Friday, January 27, 2012

Raise your hand:

Raise your hand if you got a new second part time job doing transcription at night. ME ME ME. It's really neat. I find myself caught up in the stories and my brain gets way ahead of my fingers because I can't wait to find out what happens next. I'll be devoting a few hours a night to this and a few hours on weekends. I'm SLOW right now but hope to get faster and I love that I can take it with me and do it when I travel, etc.

Speaking of travel, raise your hand if you got a calendar. ME ME ME.

Raise your hand if you've now lost 5.8 pounds and your skinny jeans fit. ME ME ME.

Life is good. Back to transcribing. I'm in the middle of a saga and need to know what happens next. :)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Still

Still:


here


hungry


on bcps


waiting


happy





Ever tried to diet on bcps? Don't. It feels as if your belly button is being sucked through the back of your body. Every morning I wake up hungry and i'm just sure that I will look at the scale and weigh 20 pounds less. Surely if you're this hungry and running like a maniac for cardio you can drop 20 pounds in a week. Right? RIGHT? Yeah not so much. Week one is done. Down 4 pounds. Minimum of 11 to go. Would like to lose 16 more. We'll see.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

My latest addiction

So I have discovered a new addiction. It's a website called myfitnesspal.com

LOVE IT.

I exercise enough, I just eat too much. This website has a way to track what you eat and let me tell you, it's database has every darn thing you can even think of eating. I LOVE IT. When I have to actually type in 3 pieces of chocolate cake with chocolate icing at 200 calories a piece, it is a really good motivation to not eat those 3 pieces of cake. I started tracking my meals on this site on Wednesday of this week and that has really cleaned up my eating. I never realized how many calories I was eating before....I estimate I was easily consuming 3000 calories a day, if not more. No wonder my weight stalled at 135 and then crept up to 140. Here I was blaming it on the years of infertility hormones and in truth, it was just my fat butt eating too much.

Hoping to lose ten pounds or so. I am still on birth control pills to control my cycles and those mess with my weight a bit but I'm not going to let that be an excuse any longer.

So if you're looking for weightloss motivation, mosey on over to myfitnesspal.com and read the success stories. Awesome.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Peace? Tranquility? Sign me up for some of that.

So the boy has moved into a place of his own. Let me repeat that with a bit more emphasis:

SO THE BOY HAS MOVED INTO A PLACE OF HIS OWN

Now don't get me wrong. We love the boy. And we're very proud of the progress he's made. But I think we all like it better having our own space. After first months rent, deposit, groceries (to the tune of 169 bucks at aldi's...he eats like I can't even comprehend), etc., we are out something like 1000 dollars but he has his own place and we have our house back. Yay for forward progress.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Pictures

I opened my email yesterday and there was a picture of Dylan and Ella at their fifth birthday party. They now look so much like their father, especially Dylan. Love those little tykes. Their next adventure is kindergarten.

Then today, I went to my mailbox and there was a package from the Swedes. It was a photo calendar with pictures of the ESBs and the ESS. What a wonderful gift.

:)

Changes

Life has been so full of change lately and I must confess...I don't always handle change well. For many years, our life was calm. The girls had chosen to live with their mom and the oldest boy had been sent to live with relatives in hope that a new environment might change his ways (by the way...don't try that ever. It just made him feel like we didn't want him around and he found the same thug friends and did the same thug things wherever he went).

Anywho, for several years it was just Joe and I and the two younger boys. We took a lot of trips and just hung out and had a good time. Then, in the last year, everything has changed again. Not changed in a bad way, just changed so that life now is so incredibly FULL all the time.

Girl number one works full time and goes to college full time. She is married and has a step son. They live less than a mile away so we see them frequently.

Girl number two lives in the house directly behind ours (literally ten steps from our back door) . She has a boyfriend and a baby. The boyfriend just lost his job a week ago but is job hunting. She is in college full time. We see them a lot too.

Boy number one is out of prison. The transformation is amazing. He is polite, considerate and even better....job hunting. He will have a hard time finding a job because he has no work history but he's out there looking and I think someone will give him a chance. He rented his very first apartment yesterday and will be living on his own as soon as he gets the water and electric turned on. Until then he's camped out in our basement, eating me out of house and home.

The husband is still laid off, though they do call him in to work sometimes. He never did apply for unemployment and now it's too late.

So are you adding this all up? I am working about 50 hours a week. Some weeks the husband works 20, some weeks none at all. So basically, I, and I alone, am supporting three households. It is neat to see all the kids more. It's neat to see them all growing up and taking responsibility for their lives. It's neat to have grandkids around and kids coming out of every corner again. But sometimes I miss those nice quiet years. However, those years are gone and not coming back. The two younger boys head to high school next year and life will only get busier. Like I said, I don't always do well with change but I'm learning to let go and just enjoy the ride. So many positive things have taken place in the last few months.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

New Year's Resolutions

Do you make them?
Do you keep them?

In the past I have made a few and never kept them. But I tended to make all encompassing ones such as, "I will never eat chocolate again". Not likely to happen. This year feels like a watershed moment in my life. I am hanging on to a few pounds from the last pregnancy and I know that the older I get the harder it will be to lose it. I'm going to be 40 this year. The kids are all teens or older and I need to have more energy to keep up with them. So, without further prelude, I present my New Year's Resolutions, 2012 version. Feel free to make fun of me in a few months if I fail at them (or better yet don't even remember what they were).

1. No eating out except for special occassions.

Money is tight this year and since son-in-law #2 lost his job we are essentially supporting him and girl #2 and grandbaby #2. And eating out is such a waste of money and so bad for us. So there's the reasoning....let's see if we can stick with it.

2. Get a better handle on our spending and debt.

With Joe out of work for so long, our once debt free life is debt heavy again. I hate making debt payments. I hate owing people money. From here on out, if we don't need it we aren't buying it.

3. Embrace a positive attitude.

When I get tired at work or at home, I tend to get negative. I am trying to embrace a positive mindset.

4. Work out, in some way, even if it's just a short walk, every single day.

I don't seem to be able to stick with a workout plan if I give myself any out. And for me, saying I'll only do it 4 or 5 days a week gives me an out. We took a 7.4 mile walk yesterday and today I can barely move so that should tell you how out of shape I am. I have a treadmill and an exercise bike at home. There's never an excuse for not working out. I will do it daily. Period.

So that's it. I'm not going to try to control my chocolate habit. I know that if I keep resolution number four the last few stubborn pounds will fall off. It might take a year or two but who cares. It's not like I need to drop a few pounds quickly because I'm getting pregnant again. It's so strange to realize that in all likelihood I will never be pregnant again. Here's to embracing a new year with a positive outlook.

P.S. The hubster and I will have been married for nine years tomorrow. I was married to my first husband for 12 years. So out of the last 22 years of my life, I've been married for 21 years. I am lucky to have my husband as he's a good man. Here's to another nine years.