The Good, The Bad, and The Evil

We’ve been having a lot of highs and lows lately. Lots of peaks and valleys with no plateaus. I’m very much the type of person who prefers a smooth ride rather than a roller coaster thrill. So, do you want the good or the bad first?

I’ll start with the bad. My father-in-law fell the other day on ice. He fell on concrete which resulted in a broken hip and a torn rotator cuff. The day after he fell, my brother-in-law had  surgery on his rotator cuff so he can’t help out a lot with his dad. Things in Ohio are pretty much a mess right now. The Mister is considering going up to help out but both of their recovery times are going to be a lot longer than the ten days leave he would be able to take so we’re not really sure how much of a solution that would be. Ugh!

Now for the good news…I’m up to FOUR clients now. Woot!! I still have a hard time believing that I went from being a sahm for twelve years to having so much work that I’m considering taking on my own intern or assistant of some kind. It’s crazy really. It’s a good crazy but crazy nonetheless. My working has become such a change in our household, that we are having to figure out stuff. For instance, I was up working until 10 pm last night. The oldest child takes this as her being allowed to set her own bedtime now. As a result, she didn’t get up for school this morning until she only had ten minutes to get ready before we had to leave. The house is also in a constant state of disarray. We need a system of some kind. I think the benefits of the extra income, the awesome contacts that I’m making, and the boost to my self esteem and having my own identity far outweigh the temporary chaos in my house. All changes take some adjustment time. One of the things I always put on my resume is that I’m “highly organized” which I am. You should see my spreadsheets, lol. I just need to find a way to apply my organizational skills to every day life. If all else fails, I’ll just start beating the kids and locking them in their rooms. Just kidding. Heheh. Maybe I’ll just hire a cleaning service. Who knows.

I would like to know how two income families do it. We’re certainly not the first couple to have kids and to both work. Are other people’s houses messy with their kids sneaking around and not doing as they’re told? Am I going to become one of those parents that I can’t stand who doesn’t watch their kids? Is CPS going to be knocking on my door next? And what about single moms?? They work, they don’t have a partner to help out, and they have kids and a house to take care of too. How in the heck do they do it??? There’s a solution. I just have to find it.

Happy Tenth

We celebrated the youngest child’s tenth birthday yesterday. We had cake and presents and we took her out to dinner. She got some pretty good loot from ol’ mom and dad and has a card in the mail from my mom and a little something is on the way from Jennifer. She also got a card from Geoffrey at Toys R Us, a phone call from my mom, the Mister’s mom, and the Mister’s sister. Jennifer also called to make sure she got some birthday love. Why the rundown? Because she is normally forgotten on her birthday. The oldest child’s birthday is in July which is when they are in Ohio with the family. She always gets at least one party, more often it’s two or more though. She gets a couple cakes, TONS of presents, and lots of attention. Because the youngest child’s birthday is in February and all the family is still back in Ohio, they forget to call and they hardly ever send her anything. It’s sad and it’s unfair. Either show them both the same amount of attention or none at all. So this year, she talked to three of her six grandparents (welcome to the world of a multiply divorced family) and one of her four aunts and uncles (I didn’t count spouses.). It’s better than last year.

Anyway…

The Mister and I overindulged on dinner out and birthday cake last night and paid the price. We were up a good part of the night (and this morning for me) with upset tummies. I guess we can’t go from eating 95% healthy stuff to eating junk and not have some side effects from it. We also both had headaches which I think was from the sugar. How sad are we, lmao??

Today marks day one of week four of working out and eating right. At my weigh in yesterday, last day of week three, I had lost 8 pounds. 8 pounds in three weeks!! I’m pretty excited about that. I have one pair of jeans that are too big on me now and the Mister calls them my saggy butt jeans, heheh. My other jeans fit nicely and are finally comfortable. It’s nice to be able to have tangible evidence that the hard work and sacrifices are paying off.

Back to work for me.

Getting Some Work Done

I twittered this earlier this morning, but I am so entirely grateful that today is Friday. My days have been hectic and filled beginning to end this week. This is actually going to be a work-weekend for me but it won’t be as intense as the week has been and I’ll get to sleep in Saturday and Sunday, heheh.

Monday, I had my first conference call. I’ve had other business calls but they have always been one on one. The call on Monday involved the CEO and director of the organization for which I am consulting. Not knowing what to expect, I figured the call would last 30 minutes tops. Most of my other work related phone calls have been 20 minutes or less. Boy was I wrong. I was on the phone for an hour and a half. So long that I needed to plug my phone in and I had to pee so bad that I wanted to cry. We also ended up getting take out that night (one of our bad dinner nights) because I hadn’t anticipated being on the phone so long and didn’t leave myself time to make dinner. I had my second conference call with the same people this morning. I figured that since we had hashed out most of the agenda on Monday that this morning’s call would be short and sweet. Wrong again. This call lasted for a little over an hour. I have yet another follow up conference call scheduled for Tuesday and I’m going into it with no expectations at all, lol. I’ll make sure my phone is fully charged and that I take a potty break beforehand.

Work for my new client is moving along. It’s a bit out of my, I don’t want to say comfort zone or expertise, but it’s unfamiliar territory. The new client is a plastic surgery information website. Up until I started working for them, I’ve never had any dealings of any kind with anything that has to do with plastic surgery. The only surgery I’ve ever had is an appendectomy when I was 12, lol. I’ve seen so many before and after pictures of stranger’s boobs this week that I see them when my eyes are closed which is taking some getting used to, to say the least. But, this work is new which makes it a little challenging which keeps it interesting.

You wanna know the really cool thing?? I took that conference call in my sweats and a ratty old t-shirt, HEHEHEHE!! I love working from home.

On Being Consistent

The only thing consistent about my blog lately is that I update inconsistently. Funnily enough, it’s not because I haven’t had anything to say. Lots of stuff has been going on in my little world of late. Now I need to figure out where to begin. It’s been a while.

First off, I’ll start with some good news. I took on a new client this week. Yay!! It more than doubles my work hours and the pay is really good. I love starting new projects for clients because it keeps things interesting and me interested in working. I hate monotony where my work is concerned.

Even though I now have two steady clients, I applied for a third last night and I’m also thinking about volunteering at my local library. I talked with them last night and they said that they don’t have many volunteers at all. The only thing is that I’m not sure how much spare time I have now that I have two clients. I think I’m going to wait a couple weeks to see how much work this is actually going to be before committing myself to volunteer work. I’d feel bad if I said that I could help out and then discover that I didn’t realistically have the time to do so.

Next up, the teacher thing…I don’t really have a resolution to that. I talked with her teacher and she denied having told the kids that bringing in something for the party was mandatory. Normally, I’d be more inclined to believe the adult but I had three different kids tell me the same thing when I casually brought it up to them separately. Also, this teacher doesn’t have the best track record for being reasonable. Having decided not to make a big deal out of something that turned out to be a non-issue (I’ll explain why next) in the end seems silly. I dunno.

Why was it a non-issue? Because the youngest child ended up missing school half of Wednesday, and all of Thursday and Friday anyway. She came home from school Wednesday with a fever that ended up going up over 103 degrees and involved a trip to the hospital and a round of antibiotics. We’re still not sure what she had. The Navy doctors prescribed penicillin guessing that she had strep throat. They guessed because they didn't have any rapid strep tests and it took six days to get the lab results of her throat swab back. I find it disturbing that they arbitrarily prescribe antibiotics with them losing their effectiveness due to over-prescribing but what do I know. And btw, I still sent in the snacks that I bought for the party and the youngest’s Valentine’s cards so that they could be given out to her classmates.

Anyway, remember a while back when I blogged about how some neighborhood kids came to my door after dark to ask if they could use my cell phone to call their friends? Well, we got a knock on our door Monday and someone from child protective services was standing there. Turns out that these same kids were almost hit by a car on our street while they were playing in the street after dark recently. I have no idea when or who almost hit them. NO, it wasn’t me that called. While I don’t necessarily agree with letting young kids out after dark and I found it really annoying that they thought it was okay to ask neighbors to use their phone  to call a friend, I didn’t think it was dangerous at the time. I didn’t know they were out playing in the street after dark too. Well, after knocking on some of my other neighbor’s doors, they went to the parent's house and questioned them. I don’t know the results of all that, but if I were her (she’s a single mom) I would be so embarrassed that I would probably look into moving, lol. I didn’t let my kids run roughshod over the neighborhood before, but now I’m keeping an even tighter reign on them. I stressed their rules and told them that if they break them, not only will they be grounded but they won’t be allowed outside unsupervised anymore. I told them that they could probably guess how often I would feel like sitting outside in the heat to watch them play, heheh. I also discovered a black scratch down the side of my car the same height as a scooter’s handlebars. I had to tell some of the neighborhood kids to stop playing in my driveway around my car (my kids were inside and weren’t even playing with these kids at the time.) but it turns out I was too late. My kids don’t have scooters because they were dopes and left them outside in the front yard to get stolen at our old house. Irresponsibility doesn’t get you a new scooter at my house. I would be so angry if I found out my kids were playing in other people’s driveways or around cars in general. That’s why we have yards and sidewalks for pete’s sake.

As for the healthy lifestyle thing, well, I’ve slacked off a bit in the last week. Instead of working out 7 days a weeks, I slacked off to 3 ::blush:: I kind of have an excuse though. The elliptical machine has started making this really high pitched squeak that makes you want to stab out your eardrums. I’m not ready to run out in public yet. I’m too insecure. There. I admitted it out loud. I had to get gas in my work out clothes this morning (the Mister ran it out of my car and I wasn’t anticipating having to stop) and I was pretty embarrassed, lol. The Mister is going to take a look at our machine tonight so I can get back into the habit again. Eating right is still going good though. We had two days where our dinners were less than stellar but we're still doing good overall. It’s starting to get to me psychologically however. Constantly keeping track of how much I’m eating and how much exercise I’m getting is a little depressing. Also knowing that I can’t eat at the brand new Dunkin Doughnuts that just opened like a block from my house is also depressing. I loves me a chocolate cream filled doughnut gosh darnit! They are over 300 calories a piece though and most of that is from fat. Big surprise, right? Still :( The only thing that keeps me going is that I’m still losing weight. Not as fast as the first week which is to be expected, but it’s still coming off. My jeans fit nicer nowadays.

And now I’ve got to hit the shower (I managed to put in a bit of time on the elliptical this morning) and get some work done. Yay!! Work! Woot!

I Need Feedback

I have an issue and I need to know if I’m making a big deal out of nothing. Please, if you decide to leave a comment at all, be honest and don’t worry about telling me to lighten up.

The youngest came home from school today and told me that if she doesn't  bring  something to her classroom Valentines Day party that she won’t be allowed to participate. Now, I have no problem whatsoever buying chips, cookies, plates, cups, or whatever they need for the party. I always contribute something. I do  have  a problem with them saying that it’s mandatory or my child won't be allowed to participate in the party at all. The way I see it, she’ll be punished  if I don’t buy something for their party. Oh. And they forgot to print up letters to send home to the parents so all we get is word of mouth notice two days before said party. Whatever. The dumb letter wouldn’t have been spelled correctly anyway. Hmm. Anyway. At first I didn’t believe her and I thought that maybe she just didn’t understand what her teacher had said. So, I asked two other kids that are neighbors of ours and are in my daughters class  what their teacher had said about the party and whether or not their parents had gotten letters. They confirmed what my daughter told me and one of the older siblings who is now in junior high said that the same thing happened when this woman was her teacher and that she was just mean, lol.

Is this right? Do you think that the children should be obligated to bring something to the party in order to be allowed to join in the fun with the rest of their classmates? And what about the parents that can’t afford to send anything in? Are they to be punished because rather than buying  conversation hearts for the party they bought milk in stead?? That last part is a bit dramatic but you get my point. I’m sure that there are parents out there that can’t afford to buy extras for a frivolous party.

I don’t remember it being like that when I was in school. AND, I know for a fact that it wasn’t like that at any of the other schools my kids have  attended. I’m pretty angry and I really think I’m going to say something to the school. Classroom parties are supposed to be fun, not a way for the teachers to punish the kids.

Thoughts??

Keeping Busy

In addition to working two jobs, raising two kids, keeping house, blogging, reading, exercising, wand keeping up with my favorite TV shows, I’ve brought back out one of my old hobbies:  crocheting. Last night I got my sewing bag and decided to make something, namely two scarves. Why scarves?  Because they are easy and I get lost in the repetitiveness of the pattern. I needed something soothing. Sometimes I think I’m developing ADHD. The thought of sitting through a 2 hour movie and not doing anything else makes me feel a little panicky  I seriously have only sat through one entire movie without doing anything else once in the past year or so. Well, it’s been long enough that I don’t remember the movie that I watched before the one to which I’m referring. Even when I’m watching TV I’m checking my e-mail, Twitter, Google reader, FB, etc. I have to be doing at least two things at once. It’s really odd.Is anyone else like that? Cooking is about the only thing I do alone and that’s probably because I’m chopping, sautéing, boiling,  mixing, etc.,  all at the same time.

Speaking of cooking, last night for dinner we have Beef, Cheese, and Noodle Bake. It’s another of our favorite dishes and it was fantastic. I saved the leftovers for lunch today. Last week I baked two loaves of Pineapple Zucchini Bread. We ate one loaf over the course of the week and I froze the other for us to have this week. It’s an awesome bread. The loaf we thawed yesterday was just as moist and tasty as the fresh loaf we ate last week. And it’s not that bad for you. The Mister and I eat it for a snack as do the girls. They also like to have it for breakfast. We’re still going strong on the new eating right lifestyle

This morning, I ran for an hour on the elliptical. I only ran for 4.8 miles today but I still feel good about it. Yesterday I ran 5.1 miles in one hour. I’m sure I’ll be able to get up over five miles again by the end of the week.

Title Me This

My weekend went just as planned…Do as little as possible, lol. Saturday without the Mister went just fine. Other than a minor skirmish with the oldest child (again) it was amazingly quiet. We had excellent weather so the kids spent most of the day outside. The turkey tetrazzini was awesome. For fun, we played some games, rough housed a bit, and watched Psych. It was a good all girls night.

Sunday, the Mister and I drove downtown to check out the supposed sidewalk sale that the downtown shops were having. However, we got down there and most of the stores were closed. Our downtown is suffering a bit because one of the main roads that leads downtown is closed while they replace a drawbridge. It’s sad because downtown New Bern has quite a few locally owned, one of a kind businesses. The Mister and I like to stroll down along the waterfront whenever we get a chance.

Anyway, that was all we did on Sunday and it turned out to be not so much fun. Sunday night, we had Southwest Pasta and Beans for dinner. It’s a vegetarian dish that is so very YUMMY and super easy to make. For my first week of dieting and exercise, I lost a total of 4.8 pounds. I’m feeling really good about that. This morning, I almost doubled my time on the elliptical and ran for 5.1 miles. I was pretty tired but it felt really good. My only thing is that my running shoes cut off the circulation in my toes. It’s uncomfortable and makes me want to stop before I’m even tired. I think it’s time for new shoes, lol.

I’m off.  Have a fab Monday.

Saturday Update

Get this…I have lost 4.8 pounds since Monday. Woot!! AND, I have done it with exercise and withOUT starving myself. Oh. And without taking “miracle” pills. This is the most success I’ve had with weight loss ever. Even back in Cali when Jennifer and I were walking five miles a day. I didn’t lose ANY weight at all then.

Last night for dinner we had baked rigatoni. Once again, it’s a recipe that I got from Cooking Light and it is one of our favorites that we have just because we like it. When we’re not dieting, I don’t follow the recipe and add whatever amounts of cheese I would like, lol. I also make the sauce from scratch which is so much better than jarred pasta sauce and it has a lot less sodium.

This morning, I cut five minutes off my elliptical run because I was struggling BAD. I didn’t drink my Cranergy this morning and I could really tell a difference in my energy levels. I knew it boosted my energy, but I didn’t know by how much until this morning.

The Mister is at work on duty this fine Saturday morning. I’m trying to brainstorm some ideas for stuff for the girls and I to do today.  I’m thinking movie and popcorn night. We’ll see.

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!!

Fizzle, Fizzle

Dinner last night wasn’t too bad. We had skinless chicken thighs in a lemon,garlic marinade served with roasted grape tomatoes and corn. The chicken was a bit bland, I thought, and NObody liked the tomatoes. It’s weird because we all like tomatoes when I put them with meat and veggies, grilled in a kabob. Oh well.

The Mister and I have also added in a multivitamin into our daily routines.I know. You should take vitamins even when you’re not working out but I hate taking pills. Vitamins are the worst because they’re huge, have a bad smell, and they make me nauseated. This morning was no exception. The nausea kicked in right as I was walking out the door to drive the oldest to school. There wasn’t anything I could do about the timing and I was seriously afraid I was going to puke in my car. I hate puking though and held it in valiantly, lol. I think that I’ll start taking them at night before bed. That’s what I used to do with my prenatal vitamins because they made me really sick and it worked for me that way.

My workouts are still going strong. I made it up to three miles on the elliptical today. Woot!! Jacki suggested that I buy myself cute workout clothes to keep motivated so I took her advice last night. I got one of those trendy tennis-type skirts and a matching tank top.

As for the oldest child, she handled her punishment way better than I would have ever imagined. She also did a great job cleaning out the garage. Aside from some heavy things that she couldn’t lift herself,  I’ll be able to park my car in there by the end of today. Yay! I’m excited about that. I’m tired of using my coat sleeve to clean off snow and frost off of my car in the mornings. We used to have an ice scraper from living in VT but I think we threw it away. I  really didn’t think we’d get much use out of it living here in N.C. Turns out I was wrong.

We don’t have much planned for the weekend. The Mister has duty Saturday night so the girls and I will be having our traditional “Daddy has Duty Meal” of turkey tetrazzini which is also a Cooking Light recipe, handily enough. He doesn’t like it but the girls and I love it so we have it when he’s not home. I’m really looking forward to it, lol. It’s sad that the highlight of my weekend is going to be turkey tetrazzini, lmao. Oh. And tonight’s episode of BSG. I’m totally looking forward to that too.

Being Kreativ

Pam passed this award on to me this week. How nice of her! And it’s a pretty one too, lol.

So here are the rest of the rules!
List 6 things that make you happy
Pass the award on to 6 bloggers for Kreativ.
Link to the blogger who gave you the award.
Link to the blogs receiving the award.
Notify the recipients.

Things that make me happy:

1. My dogs when they’re all goofy and affectionate.
2. Being at the beach.
3. Having a good book in my hand.
4. When my house is clean top to bottom.
5. Losing weight and being healthy.
6. My gadgets. ;)

I’m going to pass this on to my top six Entrecard droppers:

Definitely Maybe

Rosilie:  My Blog

The Toy Report

Tasty Thoughts

Everything Has a Reason

Everything Plus the Kitchen Sink

Fed the Garbage Disposal

Last night’s dinner was a big bomb. I’m very much a recipe kinda person. Some of what I make starts out from a recipe and then is modified by me to make it tastier. Some of what I cook is straight up recipe. Lastly, a few dishes that I make I don’t use a recipe at all. One of those dishes is homemade macaroni and cheese with diced ham. How hard is boiling up some elbow noodles and melting some cheeses into it, right? Well, last night I decided to try a recipe for three cheese macaroni and cheese that I got from Cooking Light. One of the reasons I chose this dish is so that I could use their nutritional information rather than having to look it up on all my ingredients and then doing the math. It’s lazy but what can I say. Another reason is that their recipe called for gorgonzola cheese and we’ve never tried that variety of cheese before. Well, it was GROSS. The cheese sauce was really thin and then it started gooping altogether until it was pretty basically inedible. I know how to follow a recipe but the mistake still could have been mine. Who knows. My mac and cheese is always a huge hit with the family. I think this is a lesson learned in don’t mess with a good thing. We ended up dumping the entire pan (what a waste) down the garbage disposal and ordering a pizza. The only other thing I had to cook in the house was frozen solid chicken. Still, even after eating two slices of pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom pizza, I was 600+ calories under my daily allotted amount. Go me! I’ve lost 3.4 pounds this week so far.

To add to our somewhat shoddy evening, the Mister and I butted heads with the oldest child all night. Sometimes I just don’t know what gets into her. She’ll be 13 in July so I’m perfectly aware that this is only the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come. After her atrocious behavior last night, she has lost her phone, she’s grounded until Monday, and I’m making her clean out and organize the garage (She doesn’t know about the garage yet. Keep your ears tuned for yelling around 3:30 EST this afternoon, lol.)  I also got her up for school early this morning so that she could unload the dishwasher and wash the dishes that she didn’t wash last night. You know something they never tell you about being a parent? That punishments suck just as much for the parents as they do for the kids. Although, I did find it funny to watch her stomp around the kitchen this morning, heheh. I'm evil, I know. And you know what really sucks about this whole thing? She’s just like me. I have nobody to blame for her attitude but myself. In fact, my attitude was probably worse at her age, lol.

In My Neighborhood

It snowed again. This snow is much wetter than the other snow so it’s mostly slush. Weird thing about it is that the last time we  got snow, school was cancelled while it was still raining. This time, it was actively snowing and at a good rate and school wasn’t even delayed. Not that I mind. I get much more work done when the kids are in school, but it was still a bit intimidating being out on the streets with people that can’t drive in the rain.

Also in my neighborhood…

We got Bailey back in 2005. She has lived in three different houses. We got Hannah in 2007. She has lived in two different  houses. In all that time, with all the different neighbors, my dogs have never barked at people. They don’t bark at the mail carrier, the UPS delivery person, the neighborhood kids, people on a stroll, nobody. That is, until a couple weeks ago. I’m not sure if we got new neighbors or if they are just behaving differently, but every time the guy that lives directly behind us comes out of his house (our backyards butt up against each other being separated by privacy fences.) Hannah goes crazy barking at him, scratching at the back door, and jumping at the fence. She does not  like this guy. It’s weird. Even more weird, the oldest child and I saw him standing inside his house, staring out his patio doors, and into our kitchen yesterday afternoon. He wasn’t just glancing, he stood there for several minutes. It was so odd that I closed all the blinds at the back of the house. I know it’s probably wrong to judge a person based on how your dog reacts to them, but her behavior is so out of the ordinary and then the watching our house, I’m beginning to wonder what the heck is up with this guy. I’m probably just being paranoid.

Also in my neighborhood…

One of our neighbors moved yesterday. They moved into their house a day before we moved into ours and they are already moving. We’re sad about it because their daughter is friends with my daughters. She’s a sweetheart too. She calls me Miss Trisha and gives me a hug whenever she sees me. The turnaround time in my neighborhood is huge. There are several houses for sale and for rent and there’s only two streets. That also makes one wonder about the neighborhood. Oh well.

Living healthy update…

Prior to typing this entry, I was on the elliptical. It was a pretty good workout and no nausea, lol. Last night for dinner, we had seasoned tilapia, broccolini, and corn. We were supposed to have polenta with it but I bought the wrong kind and it looked like nasty, gooey, slop in the pan. The recipe was another one from Cooking Light. For the day, I was 382 calories under my total allowed for the day AND, I wasn’t even hungry. Nifty, eh?

Now that I’ve stopped sweating, I’m off for my shower and breakfast. Oh! That reminds me. Something that I’ve added to my daily routine is a glass of Cranergy. I honestly can’t stand the taste of the stuff. For one thing, I hate artificial sweeteners and for another, it has a celery taste to it which is odd considering that isn’t an ingredient. Even so, it gives the most awesome energy boost that lasts for several hours and it’s only 50 calories per 12 ounces. You can’t say that about coffee or soda. At least not the coffee or soda that I would normally drink trying to perk myself up.

Ok. Enough. I’m off

Putting it out There

The Mister and I started something new this week. We have both gone on a new diet and exercise regimen. This isn’t really all that new. We both regularly go on diets to try and lose our extra poundage but it never seems to last. I hate that. This time, I hope it’s different. I have a philosophy about weight loss and it’s by no means unique, lol. Losing weight should be more about making a lifestyle change than about finding a quick, and usually, temporary fix. You don’t lose weight and keep it off by popping pills, starving yourself, and then sitting on your lazy butt while you wait for the pounds to melt off. It should happen by modifying your diet and getting a healthy amount of exercise. Thus, our newest journey is beginning.

The Mister is trying out this program that a coworker introduced him to. I don’t remember what it’s called, but the Mister said it’s Satan at work, lmao. After his first workout, he couldn’t walk straight for days. My regimen includes regular abuse on the elliptical machine (I laid on the floor and dry heaved after my first workout yesterday, lmao) and some weight training. I’d also like to throw some yoga in there because I don’t think there is anything more relaxing while being stimulating at the same time than yoga. I love it.

We are also modifying our diet. Eating out is a thing of the past. Normally, I cook very healthy meals. I don’t fry anything, we have veggies with every meal, lean meats, etc, etc. The only bad thing I cook is starchy carbs. We likes the pastas and potatoes. Eating out is our Achilles heel when it comes to eating right. It has got to stop and we have already been making positive steps toward to this goal. Last night, for example, we got a late start to dinner. Our old selves would have rationalized that we didn’t have enough time to cook so we may as well pick up some Burger King instead. HOWEVER, last night, we sucked it up and made our planned meal at home like responsible adults. It felt really good. Plus, it was excellent!. We had a healthy fried rice. Sounds UNhealthy, right? Well, I got the recipe from my Cooking Light magazine and it had very low sodium and fat while still being loaded with nutrients. Loves me my Cooking Light magazine.

So, if you’ll bear with me, I would like to start posting regular updates about how we are doing. I figure that if I talk about it, it’ll give me more motivation to keep going. So, I’ll be talking about my exercise and our meals and how we are doing. You will NOT be given updates on how much I weigh, lol. I don’t even tell the Mister that even though he probably knows. That’s a skill he picked up as a recruiter, being able to tell how much people weigh by just looking at them. He’s kind enough not to tell me that though, lol. I will tell you, however, how much I am losing. For example, I lost 2.1 pounds in my first day which was awesome. My jaw dropped when I saw the scale this morning. I know you lose weight faster in the beginning, but I didn’t expect to lose 2 pounds in a day. Neato and very encouraging. Plus, I had no nausea after my elliptical run this morning. Improvement already! I am also open to comments about this topic. If you ask me what I had for dinner or what I did for exercise every once in a while, I’ll be more motivated to keep up with it so that I don’t have to lie, lol. This blog is NOT going to turn into a weight loss blog though. You know me, I’m never on topic nor do I stay on any sort of topic for very long. This is just something positive to post about instead of my usual whining, heheh. Plus, maybe you’ll get some healthy meal ideas from me which would be cool.

Last night at dinner, the youngest asked why we are dieting. The Mister and I both replied that it’s because we are trying to lose our fat, lol. She said that we weren’t fat which was very sweet of her. But the real reason is that I’m unhappy in my own skin. Before I had kids, I weighed 115  pounds. Gosh! I can hardly remember being that little, lol. I have no intention of trying to get back there but I would like to be happy with how I look in the mirror and I would like to have fun shopping for clothes again. I don’t think those are unrealistic goals. Plus, I feel tons better mentally when I’m exercising.

Anyway, enough blah, blah, blah’ing for now. There will be more to come laters!