Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Getting closer

Can you believe it? I feel like its going to be any minute now, but at the same time, I don't want her to come before Christmas; its still too early.

Thanksgiving was an adventure; I've been having a hard time getting around; she dropped a few weeks ago, and she is firmly lodged in my pelvic bone; everything there, blood vessels, nerves, tendons, all that is what is supporting her. And it hurts. I can't hardly walk; my pelvic bone feels like they are being ripped apart. I can't lift up my legs very far; putting on pants is a chore, and its hard to get up into bed, because it hurts to lift up my legs. Jon usually has to come pull me up out of bed to get up, and the first few steps of walking are hard, my spine doesn't want to straighten, and I'm afraid my back is going to give out.

So, with all this going on, I had to cook Thanksgiving dinner. I tried to manipulate it so I was doing all my prep work sitting at the table, did the majority of it the day before, and assigned jobs to my dad and Jon, but I was still hurting with all the standing around and cooking. Christmas should be even more fun.

I'm right about the 20-lb mark for weight gain, which I guess is ok, considering I didn't vomit with this one in the beginning, and I gained 10 pounds the first 3 months. Food has no interest for me. Its hard to make dinner/eat something when your just not interested. I can tell I'm hungry, and I need to eat, but I just don't want anything.

I'm having my baby shower this weekend. I almost didn't want to do it; I should have done it sooner, but I had my mind set on the beginning of December, and me and my sister were going to do it, and then some people from church said, "Oh, we can throw you a baby shower!" so I postponed the plans for mine, thinking they were going to throw one together. Well, it hadn't happened, so my Dec 6 baby shower turned into Dec 13 baby shower. I feel its too close to Christmas, but what can you do? I don't want an "after" baby shower.

I have a lady making me a cake; its going to be so cute! Can't wait to see it. As far as everything else goes, decorations and games and what not, I hope my sister has that worked out, cause I can't be the hostess to my own shower ;)

I have a pool worked up, if anyone wants to make guesses for my baby's due date ;)

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Had my 3D sono today

Little snot. She kept her face covered nearly the entire time; either with her hand or pressed backwards into my uterus. We poked and prodded at her for nearly an hour, lol. We got a couple of good shots; then, at the very end, we caught a smile! It was so cute, I'll post the video link so you can see.

Here are a couple of pics for her; I kinda think she's going to look a lot like Kathryn (Kathryn and Jonathan have different colorings, and they have different noses and different shaped heads, even though they both look like daddy)








Saturday, October 25, 2008

I realize I've been MIA...

Sorry about that. I don't suppose there are too many people who check up on me, but I hate to feel like I've deserted any of my friends ;). Sometimes, when I get down, and things are rough for me, I don't want to talk to anybody, "myself" included. I just would rather be a hermit, bundle up in my house, and not go anywhere or do anything. I've pretty much been doing that the last month or so.

Still feeling really good with the pregnancy; I'm starting to hurt in the pelvic area, I'm guessing this is my ligaments stretching. I need to do more exercise, but I get so down, I don't do anything. We are still having some troubles around the house, financially, still trying to work all that out.

I've got a couple of projects going on right now; hoping to post pics soon. On one of the cloth diapering forums I'm on, I've signed up for several "swaps" where I swap an item for an item. Well, in my case, I don't really have anything to swap, except my knitting talent. So, mama's send me their yarn, I knit it up into the pants for them, and send it back. In payment of this service, I've gotten several diapers, several wipes, a couple of shirts, some environmentally safe laundry detergent, and some other stuff. Its pretty cool, actually ;)

As part of this forum, and others, I've been made aware of things that I hadn't really been exposed to previously; like the no-vaxing issue. I'm seriously considering not vaxing my child; at first, I wanted to be selective/delayed, since there are so many more vaccines now than there were when we were kids; and I can tell you right now, I had already made the decision prior to this that my daughter was NOT getting the Gardasil, we do NOT do the Flu vax here, and I kick myself on a daily basis for allowing my children to be given the chicken pox vax. For these reasons, and several others, I'm thinking we're going the no-vax route. I have plenty of time to make my decision, since I already know I'm not doing it for the first year anyway, and I can gather more evidence to support my decision.

We may have found a church. We have never been "church going people" but we have always looked for that sort of fellowship or whatever you want to call it that you get from going. Well, the kids have played soccer with this church for 3 years; we've gone to their fall festival for that, if not more than that, and they did basketball last year, and will do it again this year. We know so many people there already, and it seemed like it was just time to try it out. This weekend will only be our third time going, but so far, I think we are all enjoying it. Kathryn and Jon most especially, it seems.

I'm ready for the GD election to be OVER! I know who I'm voting for, I'm sure you know who your voting for; my life experience has taught me it does no good to argue with someone who has their mind made up already, so what's the point? It just gets nastier and nastier, and if I think about it long enough, I stress out over certain aspects of a certain candidate who keeps getting compared to a certain beloved president who didn't last very long. So, 1 more week. And, ironically enough, our voting station appears to be "our" church, lol.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Finished a project

I am on several forums right now for cloth diapering mamas; on one, we have a "swap" set up where we make some diapes for our partner, and then swap out. Since I hadn't actually made a diaper yet, I put down that I could crochet and knit. My partner wanted a pair of "longies" which are wool pants. The wool is an excellent waterproof barrier between the cloth diaper and the rest of the world, while at the same times it natural and its breathable. They make "soakers", little shorties or diaper covers, but since winter is about here, she wanted longies. So here's what I made.




Friday, September 19, 2008

Still working out the bugs

I'm still working out all my little details for the cloth diapering; I guess it would just be easier if I bought a whole bunch of different brands, and then tried them out, knowing what I like. But that's not what I'm going to do; I'm going to MAKE mine, and I don't know what pattern to use!! There are literally a TON of patterns to use, and what if I make my entire stash out of one pattern, only to find out it doesn't work? and I don't want to make all different patterns, cause then what if I find one that does work, and the rest don't; then I'm just as equally out of all that fabric. GRRR I'm so frustrated with all of this; you would think a diaper is a diaper is a diaper, but they all have different rises, and waists, and snap placement, and crotch width, and estimated weight zones, etc. I could just cry.

So, I've been trying not to buy anything, since I want to make it, but I have made a few purchases. I bought 1 that was half price, because it was "the older pattern style". Apparently, the updated their pattern, so they were getting rid of the older pattern style. I also won one, off a free for shipping lottery on the hyena cart; and I've entered as many of these as I can find. Here is one

http://soapaholicsanonymous.blogspot.com/2008/09/green-giveaway.html

She's giving away a CD to someone who posts a comment on her blog about their favorite way to reduce, reuse, and recycle. She even has the etsy cart up for the lady who makes the diapers that she is giving away, which, by the way, are totally yummy and squishy ;)

I'm on several cloth diapering forums, as well; on one forum, I've joined a diaper swap, where in, I make a diaper and send it in, and she makes a diaper and sends it in. Well, I haven't actually made a diaper yet, ;), but she wants a pair of "longies" which are wool pants. I offered to make some out of a recycled sweater, since wool fabric is about $25/yd, or knit some, and she chose to have the knitted ones. I'm afraid I've bitten off more than I can chew, but hopefully I will get it done in the next week and a half ;) They are cute, so far, I just keep having to frog my work since I want them to be as perfect as possible for me ;) But, in exchange, I will be getting, I think she's sending me 3 diapers, for the 1 pair of longies, so not bad ;)

Monday, September 15, 2008

Still here ;)

Hi ya, thanks for checking up on me, Cyni. Things were looking pretty scary at first, but then, a weather-miracle happened. They say a dry front swept in from the side, collided with Ike, and pretty much took all the gust out of his sails before he even reached us. We did have high winds and little bit of rain; but we didn't have the flooding like we did about a month ago with another hurricane. There were a few knocked down limbs, a few uprooted trees, but all in all, we were unscathed. The worst damage here at our house was the privacy fence between us and the neighbors was knocked down; its their fence, though, so they are fixing it ;)

We were without electricity or internet for about 2 days, but that is all resolved now.

I'm still working on all my many projects, trying not to blow off my head with all the information I'm trying to process with my CDing, and I'm trying to work as much as I can, mostly because I've been out of work, and I'm looking to supplement, Jon is supposed to have "time out of the schedule" next week, so that's going to hurt us more, and we desperately need to get caught up.

Hope all is well with everyone else ;)

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Drawing for free baby carrier

I've entered a drawing for a free baby carrier; the more places I post the link, the more chance I get to enter ;)

www.ecobabycanada.com

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Isn't it amazing how you can post the same post/blog in different places, and almost know what response to expect? I pretty much expected the love and support from you guys, as always ;), with my cloth diapering decision; when I posted that same blog on MySpace, I titled it "no criticism, please" because I didn't want to hear anyone's negative comments about my decision. And in fact, I did get a lot of remarks along the lines of, "well, since you said no criticism, I guess I have nothing to say..." Very sad. I love you guys.

Ok, since you all asked sooo nicely, ;), baby Solorza's name will Lauryn Isabella.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Thanks for all the well wishes, guys, you all mean so much to me!

So, I will admit to having a bit of obsessiveness to my personality. I will decide on a topic, subject, project, craft, whatever you want to put in this box, if I decide I want to do it, learn it, learn about it, etc; I will obsess until I know just about everything there is to know about it. I can pretty much tell you anything you would want to know about weight loss, diet, nutrition, exercise, etc. Not that I was able to actually put it to good use ;)

So, my newest interest, shall we say, is cloth diapering (CDing). I have decided that we are going to cloth diaper this baby. There are several reasons why we came to this decision; cost being the main one; second one being that it takes well over 150 years for 1 disposable diaper to decompose, and it is estimated a baby will have used 1000 in a year, and they are expected to be in diapers the first 2.5-3.5 years of their lives.

No, I didn't cloth diaper my other 2; probably because it wasn't ever presented as an option. In fact, if it weren't for the internet today, I probably wouldn't attempt to do this one this way; I didn't even OWN a computer, much less get on the internet, until Kathryn was about 6 months old. Anyway, you have a baby; you buy your diapers at the store. That's it, that's all. You don't see cloth diapers in the stores now. They do sell the prefolds and the flat cloth, which I bought, but used as burp rags. They don't, however, sell the plastic pants for the babies anymore; the only size I see now are for toddlers, for potty training. Therefore, with Kathryn, and with Jonathan, I wouldn't have known about CDing unless someone aproached me, suggested it, and showed me my options. And let me tell you, you would be amazed at the options there are available today. They have come a long way from the flat and prefolds and plastic pants of our mothers and grandmothers. They have so many different diapers out there, and there are several websites out there dedicated simply for the terminology used in the CDing world. I could bore you with the details, but I suppose I wont, unless you ask nicely ;). Basically, there are tons of companies out there making the diapers, which all have different options as to convenience, fabric choice, etc. And, on top of these companies, the cloth diapering world is apparently the newest WAHM/SAHM (work/stay at home mom) craze. Therefore, there are TONS of "homemade" companies making these and selling these, as well.

So, anyway, I'm stressing out because of all these different options. Obviously, I want to be prepared for the baby when it comes. But I don't know what to get, what to use, what to do. What works for one, or so many, so well, may not work for others as well. Some people SWEAR by a certain method, while others complete trash it. Therefore, it is considered a "trial and error process". It is suggested to buy several different brands/styles, try them all out, and then decide which way is better for you before you make your big investment. The problem is, it is, to me, quite a chunk of change to just buy a "sampler". So, therein lies my dilema.

Anyway, that's my current "obsession", in case anyone was wondering what was going on in the world of Amanda ;)

yes, I have a baby name picked out. Yes, I will tell you, if you ask nicely ;)

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I FINALLY know what it is!!

Its a girl!! here are some sono pics.



Sunday, August 24, 2008

So, I went to the doctor on Friday. I brought Kathryn with me; this was the visit she was going to listen to the heartbeat, and guess what she thought it was. I'm still torn as to what I think; I don't want to get my hopes up one way or the other; I kinda want a little girl, but I wouldn't be disappointed to have a boy. My sister just had a girl, so I can get my girl fix in ;). Anyway, before I went in, I was looking at my tracker; it says that I am 18 weeks (as of Thursday), so I was confused as to why my "19 week sonogram" was scheduled for another 3 weeks away. I had planned on asking them about that when I went into the office; the nurse caught it first, though, and changed it, so I go in on Tuesday for the sonogram!! Only 2 more days and I'll know what this little bit is!!

Anyway, back at the office, with the doctor; first of all, she couldn't get a read on the heartbeat, cause the baby wouldn't be still long enough; it kept moving. She finally got the monitor to read a heartbeat; 150. She said she wouldn't guess, lol. She says "140s, its a boy, 160s, its a girl; 150s, I don't guess". So, I don't have a clue yet, but I will know in TWO DAYS!!!

Friday, August 15, 2008

So, I finally did my yoga workout today.I don't know if its because I didn't have to work today, or because Jon wasn't home (he's working late), but I managed to squeeze it in. How. Very. Disappointing.

Ok, yes, I understand. I'm pregnant. I have to be careful. I will soon be overwhelmed with gravity, and actually not have full function or control of my body. Not to mention, somewhere during these 9 months, my body turns to fragile china, and I have to be oh so very careful with the way I carry, position and move my body from pose to pose. Also, I've probably never exercised a day in my life, so I need very detailed and explicit instructions for about 30 seconds before each pose is performed, oh so achingly slowly. Not to mention, we don't want to push ourselves too far during pregnancy, because pregnancy is a static time for our bodies, and we don't want to make any advancing movements.

What a crock of shit.

Ok, I get it. I probably got a bad DVD, right? I just need to keep on looking try again, etc etc. The thing is, I was very careful about the one I picked out; it had the best reviews, a lot of women raved about it, said they had done yoga before and this really gave them a workout, blah blah blah blah blah.

I've done yoga before. Its been about 6 months, but I've done yoga before. Therefore, I felt that this DVD was going to be the best one for me to get, since I can't really consider myself at an intermediate level, right? Guess not.

So, I'm not bragging or anything, but I'm really flexible. Like, really flexible. Like, right now, having not done anything in quite a while, I'm more flexible than some of the women doing yoga who have done it for a while. Which, actually, is a bad thing, in this case. It means that I have to really keep up with my stretching and flexibility, because if I don't, it causes all kinds of problems with pains in my hips and back. Another problem with this is, even though I'm technically a beginner at most of this yoga stuff, I am doing intermediate/advanced poses, simply because that is how flexible I am, and I have to do it that far/deep to get any sort of stretch.

There was another DVD that I was eyeballing, but I shied away from it; the reviews were from, for lack of a better term, hardcore yogis. I'm talking, women who TEACH yoga, talking about this is an awesome DVD, it really gave them a stretch, blah blah. Well, apparently, I'm going to have to go hardcore yoga, because Yoga Momma didn't cut it.
I hate clothes shopping. Well, for me, specifically. I could 'browse' and help someone else all day. But for me, its a different story. I can never find *EXACTLY* what I'm looking for; apparently, I just made it up. I guess I need to find a seamstress (or learn myself) and have all my clothes made for me.

Apparently, I am the tallest woman EVER to be pregnant. Ever. First of all, when I buy pants, regardless of if I'm pregnant or not, I'm either buying men's, so I can get the 34" inseam, or I am buying the "tall" size at the New York store. So, now that I'm pregnant, and getting bigger, and outgrowing all of my clothes, I obviously cannot wear them anymore. So, I'm looking for new clothes. I have one pair of jeans, my "fat" jeans, that I am still able to wear, if I pull the waistband below my belly paunch. But, they have giant holes in the inner thighs, so they aren't necessarily appropriate for public wear.

So, my sister just had her baby, and she tried to give me her maternity clothes. First of all, let me just start by saying, my sister is about a foot shorter than me, ok? But, when it comes to SIZE, we are about the same. She has all the same SIZE pants from the maternity store that I would buy. And the pants are capris on me.

So, I go and look it up online; the longest inseam I can find is 31.5 inches. Well, if I was really short, I could get the special short pants with a 29 inch inseam. WTF?? Like I said, I'm the tallest woman EVER to be pregnant. Oh, and on a budget, musn't forget that I absolutely refuse to pay $100 for a pair of pants that will last me 6 months, and I will NEVER wear again.

So, here are my options, apparently, since I can't buy "maternity" pants. 1) buy more 'fat' jeans (men's jeans with a higher number in the waist, like a 36, and still have the inseam appropriate for me), 2) wear sweats/yoga pants for the rest of my pregnancy. So tempting, I just can't decide.

UGGGH!!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Baby Blues

Ha ha. Not really. I do love that comic strip, though.

Seriously, this has been the easiest pregnancy I've ever had, and I can't even begin to explain the difference. People keep asking me what I think I'm having; you know, mother's instinct and all that. Well, considering I've already had a girl and a boy, and basing this pregnancy on those, I believe I'm having an alien. Or something to that effect. LOL. Pregnancy with Jonathan was hard; pregnancy with Kathryn was harder. Yeah, I'm tired a lot, and I have my days where I just don't feel like doing anything; but I didn't have any of the morning sickness. Yeah, I was nauseated, but I never once threw up; which, considering I LOST weight with my other 2, is a freaking miracle. I actually feel like doing stuff, too. Not much, but a little bit. I'm still working, which is more than I can say for the other 2. I'm actually going to start back up with my yoga this week; I have a yoga dvd and a pilates dvd that were geared especially for pregnant women.

As far as cravings go, so far its been very similar to Kathryn, in that I crave lots of fruit. For the most part, food doesn't appeal to me. I do believe this child wants me to be a vegetarian. What the hell do you eat, as a vegetarian, besides salad and fruit? I can feel it move now; its very active.

This pregnancy is going by so SLOW!! I wanted to know what it was the minute I found out I was pregnant. I feel like I can't do ANYTHING to prepare for this until I KNOW what it is!! And I'm not making guesses, so don't ask. I will not allow myself to hope, wish, or think it is one, just to be disappointed. That's ridiculous; you should not be disappointed.

I have a doc's appointment scheduled for next Friday, just a checkup, and she will listen to the heartbeat and guess what she thinks it is. I'm taking Kathryn with me; she's probably more excited about this baby than I am. All she wants to do is hold my sister's baby all the time; which, BTW, is the tiniest thing on the face of the planet you are allowed to go home from the hospital with. What cracks me up the most are the big, tough, strong men scared to hold the baby!! HA HA

So, Sept 11 is my sonogram to find out what I'm having. Of course, I will post updates then ;)

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

My new Neice

Here she is, in all her 6-lb, 8-oz, 18-in glory; Natalie Joan.







And of course, that's my girl Kathryn holding her. I don't know who was more anxious for that baby; me or her ;)

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Finished the blanket

I finished the blanket for Sara's baby; I finished it a while ago, I just forgot to take a picture of it before I gave it to her. Here it is...



Here is my newest project (Well, I have several ongoing currently, but) I plan to have this one finished before baby Natalie makes it home from the hospital so she can wear them home...



BABY CROCS!! How cute are these? I can't wait; they should whip up super fast. As soon as I know what I'm having, you KNOW I'm making like 10 pair ;)

Thursday, July 31, 2008

I'm ready for summer to be over, and school to start. Mostly because my air conditioner is out. We're having a hard time around here, and things are only just now looking up. (Ha ha, I just realized what I do. You see this? I don't post when things are bad, I post when things get better; but in doing so, I'm still posting about the bad, lol). Anyway, I finally got a job that actually has work for me, so that means after 3 months with no pay I'm finally bringing in a paycheck. Which is right about when we need it, since we're behind on the mortgage. And, like I said, our AC went out. There's no way we can replace that by the end of the season, though. Absolutely ridiculous. Ok, my husband builds AC units for a living, right? He knows what's what, and where it goes, and all that. So this thing has been trying to go out for about a month; every week, he'd spend 200 on something, and get it fixed. Well, Saturday morning, we woke up to a melted compressor. That's right, melted; and he can't fix that on his own; he can't change it out, because of the freon and oil inside, and then when it gets changed out, it needs to be charged and all that. So, we had to wait until Monday to call around and get prices; get this. We could only get 1 company to actually give us a price over the phone; the rest were all, "It will be 150 service charge to come out and look at the unit and diagnose the problem". I'm sorry, didn't you hear me? I'm telling you the problem, I don't need it diagnosed.

Anyway, the 1 company that would give us a price, well their computers were down on Monday, so they called us back on Tuesday. Are you ready for this? $2000 to replace the compressor. Wanna know how much for a brand new unit? $2500. That's right, folks, for only $500 more you get a brand new unit, with a new warranty, etc etc! Needless to say, I'll be without AC for the rest of the year.

I'm in such a mood lately. I swear if I had a decent idea, I could write a novel. Or at least a synopsis ;). I don't know what it is with me; I WANT to be creative; the fact that I'm not is very frustrating to me right now, lol. I want to write something!! So far I've just been doodling in my blog, pulling stuff out that is pretty far down, and examining it, and throwing it out for all to see and examine.

My sister is having her baby on Monday. She's having a Cesarean done. I won't be able to be there at the hospital with her, mostly because of my job, and the kids, and the extra kid I watch, and that its Monday, but I will go see her Monday afternoon. I can't WAIT to meet baby Natalie!! I'm hoping she will ignite the baby fever in me, get me more excited about my own ;). I will have a baby to play with for 5 months before mine gets here; I only hope I don't get "over" it ;)

I feel like I'm...lazy, or unmotivated sometimes. I really need to get my butt up and start doing something, especially now, before I get too far advanced in this pregnancy, and its too late. I started walking last week, but only waled for 2 days, skipped the weekend, and then didn't do anything all week this week. I want to get started back in yoga; remember when I signed up for the Gym in May, hoping to get back into it? Still haven't done it. Something always seems to happen, and I hate saying that and using it as an excuse, but it always seems like Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days I have to watch the extra kid longer than normal, so it goes over into my yoga class time; this week, Jon worked late at work, and I didn't want to go by myself. Guess what? He's most likely working late again today, and I have to bring him dinner about the time the class is. So, it doesn't look like its going to happen again. I don't know why I can't do stuff by myself; I spend most of my time trying to convince Jon to do something with me, and then he finally gives in or it works out, and half the time I wished I had just done it on my own ;).

I'm still really anxious to find out what the baby is. I want to get prepared; not that it matters, I don't have any money to go buy anything, and I really need to get my house organized before I bring more clutter into it. Right now, everything is a mess; I've had to move my desk into my bedroom, so I can work, cause we have a window unit in here. Its the only cool room in the house; of course, it's freezing me out; I'm wearing socks, sweat pants, and a jacket half the time. Its crazy; the rest of the house is about 85, and I'm freezing my toes off in here, trying to work. At least I'm not roasting, I suppose. So, because the desk is in here right now, we obviously can't get the room ready for the baby. Its too early anyway, I'll admit that, but, I wanna do something!! I need to do something. I have tried to immerse myself in projects to keep me distracted, but its not really working; they aren't fulfilling what it is that I want to do, so I'm still restless. Even now, typing out this blog, I'm restless to do something that I really want to do; the sad thing is, I don't really know what that is ;)

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

How do you know when its time to cut someone out of your life? I don't really want to go into specifics too much, but I had a best friend, we'd been friends for about 10 years, and we had sort of a falling out/argument almost a year ago. It was so very depressing; it was almost like a serious break up, you know? And in my opinion, it was blown way out of proportion, but I don't feel like I was wrong to bring up the way I felt; I just felt like it got too defensive on the other side, instead of trying to figure out why I might feel the way I did, it was a complete defense team going on. So, we pretty much don't speak at all, most of the conversations we've had were to return stuff to the original owner; I've tried making contact about a few different things; going to the movies, etc, trying to bring the relationship back to life, but I've not gotten any feedback. So, I feel like its pretty much dead in the water, and it feels like there is less coming from that side than is going out on this side. So what, then? All of a sudden, we're just not friends anymore? Just like that? What kind of person do you have to be to be able to walk away from something like that without a backwards glance?

So, I'm just wondering, should I cut it out completely? There's still MySpace. I still see bulletins, and blogs, and pictures, and announcements, and all that jazz. I'm not invited to any of it anymore, but its there for me to see. Should I just go ahead and completely severe all ties, since its obvious the want for a resurrection is one-sided?

Sometimes, it makes me question the person I am. Of course, this isn't the only thing that makes me question me. There have been plenty of things going on in my life that make me question me. And you know what they say; when so many different people have a problem with one person, its usually the ONE person, not the so many different people. So if I have a hard time getting close to people, and I have a hard time making new friendships, at least, meaningful ones to me; then what does it mean that the few meaningful ones I have pretty much bail on me?

I don't have anyone. I have my husband, my kids, and my dad. I can't really talk to my dad anymore; mostly because his hearing is so bad, he doesn't hear anything I say, and he rarely asks me to repeat myself. So, its like talking to a brick wall most of the time. Which, its not his fault; he's ok in person. Its mostly over the phone. So, I can't call him anymore. I call my sister sometimes, but we're not really close. We talk, and sometimes we blow off steam, but I don't really know what goes on in her life, and we could probably go a month without seeing each other. We talk because we share a dad, and a brother, and, I dunno....I'd like to say we talk because we're family, but that's not it. I don't talk to any of my other family. I didn't speak to my mom for 10 years after I graduated high school; she never saw my kids, and then she died. Because of the rift between my mom and I, the rest of the family treated me like I was the plague. After she died, of course, she was the saint and I was the sinner, cause who speaks ill of the dead? Apparently I do. But, I don't regret that relationship with my mom; that was chosen, by me, due to the circumstances. Yeah, I wish I had a mom I could talk to, and a mom I could have trusted to stay with my kids and not die of a drug overdose, but it didn't happen, so guess what? I dealt with it the best I could.

I'm not sure how people see me; I realize that yes, I can be pretty much a cold-hearted bitch. I will admit to that. I do have feelings, but they've been hurt so many times, I'm certainly not going to wear them on my sleeve anymore, so to speak. I've had to deal with a lot of rejection, and so mostly because of that, I guess I'm a hard person to get close to. I think its because I don't know how, and people don't bother to try. So that makes me wonder if I'm doomed to be lonely forever; because I stood up for what I believed in, and I protected my kids as only a good mother would, and was looked down on because of it; not that I was protecting my kids, but that I had severed my ties with my mother. But at the same time, its not like she tried to ever call or come over, anyway. So its not like I had to work very hard at avoiding her.

At the same time, I'm tired of feeling like I have to defend myself because of this. My dad told me, when she died, "Don't ever feel bad or guilty or regret what happened in the past, and don't ever let anyone make you feel that way." Trust me, I don't. But sometimes, I still doubt myself, and wonder if my choices are wrong anyway.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

I'm bored. I think I'm lonely. I keep calling my sister; she gets irritated with me when I call too early (her husband works second shift, so they are late sleepers, and night owls), so I've been sending her text messages "call me when you wake up". Not much to talk about, but I still call her ;). Like I said, I think I'm lonely. She's pregnant too; she's about to pop, too. She's due in like 2 weeks. I can not wait to see this baby girl. Its going to get my baby "want" flowing ;). We still haven't completely decided on a girl name yet; I think we are having such a hard time because my girl name was stolen about 6-7 years ago, and I just never came up with another one. We have narrowed it down to a list of about 10 or so, give or take, that we like, and we just have to find the combination that we like ;).

I have started a new hobby; knitting. I am already an avid crocheter, as I have posted my Eeyore blanket on here before, and I have tried the knitting thing before; it just didn't take. Mostly, because I am self taught, and I am not a visual learner, I'm a kinetic learner; so I can't look at the pictures and read the descriptions and figure out if I'm doing it right; also, I'm left handed, so I have to take all the instructions and do them backwards and upside down. I found a pattern, though, of a baby blanket that I REALLY REALLY like; here's a picture of it ...


I know its kind of hard to see, but the white part of the blanket has strategically placed holes to look like butterflies; and the border is a different color with solid butterflies. (I love butterflies, BTW). I loved this pattern, so I bought it, and decided I would try knitting again. Of course, this pattern is an intermediate pattern, and I was having a hard time trying to figure out what exactly all this stuff meant, and of course, turning it around and upside down for my left-handed status ;). Anyway, I have set it aside for more "beginner" patterns to get my skill level up; I still have about 6 months ;)

So, I am a member of a yahoo group for knitters, and as an incentive to myself, I signed up for an exchange, where in you are assigned a partner, and you make that partner something based on a list of their favorite colors, etc; this way, I would be forced to actually make something. Well, of course I got paired up with the most experienced lady on the group, so I am so nervous, lol, but I'm hoping the scarf I'm making her will not be too shabby ;). I'll post a pic of it when I'm done.

Anyway, knitting, to me, is prettier than crochet. There are 2 major stitches in knitting; the knit stitch, which is just the regular stitch, and the purl stitch, which is basically the backwards knit stitch. Then, you take these 2 stitches, and you make all kinds of crazy things with them!! To knit every row is called a garter stitch; to knit one row and purl the next row is called a stockinette stitch; you can knit 1 purl 1 all the way across the row and then repeat the next row for what is called the seed stitch; you can knit 2, purl 2 on one row, then purl 2, knit 2 on the next row to create ribbing; then, you can use another needle to pull some stitches off and skip, and then turn around and do them after doing the next one, and you create cabling. And don't even get me started on making holes, and stitching in the back loop instead of the front ;) Its really amazing the things that were thought up long ago, before television dulled everyone's senses ;)

Well, I guess that's all for now. I'm just rambling. Like I said, I'm bored. My next doctor's appointment is August 22; she said she would guess what she thinks it is by the heartbeat then. I think both me and my husband think its a girl. Oh, also, I have cervical dysplasia, so I have to go back in on the 27th to do a culposcopy, but they can't do a biopsy, obviously, because I'm pregnant. So how great is that? I might possibly have cancer.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Thanks for everyone's comments. I'm not "upset", per se, that there is only one ;), I guess my biggest deal is I don't know what I want. I don't want 2 girls and 1 boy; I don't want 2 boys and 1 girl; I want it even ;). I know, I'll get over it.

I've been thinking a lot about this blog, mostly because I have always considered myself a writer. I love to read, and I was always coming up with short stories as a kid, and I would love to write a book like the ones that I so love to read. I don't know why I don't do it; I internalize enough to be a writer, I suppose, but then when it comes to actually putting something down; or even, regularly keeping up with something, I can't quite seem to do it, and I dont know why. Its very strange to me...

Monday, July 14, 2008

Wanna hear the heartbeat?

Hey there. I know its been a while; I have felt so "blah" lately, don't really want to do anything. I had my doctor's appointment today; no mention of a second heartbeat ;). Do you wanna hear it?

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Checking in again

Hiya! I've been meaning to check in here more often, but I've been sort of down lately, and I hate posting depressing stuff, cause I know people don't really want to read that. I was going to come on here this morning and check in by saying, still haven't found my cats, and last weekend my husband and I were lying in bed talking, and somehow came across the subject of twins, and apparently, he's been thinking the same thing too!! Of course, his way of thinking is "The only thing worse than her being pregnant is being pregnant with twins!" lol. So that's another time its been brought up. It was the first thing my dad said when I called him from the doctor's office with the confirmed test, I had a dream about it before I even knew I was pregnant, I keep thinking about it, like its already true, Kathryn brought it up all by herself, and now my husband admits to have been thinking about it lately. So, all I have to do, lol, is hang in there about another month before I go to the doc when she's going to listen to the heartbeat, and find out if there are 2, lol.

Also, good news, I found one of my cats today. I came home from taking the kids to vacation bible school, and I heard a cat hollering behind our backyard. (Our backyard adjoins 2 other backyards, but one of those is completely overgrown, practically a forest.) So, I go into the backyard, look over the fence, start calling the kitty, and there he is, my Smokey. Apparently, he's "gone wild" again, and has made himself at home in the forest. But, he was calling to me today, so I tried to get a hold of him. I climbed the fence, coaxed him to me and was bringing him back to the house. I couldn't climb the fence while holding on to him, so I set him in our yard to climb back over to grab him again when the dogs chased him all the way down the yard, back over the fence into the other neighbors yard. I was so mad about that, and I couldn't think of any other way to get him, so I figured I'd have to wait until someone else came home to help me get him. Then my dad suggested I climb over with a carrier to put him in, then use that to transport him back over the fence, so I tried that. I had to wait for it to quit raining this afternoon, then I went over there looking for him several times, and couldn't find him. I finally found him, but now he's running from me, and I spent about an hour climbing the fence back and forth between the 2 neighbors yards behind us, and I nearly hurt myself climbing back over the fence the last time. I had leaves and twigs stuck in my hair, and I was sopping wet by the time I gave up. I figure he's mad at me for the dogs chasing him, and I'm sure that everything being wet doesn't help, but I was pissed cause I just wanted to bring him into the house, and he was right there, and I couldn't get him. My husband is working a double tonight, so he won't even be home to help me, so I guess I'll have to wait one more day to bring my Smokey home. At least I know he's alive.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Again with the twins!

Ok, so I haven't said anything to anyone about my whole "Twins" theory, except here, mostly because I don't want to freak anyone out, and also because I don't want to be "wrong", I guess. I dunno. Anyway, my daughter basically asked me today, in a round about way, if I could have twins; a boy and a girl. See, this is where I was going with the twins thing; I don't know if she's intuitive, or if we just think alike ;).

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Feeling a bit better, then not...

I meant to come on here last week; Thursday-ish, to let you know i was feeling actually normal for the first time in a week. I had had a HORRIBLE headache nearly nonstop all week, pretty much the definition of a migraine; first of all, I'm allergic to all Rx migraine meds. Second of all, I'm only allowed Tylenol when I'm pregnant. Needless to say, I was not getting rid of the headache. It finally went away on Thursday, and I felt normal. For a day. My husband came home that day, early, from work, telling me he was feeling bad, sort of like he was getting sick. Stomach was upset, eventually he started running a fever, and then, as he was lying down, before he went to sleep, he told me he had the worst headache of his life. A lightbulb went on for me; maybe I had some kind of summer cold/virus that was floating around, and just blamed it on the pregnancy. Well, there is something going around, we all have had different versions of it. Mine was headache and nausea, which could have been caused by the headache, or the nausea. Jon had upset stomach, fever, and headache. The kids threw up for 2 days (no fever). The little boy that we are watching over the summer has the same thing Jon had. And the little girl Kathryn went swimming with on Wednesday night had fever. So weird. Also, I went to the doc yesterday, cause I'm getting a kidney infection. I really don't want to be on antibiotics while I'm pregnant; I did with my other 2, and I strongly believe that is the reason they were "born" with rotten teeth. I think the antibiotics did something to the development of their baby teeth, that caused them to decay easier. But, it can't be helped at this point.

So, finally feeling better, for a while. I still have mild headaches, but not severe like before, and I'm still nauseated, and I'm still trying really hard to take it easy on myself. I really don't want to be sick with this one. I was so sick with my daughter, I threw up for the first 6 months, and lost 15 lbs. With my son, it was the first 3-4 months, and I lost 7 lbs. I'm really conscientious of my body, and my symptoms, and when I get too hot, or too tired, or too sick at my stomach, or anything, I go lie down. I've been lying down a lot. Its really frustrating for me, I want, no, I NEED to get as much work done as possible, but I have several issues standing in the way of that. One, being the obvious, that I'm sick nearly every day. The other is that I'm still technically on "watch status", so I don't get to submit all my work right away, therefore, I don't know how much work I've done in a given day. I get paid on production; I'm supposed to keep up with that production level to make sure I'm doing all I'm required in a day. But I don't submit my work, I give it to someone else to look at, who then submits it, therefore, I don't have immediate feedback as to how much work I've done/how much work needs to be done. Its very frustrating.

I'm also very sad right. Needless to say, my emotions aren't very stable, which is a very strange place for me; I always try to be a rock, you know? I'm a strong woman, I recognize that and accept that as who I am. People see it in me, and the know that about me. I am crying like a damn baby every 15 minutes. Well, ok, technically, I have good reason; but normally, I would be able to just push it out of my head. I can't stop thinking about it now. 2 of my cats have gone missing; 1 has been gone for over a week now, the other for a few days. The first one was a wild rescue, he's used to being outside and stuff, and I can only hope that he's "gone wild" again, and may show up soon. But he's very skittish around people not us, so I don't believe anyone's taken him home as a new pet. The other one, on the other hand, would walk up to a drooling pit bull to make friends. He's the friendliest, sweetest cat around. Very patient; the only one I would trust to let his tail get pulled by a baby and not get scratched; I know, I've seen it. I can only hope for him that someone did find him, and take him home, and he hasn't had a chance to escape back outside yet. But, I cry every night; I check the doors every morning and night, hoping to hear or see them coming home. This morning I really bawled; it was raining. When my white cat, the friendly one, goes out and it starts raining, he comes home immediately, lol. I guess I was hoping the rain would bring him home. He's never been gone this long, only a few hours, and usually we can find him in the back or front yard anyway. I'm so sad that I will never see my babies again. Now I'm crying again, just talking about it.

Hope everyone is well, and enjoying life now. Will check back in later.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Checking in

So, just checking in. Not much new going on. Trying to work out a debt reduction plan so that the majority of the CCs are paid off by the time the baby gets here, then will work on paying down the car loans. Still sort of stressing about money, but really, what else is new?

We told the kids about the baby last week, on Wednesday, I believe. They were really excited, and immediately started arguing about which they wanted, a brother or a sister (like we're going shopping, and actually get to pick it out, lol) I've told a few other people, too; not too many, because its still so early, and you know how some people are superstitious about talking too soon. Well, I'm not one of those; cause, lets face it, I have a body built for carrying babies!!

Margie, did you know you were having twins? I don't know the situation about when you had them, if the doc had any way of knowing before you actually gave birth, but did you just have a feeling about it before being confirmed? Or was it a total surprise to you? I'm just wondering. I won't really know anything until I go see my doc in July, and even then, I may not know anything until the sonogram, in September. Long way away. Not long enough, lol.

I'm still not sick, but I still have this monster headache that won't go away, and I can't take anything for, and I get sort of queasy every once in a while, so I have to go lie down for a bit to make it settle. Its hard, I need to be working right now, and I'm not really able to do very much. I'm getting a bit frustrated.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Well, here I am

Hi guys! I really love that all of you have kept up with me! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy; honestly, I was doing this blog for myself, I never anticipated that anyone would care if I blogged or not.

So, I'm at 6 weeks pregnant, and I'm just in a rare state of mind. I'm so flustered and scared and not sure what to do! This is going to be like starting over for me; my youngest will be 7 in September; by the time the baby gets here, my oldest will be 9!! Oh my!!

So, I've already had all kinds of weird dreams and all that, and they have me totally scared that I'm going to have twins! I just can't shake the feeling. I haven't said anything to anyone yet, and I won't see my doctor again until July 14th, when they can hear the heartbeat, so I guess I won't know anything until then. I'm already making my lists of what I need; I need EVERYTHING! I don't have 1 single item left over from my babies. So I don't even know what everything entails! I thought I had made a pretty complete list, then we were at the store the other day, pricing cribs, and I saw high chairs! DUH! Not that that will be necessary in the beginning, but still!

I really want to get started on my collecting of items. I want to get started on clothes; buy one pack a week or whatever. I can't really do anything until I know what I'm having. I can't even pick out crib bedding until I know what it is!! I want to make my crib bedding, but I can't go pick out fabric, either! I don't want to find something I really like, then them not have it in 3 months. I have a sonogram scheduled for September 11 to find out what it is. That's a long way away!!

We already have names. LOL. Its sad, these names have been in the back of my brain for 7 years. David Alan, if its a boy, and I was thinking Elysabeth Grace for a girl, but my husband just told me he doesn't like Grace, so we will have to hash that one out. I'm trying to thing of ways to incorporate Lily or Lillian; Lillian Elysabeth? I don't know, he doesn't know if he likes that one, either. ;) We have plenty of time, I know.

Well, I'll try to get back on when I have anything to add. Obviously, not much to say in the beginning. I'm not quite sick yet; I have a bit of queasiness in my tummy, and I have had a screaming headache for a week, which, of course, I can't take anything for, but no real nausea and no vomiting yet. Thank the lord. I was so sick with my other 2, I lost 15 lbs with Kathryn before I started gaining! Ugh, I don't want to start throwing up again. Ugh.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

My reason

So, ok. Its official, so now for the announcement of why I am giving up, quitting, pausing, whatever you want to call it. I'm pregnant. So, obviously, I can't be on a diet anymore, and I can't try to lose weight; its not really healthy for the baby. So, I'm going to concentrate on eating healthy, and keeping active, and having a healthy baby. So, I'll be back in about a year, ;) picking back up on this.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The end.

Well, I figured out the reason for my funk. A lot of you were asking about me, and I really appreciate that, so I didn't want to leave you hanging on for another day, so I thought I would post real quick to say, this is the end of my journey. For now. I won't be moving forward from here for a while. I'm not giving up, I'm not quiting, I'm putting a pause on this particular road of my life. For now. I'm going to concentrate on staying active, and I'm going to certainly eat right and healthy, but I cannot diet any more and I will have to watch my activities. And I will tell you more tomorrow.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Still trying to get out of my funk...

Yeah, I'm still trying to get out of my funk. Things are definitely better; we took care of the problem, and its not so bad. I'm hoping for more good things to roll in now.

We went and signed up for the gym yesterday. I, personally, prefer to work out at home. But, I don't have any way to do cardio at home, unless I want to run around the block. Hello, ever spent summer in Texas? I don't think so. But, that's not why we joined the gym; its just an added perk. The real reason we join the gym every year is the swimming pool, for the kids especially, and the yoga classes. They offer yoga 4 nights a week; I don't think we'll be going that often, probably twice a week, but even then, its worth it. Its worth it for the pool, and something to do on hot summer days when we don't have any money to do something else. They are offering a water aerobics class; I would love to do that, for my "off" cardio days, but its an additional charge, and I don't think I can come up with that just now.

I'm still waiting for IT, and I'm still bloated and sore and cranky and craving stuff. I haven't done anything all week (any workouts), and I need to get over this funk!

Hope everyone has a great weekend; I don't know if I'm off on Monday or not. Speaking of work, *sigh*. I guess its ok; I just don't like not being good at my job. So this one doctor they have me on just sucks really bad. He has a hand held device, and he sets it down and walks away while he's talking, so he's all echoey; and then there's all this background noise that interferes. Its like, they don't care about us, at all, they just want us to get this done for them; it doesn't matter that there's an actual human being on the other end of that dictation that's going to try to muddle through the mess to make actual English out of it. And its not like, every once in a while, no, its every single 10-minute dictation. I hate this guy, alright? I'm not going to lie! Well, I get through him pretty fast, still, even though I can't catch half of what he is saying, so they gave me another doctor. One that actually knows the part of the device that you SPEAK into for a loud and clear dictation. He's super easy. But, its still not enough work for me; I'm running out before the end of the day, and as of this morning, there was nothing for me to do. I know its not they don't have the work; its that they are putting me on it 1 doc at a time, which is sort of frustrating; I haven't had to do training like this since I got out of school. I can't tell if I'm antsy cause I just want to start making money already, or if it's really bothering me the way they are doing it. Well, I'd say its an even 50-50 of both ;).

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Feeling better...

Lynda and Cynthia, I really appreciate you guys checking on me. Lynda, you seemed to have self-appointed yourself my check-point; I love it. Your keeping me in this, and I really appreciate you.

I'm feeling better now. I know we all have our ups and downs, but I used to have downs like a lot. I may have even been depressed, I don't know, I never went to a doctor about it. Then, I decided that I needed to change something in my life, we weren't happy, I wasn't happy, and I didn't know how to make it better. I got started in the Dream Team, and I started learning about the universe, and I decided that I needed to not worry about things as much as I had been; not at all if I could help it. Worrying about it doesn't change it, all it does is stress me out, and in turn, stress those out around me. And all I was doing by worrying was focusing on the negative, anyway. I haven't been so down in such a long time; it was pretty bad. I didn't do anything this weekend, especially Sunday. I just laid in bed; I could barely force myself to get up for anything. I didn't want to get on the computer, I didn't want to watch TV or a movie, I didn't want to read a book, I didn't want to do anything. So I didn't. I just laid there in bed all day. My husband tried to snap me out of it, but I wasn't having any of it. And, yeah, we're having a hard time right now. But things aren't as bad as all that yet, so there was no need for my moping. I spent the whole day worrying about something that could, might, possibly happen if we didn't get things turned around. Its not happening yet, we're still in this fight, we're still struggling, but we're still in this fight. So, I know that I just need to snap out of this funk.

I'm also tired of using different excuses to not do a workout, or anything. I've been bloated, and sore in particular places, and I know I said last week its about that time, but dang it it seems every month it takes longer and longer from the time my symptoms start to the time it actually happens. Any day now turns into a week, and then 2 weeks, and then it finally happens and then what? I'm supposed to take 3 weeks off because of yucky symptoms? Not having it. That's just ridiculous. So, I'm going to do a workout today, and I'm actually looking forward to doing a little kickboxing tomorrow.

I'm debating about whether or not I should "reset" my challenge. I have until the end of May to join in, and then the 12 weeks of the contest. I'm wondering if I should take another "start" picture, and reset the calendar that I'm on now. I had a rough start, with getting sick the first week, and then spending the last, oh about a week, in a completely depressed state, not really wanting to do anything, so I didn't. I'll think more about that.

I started my new job yesterday. There are so many things about this one that I like; I'm getting paid more than any of the others, I don't have to work a set schedule, basically as long as I get my work done, I'm ok. One thing I'm not sure about is that I'll be typing the whole time; my hands just don't work like they used to, and the last couple of years, I've been working editing only jobs. Well, the editing jobs don't pay as well, so I'm thinking I might be better off just doing straight transcription, but we will see. Another thing is that its an Orthopedics Clinic, which I hate orthopedics, and I'm doing one doctor for now, which I always said I would probably be really good at, so long as the doc was a good dictator. Well, he's not. But, yesterday was my first day, and I tend to get overwhelmed and frustrated when learning something new; i.e., the system, the doctor, and the rules of the hospital. So, will update more on that later.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Monday, Monday

Hi Lynda. Thanks for checking up on me. I haven't disappeared, I'm just sort of down in the dumps these past few days, I've had some personal issues going on that are really stressing me out. I just sort of gave up this weekend, and didn't really do much of anything. WHen I get like this, depressed and just want to give up on everything, its all I can do to just tread water and try to stay where I am without losing ground; there's no way I'm going to be able to continue forward. I'm hoping to feel better today, but I don't know yet. We will see.

Thanks again, Lynda. You are such a good friend to be there for me when I need someone to pull me back in.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Finished a project...

Thursday; I did my TT workout yesterday, but chose not to do anything today. I felt I needed the break, plus I don't want to push myself too far too fast and burn out. I spent the day cleaning the house, rearranging dishes in cabinets and stuff. I've actually had a very interesting day; found a frog in the pool; or a toad, whichever. It had a smaller one on its back; I stuck a log in there so it would have a perch. While I was cleaning, I left the doors open for the cats to get out; later on that day, one decided he was going to catch him a snack, bring it home, and play with it. I was not pleased.

Currently looking for a new job; have an offer from today, probably will take it. I'm not very patient when it comes to waiting for stuff to come in. There were 2 in particular I was banking on, but its been a week, and I haven't heard anything, so I'm thinking I'll take this one.

So, I finished a project that has been ongoing since the beginning of April. It was a blanket for my niece; I wanted to give it to her for her birthday party at the end of April. I might could have finished it, if I hadn't gotten sidetracked one entire week I had unexpected family in. I had most of it done for the party; I gave it to her, so she could see it, and then took it back to finish it. After the party, I took about a week and a half off of it, since I had been pushing it pretty hard beforehand. Finally picked it back up this week, and finished it today. Here's the pics...





I crochet the blanket, and then cross-stitched Eeyore on. Don't worry; I have a list of more projects in the back of my mind to work on ;)

My sister is pregnant, so I want to make her a baby blanket; and I have a basket full of red suede yarn and gray chenille yarn waiting on me to pick a design to turn them into ;)

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Hump Day

I'm feeling pretty good today. I was able to do a workout yesterday, did a little Turbo Jam. I was a little tired after; sort of drained. I think the shower I took immediately afterward was too hot, or something; I just had no energy for the rest of the day.

A few years ago, when I was taking those pills that are like speed the doctor gives you for weight loss, I used to wait until after the kids were in bed before I did a workout. This was when my husband was working second shift, so I was home alone, and it would be 8-9 at night, and I would go in, do a workout, stumble into the shower, and then crash out. I feel like that's the kind of workout person I am; I don't get energy after I workout. I don't do that now, because I get off work at 3, and then I have an hour all to myself before anyone else comes home. I don't like working out with other people in the house; I'd rather just have my alone time.

I feel like I need a nutrition brush up; I've been doing low carb for so long, nearly a year off and on, that I don't even know what's good for me anymore; I'm sort of brainwashed into the low-carb thinking I suppose. I don't mean that in a bad way; its just hard to overcome those habits of "I can't have that, its a carb" to "Can I have that? Is it healthy?" I'm ok with the veggies and stuff, its the other stuff I'm stuck on. Like, potatoes are so weird, their veggies, but their also bad, or something, and then rice is iffy too, so its all confusing. I have a lot of e-books I can read to sort of reinform myself with, I just need to get around to reading them. Its on my list ;)

I "met" someone today; she's on the Fit Yummy Mommy forum, and she is also a TT-er! LOL. We've only had the one conversation, but its neat to meet someone doing the same thing as you.

As the days go on, it sort of gets harder to know what to say. I feel its silly to just come here and say, yep, I did it right, and that's all. But, I'm not really much of a talker in person, so I guess that's ok, too. I have no plans for tonight, so I'm hoping to have time to look over a few of the nutrition e-books I have, refresh my memory as to what is good and what is ok and all that jazz.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Going strong

I did well yesterday. I did my TT workout, and I was huffing and puffing and shaking by the end of it. I didn't do my intervals afterwards; I was too fatigued. I can only imagine that I will feel like Wonder Woman once I am able to do all 3 circuits of the workout, instead of just 2, and that when I am done with the workout, I will be able to do intervals. I can only imagine...

Not too terribly sore today, so that's good. I can still feel it, but I'm not hurting so bad I'm falling into my chair to sit, so that's even better. I plan on doing some cardio today; possibly a kickboxing tape. I have like, I don't know, 4, lol. Have I mentioned before that I'm a workout video junkie?

So my sister came over yesterday, and was talking about her government stimulus check that she got in. How she and her husband only got $300 per, and not the $600 we've all been lead to believe. I thought that was a mistake; how could they possibly only get $300 per person? Well, Jon looked it up on the internet, and it looks like they've either changed the rules or reworded them. At this point, we don't know what we're getting; supposed to get it before Friday, but its going to suck to only get 1200 when we were banking on 1800. Stupid lying government.

So, my whole "I'm never ingesting artificial sweeteners again" kick is partly because of past research, but something that sort of tipped me over the edge was a movie/documentary we watched this weekend; Sweet Misery. It talked about a lot of things that I already knew, but sort of makes it more real, more serious, ya know? Well, there is a second part to that movie, called Sweet Remedy; we started watching it yesterday, but didn't finish. Now its got me all stressed out about MSG; have you looked at what all that's in? Its in EVERYTHING. I mean, wow. I don't even know how to begin to cut that out. I'll have to do more research for this, but its so scary how bad things really are, in so many ways.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Monday the second

Morning all. Doing well; need to up my workouts. I know this, but I can't do anything about my ability, other than continue to work at increasing them. Today was supposed to be my ESE day, but I think its about that time, so I'm just going to concentrate on not eating anything bad and forgo the 24-hour fasting for this week. I'm in a really bad munchie mood. Yesterday was an off-day; first I started it off with no electricity in the morning when I woke up, which caused me to not be able to work for the first hour, and then my computer was giving me fits, so I had to back up my folders on a disk, I had to clean off and format my harddrive, and then put everything back on the harddrive. In that process, I realized a lot of the stuff I had backed up was lost or somehow didn't backup properly. There's no telling how many videos I've lost; a few of my emails I've saved from different nutrition and exercise people I've lost, and I just realized this morning that I lost my "homeschool" folder, which is full of stuff for me to have the kids do over the summer to keep their brains from going mushy from TV and video games all summer long.

Anyway, I was highly stressed about that all day yesterday, and I didn't realize until this morning that I hadn't done any measurements. My weight is not down, but like I said, I believe its about that time, so we will give it another week and see what happens. I'll just wait till next week for the measurements. I'll spend this week making sure to increase my workouts; I have got to get past the soreness. I can't spend 3 days recovering from 1 workout; I know that will get better with time.

It seems like I go through phases of my eating. I don't know how to explain it; its easy to say its hormonal and its just "munchies", but I can eat a lot when I get like this; and not just bad food. I will eat good food, but still eat a lot. And just last week, I couldn't even finish my breakfast, and wasn't having lunch, that's how uninterested in food I was. I don't know why I do that; I don't know if its an "all in my head" thing, or its just normal to go through those phases. Does it even out? Me not eating for a week or 2 but a couple of meals, and then a week or 2 practically gorging myself, I'm consuming lots of calories; or is it one of those things were one offsets the other, and I need to find a balance and just eat the same all the time? I can't tell. I feel bad when I'm in the gorge phase, but then when I'm in the "not interested in food" stage, I feel like its ok, because it makes up for all the eating I did the week before. I don't even know if any of that makes sense.

My goal for this week is to do the workouts as planned, and come up with 2 new meal ideas. I need to drink more water, which shouldn't be too hard, since all I have to drink now are coffee and tea. No more diet drinks for me.

I can't wait for summer.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Blah

I was a little piggie today. And yesterday. I got some almonds, and just ate the heck out of them. They are gone now, so guess what? No more almonds for this little piggie. I can't just have a handful and be done with it.

I know that on one of my first posts, I said that I was going to try to quit drinking diet Dr. Pepper, but I wasn't sure if I could do it? Right. Well, I'm doing it. I'm not even going to try to "wean" myself off, its done. I'm getting rid of what I have in my fridge, I'm going to scour my pantry for anything else that has aspertame in it, and I'm done. I refuse to do the fake sugar thing, so I trained myself to drink tea without any sugar; and I am now to the point that I don't take sugar in my coffee. Its absolutely ridiculous that our options for any kind of premade drink or anything out there is either full strength sugar or fake sugar. Can you buy one of those little 20 oz bottles of unsweetened tea? No. Its either corn syrup or fake sugar. Well, that's ok, cause I got my own. and, besides, more money for me, and not them.

Not intending to go on a completely fumbling bumbling rant that probably doesn't make any sense anyway, but the point is, no more aspertame, or splenda, or fake sugar of any shape or form, for me. And guess what that includes? Gum. Yup, that's right. Even the gum that's not "sugar-free" has aspertame in it. So, no more gum for me. Which is fine. I don't need it.

I'm getting silly. It must be my bedtime. Goodnight all. Manana, manana.

Friday, May 9, 2008

ITS FRIDAY!!!

And I'm so glad. Week 1 is under my belt; wait, can I say that, if its not Sunday, and I missed my first 2 days of a workout, and then got so sore from Wednesday's workout that I missed Thursdays workout and only stretched?? Oh well. I'm learning it doesn't have to be all or nothing, you do what you can do with what you have to do it with. I was sick, so I couldn't workout. I'm still really sore today, so I'm going to do my weekly house-scouring, hope that will loosen me up a bit, and try to do an "easy" cardio workout, and move my TT workout to tomorrow. See, flexible, right?

I made an accomplishment this week that I didn't think I was ever going to make. Ok, I don't want any flak for this, but I take sugar in my coffee. Its not a lot; but I absolutely refuse to do the fake sugar thing, and when I was "training" myself to not drink sweet tea (this was at least a year ago), I was also working on myself to not drink sugar in my coffee. But dang it, with no sugar in the coffee, it was too strong, or something, I don't know. So, the scoop that I have in my little sugar jar is like a teaspoon, and I put in maybe less than 1/4 of it. And that is in a 20 oz tumbler full of coffee. So I don't use A LOT of sugar, but its still there. I also put cream in my coffee. So, all week, my coffee has been too sweet, and I've had to tip some out, and add more coffee to sort of dilute the sugar. Then I had one of those AH-HA moments, and decided to try it without the sugar, to see if maybe the cream was sweet enough for me at this point. IT IS!! No more sugar in my coffee, thanks! Hey, isn't that a song? No sugar tonight in my coffee, no sugar tonight in my tea!! LOL

I have another goal I want to add to my list of goals from the beginning (I told you I'd be adding more). One thing that I REALLY want to glean from this journey is, not only the losing weight and the losing inches, and the looking better and the feeling better; I want this to become a habit. I don't want this to be IT. When my 12 weeks are up, I'm most likely not going to reach my ultimate goal. But, just for S&Gs, lets say I do. I made IT! I did IT! I'm THERE. I'm DONE. Now what? Just stop working out? Stop watching what I eat, because I am where I want to be? How silly is that? Wouldn't that put me right back where I started, eventually? Why would I work so hard to have a sleek, trim, hard little body, just to let it go to rot cause I MADE IT? I don't think so. So, I'm hoping that this 12 weeks of working out everyday, fitting it into my schedule, even if it is a little walk in the park while my son plays T-ball, or if it is a short workout DVD in the house on a few of those days; I want to be able to keep moving. I want this to be a habit I form, that I keep up with, and my kids notice, and think its part of a normal lifestyle to workout, to move, to do SOMETHING every day.

Ok, enough prattling on. I have work to do ;)

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Hurtin today

I'm really sore. The kind of sore that you get after so many squats, so now when you do an every day activity, liking sitting on a chair for example, you have no control over the movement, you just sort of fall and hope you land where you aim? Yeah, that's the kind of sore I am right now. Man alive. I'm going to have to do some stretching exercises today; I was planning on doing my intervals, and maybe I will after I get through the stretches, but I'm doing the bodyweight intervals from TT, and they are all squats and lunges and jumping jacks and burpees and all that crazy stuff you sort of need muscle control to do.

I made myself breakfast this morning, and I ended up not eating hardly any of it. See, its just me that uses this stuff; like the peppers and the onions and stuff, and I usually cook the peppers, onions, mushrooms and some turkey sausage (homemade, so it's really turkey breast with lots of seasonings) together, throw in a couple of eggs, and I have my "scramble". Well, since its just me using the peppers and onions, I REALLY hate it when they go bad before being used, and I've read that they can be frozen without any harm to them, as long as they are being cooked. Either I'm not cooking them long enough, or I'm spoiled, because they don't taste very good anymore. They were fine the first 2 days, but today, not so much. *SIGH* Guess I'll have to start figuring something else out. I'll start putting them on my salad for lunch, which I usually do, but maybe I'm just not putting on enough. I don't know...

Will check back in later for update on workout. Tomorrow is Friday!! That means I'm off, and I have a huge house to clean. And a long "bored" list that I'm itching to get to. And a ton of e-books to read! LOL.


Wednesday, May 7, 2008

FINALLY Did it

And I am wore out, too. Dang, I forgot how hard it was in the beginning. Its one thing to put it all down on paper, and get yourself all psyched up about it; its another thing to struggle to do that last set of reps because your muscles are so weak, your knees are afraid to unlock because you might just fall down. Needless to say, I only did the strength training today; guess the cardio intervals will have to be tomorrow. And that's no big deal; that's totally fine. I'll work my way up to doing it all in one day. But, I DID IT.

So, I was thinking about it, and I decided that maybe me getting sick on day 1 wasn't necessarily a sign of things to come; maybe it was more of an object lesson that I don't have to be perfect all the time. Are those 2 days that I lost going to make a difference in the end, compared to the rest of the 12 weeks? Not really. That's why its ok to have a cheat meal once a week. Its OK not to be perfect. Just do the best that you can do, and it will all fall into place. There's no need stressing about any of it; just do it.

So, I've kept myself a running list of projects that I can do to sort of keep my mind, body, hands, etc. occupied so I don't rummage through the pantry looking for a snack or anything. Several on my list are lists, lol, of things to do when I get bored, things to eat when I don't want to cook, things to eat when I don't have time to cook, etc. I made my bored list today; and I'm currently researching about once a month cooking; the idea to cook once, freeze it all, and then have meals for a month. I probably won't take it to that extreme right off the bat; I'll have to ease into it, figure out 1 or 2 meals I can double or triple, and then see how it goes. If I get it going right, I can do something nearly every night; just double or triple whatever is for dinner that night, and I will have something in the freezer to heat on the days we barely have time to eat, let alone cook and eat, or the days I don't feel like putting together a meal at all. More on that to come.

So, here is my "What to do when I'm bored" List. I'm sure some of it is self-explanatory; some of it will probably only mean something to me, and surely I'll be expanding on it as time passes.

work in garden
work on crochet project
work on cross stitch project
read a book
take a nap
take a walk
clean a room
go outside and walk the yard, thinking up ideas for changes
look up information on a recipe, gardening, or anything else
brush teeth
brush hair
wash face
pedicure
manicure
go through closet
go through drawers
work on list for summer
work on garden for next year
post a blog
work on picture albums
work on scrap books
clean off computer
plan landscape for yard
make a list of house "wants"
prepare a meal for freezing


Another thing I've decided to do; I'm going to daily change my calender at the bottom for my workouts; blue means success, red means didn't happen. That way, I have a visual of my progress, and whether I need to step it up a notch. ;)

See you tomorrow!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

None today, thanks

Well, I'm still hanging in there, doing good with my meals, but I still wasn't up to snuff to doing a workout today. I have GOT to do something tomorrow, this is making me crazy with stress.

Margie, Lynda, and everyone else, you have no idea what your comments do for me. I think it would be sort of depressing to be here, "talking to myself" through this blog. Thank you so much for posting uplifting comments for me, it really helps me keep my spirit up and want to continue on through this. You have no idea how you've helped me through this beginning.

More tomorrow...

A sign of things to come??

You would not believe what happened to me yesterday. I can't even believe it happened to me!! I got sick yesterday, and couldn't work out.

God, does that sound like the lamest excuse or what?? "I got sick". Well, let me expand on that, because it sounds like I had a cough or the sniffles or something. Oh, no.

About 10 yesterday morning, my stomach started hurting. Like I had swallowed acid, and it was coating my stomach. I thought maybe I had drank too much coffee, since I hadn't eaten anything that morning, so I got up to get me some water. The pain slowly intensified, and I took some antacid, and went and laid down for a little while to see if that would make it better. When I got back up, it was to send my supervisor an email that I wasn't going to be able to work the rest of the day, and somehow I stumbled back into the bedroom. I was SICK! I was so weak, I could barely keep from falling down. My stomach pain had worsened, and was my entire abdominal area, with the majority of it radiating down to my right hip.

I tried calling my doctor, but apparently they take a 2-hour lunch break from 11:30 to 1:30. If I hadn't been home alone, and felt like I couldn't even move, let alone drive, I would have taken myself to the hospital, it was that bad. I ended up curled up in a ball on my bed, writhing around in pain, with my bucket beside my bed in case I ended up throwing up. I felt so bad.

Eventually, the pain subsided enough for me to get some sleep, as long as I didn't move, or, you know, breathe. When I woke up, the pain was only there with movement, my whole abdominal area between my ribcage and hip bones. It almost was like my internal organs were bruised, and so they were fine unless I put any pressure on them; sneezing, laughing, moving, breathing....

I never did throw up, even though I thought I was going to. I was able to stick to my ESE, though! (I know, its not funny). So, needless to say, I didn't get my workout in yesterday. And I'm really pissed off about it. What a way to start my 12-week journey, huh? I'm frustrated about it, and not really sure what to do. As of now, I don't know if I will be able to work out today, either; I'm still really sore (internally). So, should I shove the whole thing back a week? Or hope that as the day goes by, I'll be able to do some sort of light activity, and then pick back up on the hardcore stuff tomorrow? I don't know. I know that I very nearly cried because of this, messing my plan up; in the very beginning, no less. It always seems like something like this happens to me; and I know that sounds like I'm whining, but this was beyond my control, and it wasn't something small that I turned into something big. This was big, and it screwed up my plans, and it seems like something always happens to me when I start something new; thinking back on it, it always feels like an excuse I made to myself to not be able to start, but this is not an excuse. Is this a sign? I don't want it to be! I want to get where I want to be! I don't want to have a million starts, but no end because I was never able to complete what I started! I want to be beautiful and fit and lean. **SIGH**

I'll drop in tomorrow to say whether or not I was able to work out.


Monday, May 5, 2008

And...She's off!

Well, today is Monday. Day 1 of my journey. I did everything yesterday to get this initiated; I took my pictures, took my measurements, and posted them all over the place. So, my first weeks' measurements are on my chart, and I will post the photo here at the end. I turned the photo in for the contest, and now we are on a roll.

I meant to post every day, but Saturday I just wanted OFF the computer for one lousy day! And yesterday, I never really got time to do it, there were different things going on around here. I did get in a workout yesterday; did some yoga. Such a wonderful thing; nice for stretching, and it got my muscles humming. I always feel so good when I do yoga; I don't know why I ever quit doing it.

So, today I'm going to do my TT workout; intermediate A. and for intervals, I'll be doing the bodyweight intervals. I probably won't post much on my workouts here, other than I did it.

As far as my eating goes, I did really well yesterday. When I got a chocolate craving, I fixed myself a chocolate protein shake with ice and coffee; that seemed to help settle it down. I remembered that I wanted to try the Eat Stop Eat system, but hadn't incorporated it into my meal plans. Normally, on the weekends, we get so off routine, we sometimes don't eat lunch until 3 or 4; and IF we eat dinner, its pretty close to bedtime. So, I decided to take advantage of that, and do my ESE night on Sunday night, when I'm already most likely not going to eat dinner. I just have to get through today; around 4 is when I can have something, so no breakfast other than coffee, and no lunch. But I will be drinking tons of water today.

Well, I guess that's all for now; now that it has begun. I will do check-ins daily to say whether or not I did my workout, and also will be posting my food on my spreadsheet. I'm so excited, but sort of less stressed out now that it has begun. Its been so great to have people commenting on my blog; most of you I know from way back when, and its so wonderful to "see" you again! And it makes me feel really good to have someone I DON'T know come and take a look and post a comment for me. It helps me with the accountability, with the thought that there are those that are checking up on me ;).

Here's the picture I submitted for the contest. I will either post again today or tomorrow with the success of today.

Friday, May 2, 2008

3 to go

So, I got really frustrated at FitDay yesterday. Yesterday, I had said that I was going to use FitDay to keep up with my meals, as another way to be accountable, and then have the link posted on my blog, so anyone at any given time could go and look and see how I was doing. Yesterday, I decided to go ahead and input my first weeks' meals in, so that all I had to do was change what was different or keep it the same, and that way I could look at what I had planned to see if it all seemed appropriate. WELL, after about 2 hours working on it yesterday, I got really frustrated. First of all, when you are searching for something, you can't just put in "green beans" and find green beans. You have to do beans, green, and then it gives you about 14 pages of beans to get through to find what you are looking for. Or bell peppers. Or chicken breast, for crying out loud!! It got to the point where I was adding everything in as a custom food, by clicking on Calorie King, looking up the nutritional facts, and the inputting them into FitDay. Well, I nearly got the week completed, but another thing that was frustrating me was that I have to input every single item every single day! I can't, for example, have a "template" or have a way to use a few of the same things if I'm eating the same breakfast or lunch or I have some of the staples that are the same in my diet on a daily basis. So, I gave up on FitDay, and decided that I will go back to some spreadsheets that I already had made up from about 2 years ago, when I was on the Dream Team, trying to do BFFM. This way, I can keep track of what I'm eating daily and weekly, I can customize the meals to me, and I can copy and paste the ones that are used over and over and over again. SO, the link for these is now in place of where my FitDay journal link was. There isn't anything there yet, except my spreadsheet; tonight, I will work on filling in as many of the meals as I regularly eat as I can, and then filling in next weeks' food choices.

I posted a question today on a few forums I'm active on, as well as a bulletin on MySpace, sort of getting people involved and interested and reading about my plans...I don't know if I just worded it wrong, or what, but people seemed to think I was asking advice. I'll post it here, and then I recap at the bottom...

Hey guys!! I have a question for all of you who care to help me out with it; if you've ever tried to stick to a diet, or workout, or meet a goal, maybe you can give me some insight. Like I said before, I've been working on my blog, which I am going to use as a tracking tool for this transformation contest I'm going to join on Monday. I'm trying to get everything ready between now and then that will help me ensure my success; I've got my meals planned out for the week and loosely planned for the month; I have my workouts planned out, I'm going to be documenting my food on fit day, and I have a spreadsheet that I'm keeping track of my weight, inch, and fat loss on. I'm trying to be fully prepared for this one; I want this one to be the one that I stick to.



So, my question is, what things happen or come up or are there that seem to hinder you from making your appropriate choices? Like, for food, what causes you to "cheat" or choose the less good of the choices? What about for those of you who exercise, what comes up or happens to cause you not to exercise that day?

The reason I'm asking is because I want to see if this is something that will come up for me, and I want to make a list of ways and strategies and techniques to avoid these pitfalls for me.

I already have a few that I'm going to be working on this weekend;
Things to do when I'm bored
Things to eat when I don't feel like cooking
Things to eat when I don't have time to cook.



I would love any more insight from anybody that will help me be fully prepared for this next 12 weeks to sticking to my plan and making my goal!

So, no. I wasn't asking "how can I stick to my program!!" I was asking, basically, what excuses do you use to get out of sticking to your program, so that I can customize my own way around that particular excuse. I got some great answers from one person, but everyone else is giving me advice.

Here are some of mine...alcohol and stress are my 2 biggies. I lose all ambition and start making excuse why its just one night. Which usually turns into 2-5 days depsite my best intentions and well, excuses.

More are I can start immediately back over, just a little, I don't have time, one bite is not going to hurt.
I gotta.....insert whatever excuse is the one for the moment........instead.
Fast food is easier (like the fast food restaurants don't have on plan/healthy choices!
I want it and deserve it, I had a hard day, worked so hard, am so tired....on and on.
I don't have time. I am too tired. I don't feel like cooking. It was a party, everyone else was havign fun and indulging, I felt left out.
I don't have time to plan. I don't wanna. I donlt have any will power.
There are millions that I can think of to justify my obsession with trying to lose weight.

I have gotten past these for the most part. Recognizing them is a biggie. Acting on them is another. I got tired of lieing to myself. Like my dad says, "If you are looking for an excuse, any one will do."
So, I definitely have plenty more work ahead of me; and I realize this can be a never ending process. I realize I can prepare myself to death, and just be sick of the whole thing before I even get started. I'm not trying to do that, I just want to identify any snags that may occur, because they have before, and try to work out a plan of action to get around those snags so that my journey may be a bit more smooth this time. I am not anticipating this to be a breeze; nor am I thinking that there WON'T be any snags. Just as long as I can take care of the ones I foresee, I won't have given up so early in the game. And maybe, I will have more confidence in myself when the other snags pop up.

I am trying my hand at positive self talk, really trying to pump myself up for this. I need a method for catching myself when I'm in the negative talk; I don't want to let that continue. I KNOW I can do this. I KNOW that I WILL do this. I KNOW that I will feel so fantastic and beautiful each and every day, BECAUSE I am doing this. I know that when this journey is over, that's not the end of the road for me; that's just the end of this particular trip. There are more to come, and this isn't a quick fix for anything. This is a way for me to get into the habit of doing what I should have been doing all along, and what I need to continue to do throughout my life; eat right, exercise, plan the moments and parts of the day I have control of, learn to let go of those that I don't, and accept what comes along.

I posted some pictures at the bottom of the blog if anyone is interested in seeing...3 more days before my official start picture will be posted...

Thursday, May 1, 2008

T minus 4 and counting

Today is Thursday, May 1. I am starting my transformation on Monday, May 5. Sunday, I will take all my measurements, my pictures, and get the beginning of my progress sheets and formulas started for this 12-week journey. I have already started posting a few things on my blog; I have a link to the chart of my progress, which is just a spreadsheet I'm using to keep track of my weekly measurements; there is also a link to my FitDay journal, so I can keep track of what I eat on a daily basis.

Yesterday, I said that I wasn't going to weigh myself during the 12-week process; just in the beginning and then at the end. Now, I'm wondering if I should rescind that; if I weigh myself, I can use several different formulas and "calculators" that I have to help me keep track of my body fat percentage, which uses a combination of things like my body weight and site measurements, that I will be taking on a weekly basis. I'm still not sure...

I posted my workout schedule for the 12-week process; its posted at the bottom of my blog. I have decided for the first 4 weeks to do the TT intermediate workout; the next 4 weeks to do the TT for Women workout, and then the last 4 weeks will be doing phase 1 of the TT Female Strength. I'm hoping to be able to do an unassisted chin up by the end of this journey, as well. That would be awesome.

I'm still working out what I'll do for my interval training; I believe for the first 4 weeks, I will do the TT bodyweight interval workout, just because I have that and I'm not sure what else to do. I'm hoping by the end of the first 4 weeks, I will have renewed my gym membership (for the pool, wo-hoo!) and will be able to do interval training on machines up there. I also left my other days fairly vague, with just "Cardio" and "Flex" training in the spots on the days I'm going to do that, instead of actually saying what I'm going to do. I will be posting daily what I did on those days, but I don't want to be too rigid. I have given myself options, and when I say "Cardio", I know what that means by way of what options I have. When the pool opens in June, swimming can be one of my cardio options, but I won't know what days I'll be able to utilize that choice. So, I left it fairly vague.

I'm currently working on my menu plan for the 12-week journey. That, too, will be somewhat vague, in that my dinner will say "chicken" or "fish" or something along those lines, just so, once again, I'm not restricting my options too much, so I don't feel like I've failed if I don't do exactly what my schedule says. I can't know right now if in 10 weeks I'm still going to enjoy that balsamic chicken recipe! I have a chicken section in my notebook, and so when its a chicken day, I can flip through all the different recipes that are there, and see what piques my interest that day. This way, I have structure and schedule, and yet I still have freedom to change my mind on a recipe.

So, basically, I have a notebook that is broken up in a few portions... I have "This week", for my weekly schedule, which will be a bit more rigid in its menu listing, and also the workout listing. I have a section for "May", which has my May calendar like below, and also my May menu and the training logs for May; there is one for "June", and "July"; then there is a section for "workouts" which has all the TT manuals I am using printed out for reference if I need it; then behind that are my recipe sections; I have "Chicken and turkey", "Beef and pork", "fish and seafood", "eggs and veggie", and "cravings". This last section is where I will keep a list of recipes for whenever I have severe chocolate or whatever cravings, like I usually do when we get to a certain point in the month, that will help me stay on track, and still manage to satisfy my cravings.

I'm still working on a few things, but I'm feeling confident that by the time Monday rolls around, I will be in the proper frame of mind and will be properly prepared to start and complete this transformation!