literally could not fit my jeans over my knee. Anyway, I had it drained and once I got over that initial post-pregnancy weirdness, I haven't had an issue with it. That is until Tuesday night.

I can only assume it's from running, but I can't be for sure. Either way, I'm getting frickin' old!  Luckily I still had my anti-inflammatory pills from the last time, so I was able to keep my knee from getting super huge. But it's still enough that I can't straighten it or bend it all the way. Good times... Here's a photo of my knee when it swelled up right after I had S.

But I'm going to prevail and I'm headed to Atlanta today for my fun girls weekend with A and my sister... even if I have to hobble the whole way there! I'm at work until 4pm and then I'm off to the airport to catch my 6pm flight. I am VERY excited and can't wait to get there.

I'm going to miss my little ones though. As much as I bitch and moan talk about being home alone with them all the time without a break, I'm rarely away from them. Especially not for 4 days. Though the thought of sleeping past 7am is an appealing one.

Things are still good with the new nanny, Ms. K. When I got home on Tuesday, my entire house was picked up and ALL the dishes were done. Why didn't I think of this nanny thing earlier?

Have a great weekend y'all! (the "ya'all" part was because I'm headed to the South today)

-V

Just Call Me Mrs. Frankenstein

Well I certainly paid the price for running yesterday. I could barely walk by the end of the day, my butt muscles were so sore and tight (sorry TMI).  I was walking around like Frankenstein for most of the day. I would say my pinched nerve is definitely not healed yet and I'm highly annoyed.It's not like I ran 5 miles, my God! I'm feeling ok this morning though. It's hard to tell if I'm sore from running or 30 Day Shred. Either way, it's a good sore this morning, not the painful kind I was in last night.

Our first day with the nanny seemed to go well. She was only there a short while, since husband's flight got changed to much later. So I think she went home at 1pm. But today she's there all day, so hopefully things will continue to go smoothly. S was still sleeping when I left the house, so I hope she doesn't freak out when she wakes up and Ms. K comes into her room. Hopefully since she was there yesterday, she won't be too afraid.

I leave for Atlanta on Thursday to go visit A for the weekend. I'm getting really excited. My sister just stopped nursing her baby so I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of drinking done. The bad part about this trip is that I don't have a suitcase. Husband hijacked mine and now I need to borrow one from someone. We do have more than one suitcase, but the other one we have is MASSIVE. And I am not lugging that thing for a weekend trip. And my white noise machine broke. I am one of those people who cannot sleep without white noise or a fan noise in the background. My travel noisemaker broke, so I have no idea how I'm supposed to sleep now. I keep forgetting to email A and see if she has one.

So I have a bunch of baby stuff I want to get rid of on CraigsList. I've never actually sold anything on there before. I know I need to put down an email address but should I make up a new one just for CraigsList stuff? I don't want to get a bunch of spam sent to me? Anyone know this? Any other tips?

-V

Holy Soreness!

So our new nanny starts today! I'm not gonna lie, I'm a bit nervous. I'm not sure why, since Ms. K has taken care of J for the past 8 months at daycare. But I guess it's different when someone is in your own home. I'm worried she's not going to be able to find something she needs, I'm worried my kids will be total spaz's because they are excited, I'm worried worried worried about little, silly stuff. I made up a hand book of sorts for her, which does have a lot of info in it. But there's just SO much when it comes to your children, it would have been 80 pages long if I put every last thing into it.

Plus it didn't help that last night husband came up to me and asked me to give him anything of great value (jewelry, etc.) to put in our safe "just in case."  Well cool, thanks for that husband, now I'm even MORE nervous... ha ha.

But I'm so happy I am trying this. I got a facebook message from another mother who's child was in J's classroom. She told me that they took S's teacher out of her room and put her into another room. So if we had stayed, S would have also had to get used to a new teacher. And the teacher they put in S's room is this old, crabby lady, who in my opinion, has no business working in a daycare. AND on Saturday, I saw another mom of a child in J's class who also quit daycare last week, for the same reasons I did. So this was a needed move... I just need to keep telling myself that throughout the day today.

The good thing is that husband has water training this morning (in case, God forbid, his plane should ever go down in water, he can survive) and then he's back home for a short while and then off again to fly at 5pm. So he'll be able to "check-in" around lunch time to see how everything is going.

I've been super good on the workouts. I did 30 Day Shred last Friday and yesterday. Holy Soreness!! I also got up at 6am today and ran. I'm trying to slowly get back into running after this whole pinched nerve in my rear issue. It's still there, but according to the doctor, it's just going to have to work itself out. So I speed walked a mile, ran about a 1-1/4 mile and then speed walked another 1/2 mile to cool down. The pinched nerve didn't really hurt much, I felt it, but I wouldn't say it was super painful. It was a HARD 1-1/4 mile run though. How sad last March I was training for a 10K and now I can barely run 2 miles. But I just don't to injure myself more. So I'm going to slowly ease back into it, only running once a week. But I'm glad I did it. I love that it's light so early in the summer, so I can get outside and exercise. It's so much better than working out in my basement.

Ok, work to be done!
-V

Slacker Jack

So my fitness took a HUGE hit when husband was gone at flight school last month. While I did good on the eating front, I just never seemed to have time to squeeze a workout in. There was just always something to be done. But now that husband is home, I NEED to get back on track. I need to start doing 30 Day Shred during nap time again. And I need to get my butt up before work to workout on the days husband is home.

So, today was day 1, and I got my lazy butt up at 6am and hopped on my spinning bike today. It was hard but it feels really good. I am one of those people who actually really enjoy working out. Eating healthy? Hate it. But working out I love. So it was nice to get back to it and much needed.

I had my doctor's appointment last Friday for that annoying pinched nerve feeling in my butt that I've had since March. I was quite discouraged when he basically said I probably pulled something and there wasn't anything I could do about it. It could take 3, 6 or even 12 months to heal. It just depends. Well, sure glad I paid a $30 co-pay and waited a month to see a specialist just to hear that news. I probably could have diagnosed that myself... thanks man. I also had him check out my elbow, even though I had already seen the doctor for that. He also said it was "Tennis Elbow" and gave me another set of exercises I could do to try and strengthen it. But again, not much I can do about it. He did give me another cortisone shot, which hurt like all holy hell. The last one I got hurt a little but this felt like I got shot in the arm. For 2-3 days afterwards I could barely bend my arm... sheesh! It's just now starting to feel better.

Our new nanny starts on Monday. She is coming over tomorrow, so I can show her where everything is. I made up a sort of 'hand book' that she can refer to when it comes to everything. I'm excited for this, but also nervous. I really hope this works out. The kids last day at daycare is today. I'm happy to have them out of there. Just yesterday we got a notice that there was a case of Pink Eye in S's room. This is another reason why I'm happy we are out of there... all of the illnesses.

I'm SUPER excited that I get to go visit A in Atlanta next week. My sister and I are both going, though we are on different flights (hers out of Detroit, mine out of Grand Rapids). But it's going to be a super fun weekend and I cannot wait! AND I get to have 3 full nights of sleep, without having to listen for any children.

Ok, have to get back to work!

-V

I Promise, I'm Alive

I've been neglecting you the past week, dear blog. I'm so very sorry, I just can't seem to catch up on life, since husband came home. It's been SUCH a whirl wind. And to top it off, S had her tubes put in this morning, so yet another day off of work to take her to the hospital.

But the tube procedure went GREAT! We were up all night last night with S, and just as I suspected, she had the start of another ear infection. So this is a good thing we did this today. She was a rock star throughout the entire process. Except for when they had to take her away to give her the anesthesia. She was screaming for me as they carried her away down the hall. I, of course, started crying. There's nothing more heart breaking as a parent, to see your child scream for you and for you not to be able to go hold her. But we were back home by 9:30am and she's been playing ever since.

This weekend was really fun. Saturday we drove down to the Detroit area for a bbq with my parents and sister and her new house. It was really fun. My parents brought their bounce house and the kids had a blast.

Last night we had friends over for our own bbq. The kids swam, played, blew bubbles and had fun together. The adults got to drink beer... so all is good. After dinner, we gave the kids ice cream out on our deck and S thought it would be hilarious to smoosh her face up against the door... and it kinda was.

Ok, I'm at work tomorrow and will be back to a more normal blogging schedule now. Thanks for your patience!

-V

Can I get a WHOOOOOOOOOO!

Please excuse my absence this week. It has been CRAZY!!! First off I had just gotten to work on Tuesday and daycare called me to tell me S had a 101 fever and I had to come get her. So I trekked 40 minutes back home to pick her up. Talk about a waste of time and gas. It was a rough day because I had A LOT of work to do, freelance wise. I had a conference call set up for 2pm that I HAD to be on, so it was a tricky day to juggle that and S.

Then I hired the nanny. Whooooo! I'm very excited, but a bit overwhelmed of having to basically write a 'handbook' of sorts explaining the in's and out's of my kids schedules, meals, naps, etc. It's a lot to think about.

And then yesterday morning S and I had to get up bright and early and drive to pick J up. My mother-in-law met me at the halfway point. J was VERY mad at me and wouldn't even hug me. He does this often when I leave... he makes me pay. So he was pretty much a little sh*t for the remainder of the day. I was ready to drive his butt back to grandma's after a while...

I had another conference call I had to be on at 1pm, so I was just able to get the kids down for naps in time for that. And then husband came home. Can I get another Whooooooooooooo!  We picked him up at 4pm, the kids were ecstatic. I love how husband goes away for a month and J is just fine with him. I leave him at his grandma's for 2 days and he won't even look at me. WTF?

So anyway, I'm back at work right now, incredibly behind so I will keep this short and sweet. I finally have my doctor's appointment tomorrow for that pinched nerve in my butt. I'm hoping to resolve this so I can start running again soon.

-V

PS: husband said I looked "skinny" when he saw me. YEAH!

And Then There Were 2

Only a few days left until husband comes home. I cannot believe I made it! Whooooo! He may even be able to come home a day early. He was originally supposed to come home on Thursday, but if he can get his flight switched, he'll be home Wednesday. Only 2 days away!

Had a good weekend up north, at my in-laws. It was sooooooooo nice to see S. I missed her very much and I was happy to have us all back together again (minus husband, of course). We spent Friday fishing and playing on their big deck (they live on a lake) with buckets of water. We went for a wagon ride, S even tried to pull J on it, which was pretty funny.

We headed home on Saturday and again, it was nice to have us all home together. Sunday we had an engagement party to go to. Unfortunately it was 90 degrees here and the house the party was in did not have air conditioning. I seriously wanted to die it was so hot. My kids were sooooo crabby and hot too. It was NOT fun! When we got home in the late afternoon, I threw the kids bathing suits on them and filled up our kiddie pool. They were so happy playing around in the pool. It was really fun because S was too little to do this last year with us and it was nice to see her and J play together.

Around dinner time, my mother-in-law showed up and took J home with her. He did NOT want to go. He's a mamma's boy and pretty much likes to be at my side 24/7. I know once they got on their way, he was fine. But that mommy guilt you feel when your child doesn't want to go somewhere, is not fun. I'm going to get him Wednesday morning, so he's only up there for 2 days.

Thank you for all the nanny advice. I'm gave the potential nanny a day rate and I'm waiting to hear back from her on it. She has been J's teacher for the past 8 months, so if this works out it will be really great. Hopefully I will hear from her today and we can get this officially set up for the summer.

Happy Monday!
-V

Keeping It Up

Happy Monday my webfriends!  The challenge with any good work-out/diet is keeping it up for the long haul.  I did great last week and as a result I feel good.  I worked out almost every day including Saturday and Sunday.  A big time first for me in a while.  Zumba plans tonight and to stay motivated I am already dressed to go....@ 6p. I need to keep motivated and updating here is helping me a lot.  I am traveling this week so its important that I stay on the right track - here's to healthy a week again, cheers!
-a

Saturday Success

Well, I got up this morning and ran again - I didn't drink wine last night (though I ate an entire burrito @ Willy's - like Moe's) and I ran for 20 straight minutes and walked for another 10 - OK, you can stop laughing now, please see "square 1" reference - this is really good for me!  I worked out 4x this week and am feeling really proud of myself.  Thank you again for the comment "remember how badly square 1 sucks" to keep myself going - that is helping a lot.  I honestly could have kept running for another 10 (I think) but I didn't want to push it and think I have to keep at that pace until I'm really ready to be there.  So, in other words, now I know I can run for a straight 20 and keep going strong and it shouldn't be an issue going forward.  Weird psychological games I have to play to keep it up, whatever works.
Hopefully this will be me soon:

V- tick-tock goes the husband arrival clock, getting close - hang in there buddy!
Have a GREAT weekend webfriends!
a

Feeling Good!

Wow - how nice for a change!  Each day this week E and I have eaten healthy and I've worked out every single day - a RECORD for me.  I weighed myself this am and am down 7lbs since before my craziness of a few weeks.  The world of bloat and ick that's been hanging around is kinda gone....kinda.  My goal is 4lbs away - PLEASE G-D PLEASE let me keep up the good work, this is about the time that I start to get comfortable and I cannot do it this time.  Gotta be good!
-a

Nanny Question

Ok web friends, I need some help and advice. I have found a nanny that is willing to work with our crazy schedule and watch my kids. The craziness is that because of husband's pilot schedule, some weeks it's only 3 days, some weeks 2 days and some only 1. But I am allowing this nanny to bring her 2-year-old daughter with her. So she would be watching my 1 and 3-year-old's and also her 2-year-old. She has been J's teacher at daycare for about 8 months now (up until last week), so he knows her, as do I. Her daughter was in S's class, so she also knows her.

So this leads to my question. For her hourly rate, do I get to pay her less because she is bringing her daughter with her? Her daughter's needs will most certainly be taking up some of her time, being that she's only 2. But I am having the convenience of having someone come to my house.

Thoughts? I am clueless on this whole nanny thing.

Thanks!!!
V

So Long Debbie!

So since I've been Debbie Downer this week, I thought I would write down a list of all the positives I've had going on this week:

• Spending one-on-one time with J all week.

• Having had the most awesome day off yesterday with my little guy. We went shopping, out to lunch, the park, everywhere.

• J got a free ice cream with M&M's on it at lunch at Culver's yesterday... man was he excited!

• Only 1 week from today, until husband comes home.

• I get to see my little girl today.

• I think I found a nanny to watch my kids for the summer (I'm so over my daycare facility).

• Found some super cute summer dresses to keep me cool when it's 8 billion degrees out and I'm schlepping my kids around.

• Completed everything on my 'To Do' list yesterday. Every... last... one.

• J's new Yo Gabba Gabba Nap Matt I ordered for him to use at school, came in the mail. He was VERY happy.

• Snuggle time in my bed with J last night before bedtime

So there you go! Some great positives about this week. I did have an email talk with husband about my hurt feelings. And I do feel a lot better for having gotten it off my chest. After work today, I'm going to pick J up from school and then we are heading straight up north to Grandma's house to get my darling S. We will stay there until Saturday morning and then head home.

Happy Thursday!

-V

Day 2. I Did It!

Hello Web Friends!  Well, I did it.  Day 2 and I got up and ran at 6:30a...and it SUCKEDDD while I was doing it but boy do I feel better for having done it.  Tomorrow I will try and do the same thing, fingers crossed I can keep up the trend.  And, being totally honest - the comment about thinking about how badly Square 1 sucks will help me tomorrow morning, thanks for that!
Life is good on this side otherwise, we had a FANTASTIC time up in MI and I saw V post a pic one time so I am going to too. This is from my mom's house and B and I relaxing in the "da-kuzzi" as he called it. Thinking back now, is it even safe for a toddler to be in one? Lord I hope so.

We ate like TOTAL pigs and he puked 4x in the rental car on the way back to the airport, 3.5hrs in the car with that - not cool.  But, whatevs - we get through.  I even told the people that I filled the car up with gas and I didn't - E is going to be SO MAD at me when they charge our card. I JUST COULDN'T do it - mad exhausted and I needed to roll.
I've been good this week eating wise, we've cooked healthy meals and I've worked out 2x.  This is BIG for me in the trend of bad eating and fatness that has become my normal.  Such is life and again, we all need to start somewhere - and here I am, heading into day 3 tomorrow.  I will cook healthy again tonight and resist the urge to say, I've been good this week - PIZZA tonight.  I wont do it, even though I want to.
Later Webbies!
a

Square 1, We Are NOT Friends...

Well hello web friends, A here.  I have been on the road non stop and its been not only hard to be gone from my family but staying on top of anything out side of work has been near impossible!  And yes, sadly that includes my eating/working out/ and overall health in general.
My clothes are skin tight, need I say more?  I had a mental shift this morning and actually ran.  It was a slow, arduous and painful experience but I did it and I forgot how badly Square 1 SUCKS.
So I'm back at it and already feel better for the slight modification to my morning.  I will need to find a new app or something to start tracking because I think I'm bored of caloriecount.com and need something exciting to keep me motivated.
Side note, my time @ home and with V last week ROCKED!  Miss you already V but cannot wait for you to get here soon! 
-a

Life with One Child

It is very strange to only have one child. I'm loving it and hating it all at once. I'm loving the one-on-one time with J. I'm loving the freedom I have because J is much more chill than S (there's such a big difference between 3 years old and 1 years old at this age). He'll just hang out and I can actually get stuff done. S pretty much wants me to be with her, either holding her, or her sitting in my lap 24/7. So basically I get nothing done when she's around. But I also miss my girl. I miss her hugs and snuggles. And J misses her too. When I picked him up at school yesterday he was  like "ok, let's go get S!" I had to remind him that she was at grandma's and he was not happy.

But we had a lovely night again, just the two of us. Dinner and then again we laid in my big bed and watched Fresh Beat Band (his new fav. show) until his bedtime. It was nice to snuggle with him. Part of me feels bad for ever complaining how hard it was when I only had one child. Hell, this is a breeze compared to 2!

Husband called around 9:30pm last night and I was kind of pissy with him. I NEED to get over this Mother's Day thing. But it was like rubbing salt in my wounds yesterday. ALL DAY LONG at work I had about 5 billion people come up to me asking me "how was your Mother's Day? What did you get? What did your husband get you?" Really? And how awkward everyone felt when I said I got nothing... ha ha. So it was still raw when he called. And I know you are just thinking, well tell him you feel this way. But I've had so many similar conversations with husband about just this topic, what else is there to say? I need to just get over this and accept the fact that he sucks at holidays and I will never get anything. As one of my commenters, Kate said, I need to buy myself flowers or a gift if it means so much to me. So I think I just will from now on, good advice.

Ok, no more pity party for me. I promise I will end this party now and be resentful move on.

I'm up to my eyeballs in freelance work right now and between that and my actual job work, I'm pretty busy trying to get it all done. But freelance is good, it's more money, so I need too keep it up.

-V

Welcome to my Pity Party

So Mother's Day kind of sucked. I mean, it's not like I thought that it was going to be this grand day with all these presents lavished on me. My husband is out of town for a month... I get it. But I still thought it would be better than what is was. When you have a 1 and 3 year old, it's not like they know it's Mother's Day. I can't expect them to make me a card or anything. They can't say "hey mom, happy mother's day!" And husband was gone, so it's not like I was going to get breakfast in bed or anything. But, going on facebook and seeing all the photos of all my friends with their new jewelry, flowers, gifts, brunches, etc., was hard. I didn't think I'd feel jealousy like that, but I did. So then I started to have a pity part for myself. I was pretty down. And as much as I know husband wasn't in town, I just feel like he could have least sent me flowers or a card. I mean even just a crappy homemade card would have been nice. He called to say Happy Mother's Day, but that was it. And especially with me being all by myself, it would have been nice to have something...

I love my husband, but he just sucks at holidays, birthdays, etc. He always has and I still get disappointed for some reason. Even though I know this about him. But again, I guess I just thought that since he was gone, he'd do something nice for me. And I'm not gonna lie, I'm a bit pissed. I think it was kinda shitty, to be honest. But there's not much else I can do but move on.

On a positive note, I did go to my sister-in-law's for a bbq yesterday. My in-laws were there also, so that was fun. And I did get a homemade card from my niece, so that was nice. At least someone thought of me... lol.

My in-laws took S home with them. She will be there until Thursday. That also sort of set me off in a bit of depression. As much as it was my idea to send her off, I was just so down yesterday, it just added to it. I miss her like crazy! But it was nice to have some one-on-one time with J. We played on the swings, did play-doh on the deck. We can never do play-doh anymore because S is always eating it and throwing it. So that was nice. We watched Bubble Guppies in my bed after his bath, which was also nice. Another thing we can't really do with S because she's a bit of a spaz and won't sit still. My bed is really, really tall, and I'm always afraid she's going to fall off of it.

So here's to a better day. My feelings are still hurt and I'm missing my girl, but I'm going to make the best of this. Only a week and a half until husband comes home and then I get to go to Atlanta and see A for her birthday/housewarming party. Whoo!

-V