Alternately titled: I Laughed So Much, I’m Pretty Sure I Peed My Pants A Little Bit.
Please do enjoy 
Hi, it’s Friday, and I have no idea what to write about (what can I say, it’s been a dreary, snowy, nasty week and I’m very blahhhh), but I was totally sick of seeing my weight loss post so I decided to write SOMETHING and get that out post of my sight.
So.
Well.
Ummmmm….
Bullets? Yes, okay, how about some bullets:
- This past week I’ve been collecting all of the required tax documents to give to our accountant, and people, I cannot even TELL YOU how INSANELY HAPPY I am that I’m NOT A TAX ACCOUNTANT. Because, you know, that was my major in college and all. I would really like to travel back to 2007 and remind myself why in the bloody hell I thought I wanted that to be my career. Also, how did I even pass? I seriously don’t remember jack about 1040’s and 1099’s and S corporations and whatever other forms those tax people fill out.
- On a related note, does anybody ever think that you might want to go back to school and take classes in a subject totally unrelated to what you already went to school for? I do sometimes. My areas of interest would be creative writing, nutrition and kinesiology, and cooking. Would I actually ever go back to school? No, because school requires homework and projects and dumb rules. So I’ll just carry on as an amateur in all of these things and “creatively write” on my blog and “cook” in my own little kitchen. And continue to use a plethora of “quotation marks.”
- I think I say this every year around mid-February, but seriously, I am so not a fan of cold and gray and snowy weather. So here’s the plan: if you are in my family or are my friend, come with me and let’s all move to Hawaii. Cool? ‘Cause I just can’t leave ya.
- Yesterday I did Level 3 of Jillian’s Shred video and OMG it is a KILLER. I died. I’m back now, but for those horrid 20 minutes, I totally died.
- Rob and I bought a new a front load washer/dryer last weekend. Are they awesome? Are they worth the money? Does it wash clothes better than our old washer? These are the questions that Rob keeps asking me, and all I know is that the jury is still out on all of them. The dryer does play a sweet little cheerful song when it’s done with a cycle, though, does that count for anything?
- Apparently the Super Bowl is this weekend. I, being the sports enthusiast that I am, thought that it was actually next weekend. My point is, of course, food! What’s everybody making for the game? Dips? Wings? Fried pickles? Are we all exempt from our diets on this day? Help.
Okay, I think this is enough pointless drivel for us all. Please, do have a nice day.
Being that I was still feeling crummy last week I only managed to get in three workouts, and thus…
No weight loss. No weight gain though, either. So, whatever. I’m feeling better (finally) so this week I’m back at it.
By the way, I started the 30 Day Shred. Have you guys done this? Holy crap, it’s hard! I started with the Level 2 workout and couldn’t believe how after only 20 minutes my muscles were shaking, I was completely out of breath, and I was dripping with sweat. Jillian is tough, man. However, I gotta admit, I have a feeling that doing the same workout for 30 days straight is going to get boring. I was under the impression that each day would be a different workout, but that’s not the case if I’m understanding it correctly. I’m going to go ahead and do what she says anyway and do it for the 30 days just to see what happens and put Jillian to the test. As much as I’d like for her to be WRONG and to EAT HER EVIL WORDS, well, I also really do want it to work so that I can see some killer results.
I’m off to go get harassed by Jillian now. Goodbye forever.
Avalon has been rockin’ quite the mohawk for the past month or so. I really hoped that the rest of her head would catch up to the 1″ x 3″ strip of long, luscious, flowing locks that were growing on the top of her head, but unfortunately they never really did and she looked like a major ragamuffin:
We decided that it was time to intervene. So a couple of days ago Avalon received her first haircut. Can you see those couple of hairs and how dang LONG they were?!
(Sorry for the really crappy photo, OF MY ARM. My photographer was, clearly, too busy drinking coffee to take a decent photo of the momentous event. But right under that arm is what you’re supposed to see, which is me cutting down the ‘hawk.)
And here is the beautiful, freshly cut finished product:
She’s so pretty.
I don’t believe in coincidences. Which is exactly why I’m sure that yesterday’s events happened for a reason; to open my eyes, to make me more conscious, and to start thinking differently about the food that my family and I eat.
It started yesterday afternoon when I picked up my first box of organic fruits and vegetables from a local distributor. The company sends out weekly emails with several different boxes of pre-selected, organic produce. I decided somewhat on a whim and without much organic knowledge to try it out and ordered up a box. All I knew regarding organic produce was that it wasn’t sprayed with pesticides, and just that alone was enough to make me realize that, duh, pesticide-free food must be better than the alternative.
Here’s what it all looked like when I picked it up and brought it home. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but compared to what we see in the grocery the kiwis and apples are on the small side. The bananas are still green. And I’m pretty sure I paid more money for all of this than I would have at the grocery store. But apparently this is what food without chemicals and pesticides looks like. Or really, what our food should look like.
Anyway, later on that afternoon I turned on the TV and Oprah was on. NOT coincidentally it was an episode about food, more specifically about the film Food, Inc. I had yet to watch this movie, but from what I gathered on Oprah, consumers are completely ignorant when it comes to food and what we eat. There is a lot – A REALLY LOT – that we don’t know about when it comes to food which, when you think about it, is tremendously scary. We don’t know what we’re putting into our bodies? It’s insane.
Of course Oprah’s show got me completely hooked so last night after we put Avalon to bed Rob and I rented Food, Inc. and watched it together. To say the least, the movie left us absolutely stunned at the truth about the food industry. To see with my own eyes the way chickens are engineered and scientifically morphed into what can barely be called a ‘chicken’ anymore was horrifying. To hear about what the ‘farmers’ are feeding their animals and spraying on their plants was disgusting. There was so much new information in the film that I had never heard before that I could barely even take it all in.
I’ve thrown around the idea of eating as much organic food as I could, wanting only to feed myself and my family the best. There were times when I thought it didn’t really matter and of course I’ve heard other doubters along the way saying comments something along the lines of, “well I didn’t eat organic food when I was growing up and I’m just fine!” And yes, you are fine. But something I found absolutely fascinating was a line right in the beginning of the film that pointed out how the food that we eat has changed more drastically in the past 50 years than it has in the past 10,000 years. No wonder there are more and more cancers and diseases springing up left and right all the time. No wonder people are constantly getting sick.
Rob and I are convinced. It didn’t take much other than this 90 minute movie to make us realize that we need to be more conscious and deliberate about what we eat. We want to eat organic produce as much as possible. We want to eat organic and grass fed meat and poultry. And we even want to eat a few more vegetarian meals a week, even though we still like us some juicy filet mignon from time to time.
If you haven’t already seen this film, I really encourage you do to so. I really believe that EVERYONE owes it to themselves and their families to be educated about the food that we all eat. I know sometimes we all want to turn a blind eye, stick our fingers in our ears, and go LA LA LA LA LAAAAA!, but that just isn’t reality. Don’t do that. After seeing the film, you’ll be glad you did, I promise.
As each month passes, faster and faster it seems, I am amazed at how much you grow and change. I feel as though every day I am witnessing a miracle, and I am, when I go up to your room every morning, see you laying there smiling and singing, and I swear that you have gotten bigger over night, and cuter too.
Just like every past month, you have made some big changes in the past few weeks, probably the biggest being that you said goodbye forever to your binky. In those first couple of weeks of your life when you were totally pissed about being alive you really, REALLY wanted your binky. And honestly, during those long days of screaming and crying, if you would have demanded a Grey Goose martini, shaken not stirred, with three olives on your swizzle stick, believe me, I would have given it to you if it would have made you happy. Turns out though that the trusty MAM held you over just fine. And up until recently you would use your binky during naps and at bedtime and it was fine, but then you got into this really bad habit of habitually waking up around 5 am every day and for the next two hours you gave me a lot of extra exercise from going up and down the stairs a million times to stick your binky back in your mouth. I knew that you weren’t waking out of hunger, but rather because your inner clock just had gotten into a really bad habit and your binky then became necessary for you to then get back to sleep. So last week after one too many trips up and down the stairs I decided to tough it out and toss the binky. I prepared myself for the worst, expecting to travel back into the early days of your life when I would hear nothing but crying all day. But to my total surprise you barely even cared about not having it! Your first nap without it you cried for seven minutes then took a two hour nap and the first night without it you slept for twelve straight hours without the 5 am wake-up, YESSSSS, and now you’re in the awesome routine of sleeping 12-12.5 hours straight at night. Of course there were a few nap times that week when you fussed more than normal, but now? As far as you’re concerned the binky never existed and you are sleeping better than ever before. So basically, to sum up that whole experience: you’re awesome.
We started a new nightly tradition with you this month, letting you roll around naked on your bedroom floor for a couple of minutes before we put your jammies on, and wow, you love it. Of course we take the proper precautions to protect the carpet because we’ve discovered that about 50% of the time there’s pee involved in this nudey time, but seriously, I think you’ve discovered your inner nudist. As soon as we strip you down (out of your 6 month clothes!) you get this huge grin on your face and you start rolling all over and kicking your legs around, never holding still. You’re getting really good at the rolling thing too, and can roll quickly from your back to your tummy. You haven’t quite figured out how to get all the way around yet, so you kind of get stuck on your tummy and lay there like a beached seal not really knowing what to do with yourself except look really, really cute. This has definitely become one of our favorite times of the day.
You’re now taking a bottle four times during the day and chug down 7-8 ounces each time. I’m also still giving you your dreamfeed around 11 pm every night, but I think you’re probably close to being done with that. I have to admit, though, that I’m going to be a little sad not going into your room late at night, picking you up from your peaceful sleep, and then rocking you as you peacefully gulp down the last bottle of the day, while gazing down at your beautiful little face, praying that Jesus would protect you through the night and help you sleep well so you can grow big, strong, smart, and even more beautiful than you already are. It’s such a special time between just you and me. For now I’ll just keep enjoying it, and maybe even look forward to the day when I don’t have to set an alarm for 10:45 pm.
Thanks for being such a sweetie pie, Avalon. I’m so grateful that every day I get to see your smile, hear your giggles, and feel your face nuzzled into my neck. Having you in my life filled a gap in my heart that I never even knew existed and as Jerry McGuire as it sounds, you really do complete me.
Love, Mama
So there’s good news and bad news.
The bad news is that I’ve been sick for almost an entire week so far. Nothing too major, just the annoying cough/runny nose/body ache kind of thing. Basically, the exact ailment that makes me break out into a coughing fit just to so much as think about doing anything active, so needless to say I didn’t work out at all last week save for one measly day of cycling.
The good news is that I still managed to lose a pound this week. Coming from me, the girl who hates to watch what she eats and pretty much only believes that weight loss occurs from some serious butt-kicking in the gym, the one pound loss is miraculous.
It probably has something to do with the fact that I really have tried to consciously get my act together and eat healthier every day. I’m not only doing calorie math in my head, but I’m also trying to be really good about eating fresh fruits and vegetables more often. One thing in particular that I’ve become obsessed with lately is a smoothie I saw Giada make, a “dreamsicle” smoothie. It has OJ, vanilla yogurt, a banana, a little vanilla extract and ice in it and it is DELICIOUS.
Rob and I are also obsessed with V8 and V8 Fusion, a perfect way to sneak in some extra vegetables in a day. In fact if anyone wants some, please, come help me drink it. We went to Sam’s yesterday and ended up buying four huge bottles of the stuff. Clearly, we have issues with buying things in bulk.
Oh, and also, a couple days ago in my very blahhhh state of mind I was sure that fresh baked chocolate chip cookies would make me feel better. Instead though I remembered that I had a box of No Pudge brownie mix in the pantry so I made that instead, and HELLO! Have you guys ever tried this stuff? They are delicious, and the only thing that you add to the mix is fat free vanilla yogurt, so not only is it fat free, it is so easy that I could ask Avalon to bake them for me while I lay on the couch watching Rachael Ray.
Don’t be fooled though, because it seems that for every healthy food I eat I counteract it with something bad, and by bad I mean really, really good. In fact, last Saturday night Rob and I went out on a date to Carrabbas. You better believe that I had not only a quartino of Sangria, but also an entire loaf of their fresh bread because, Mmmmm, me likey some white, enriched carbs. And as if that wasn’t enough, after our salads (okay, we were good and had salads for dinner) we finished it off with some limoncello bread pudding. See, I told you. Good with bad. Give and take, it’s what I do.
So. One pound down, plenty more to go. I’m still not back on the workout band wagon, thanks to all this hacking and snot dripping out of my nose, but hopefully before the end of the week I’ll be back to my normal daily sweat.
Thank you and goodbye.
Not too long ago my friend Mo and I were discussing our housekeeping woes and how neither of us were happy with our respective vacuums. I would say that my vacuum sucked but that was exactly the problem – it didn’t suck. Instead, it simply just blew all the dog hair and dust around and made an even bigger mess.
So the last time my cleaning lady was here I thought I would ask her which vacuum she preferred, thinking that she would know best, right? And here is what she said: her FAVORITE vacuum, the one she takes with her to all of the houses she cleans, is a $39 Bissell from Walmart. She said she had tried lots of different vacuums, all the up way up to the ridiculous $1,200 ones, and that this particular Bissell was the best.
Because I am a bean counter, I couldn’t have been happier to know that the vacuum of my dreams was less than forty dollars. I had Rob run out and buy one yesterday and he was definitely skeptical thinking that it was a cheap piece of crap, but after he put it together and we gave it a test drive we were both sold. It’s definitely nothing fancy and is just a basic model with a bag, but seriously, you should see the lines in the carpet this thing makes! Be still my heart.
In other consumer news, my sister Courtney was wearing her Temptress hat today when she sent me an email alerting me of a new color of Le Crueset cookware:
How did these people know that this is the exact color of my kitchen?
I’m not sure exactly when I decided that my pots and pans needed to match my walls, but I’m certain that they do now.
And last, but certainly not least, my mom’s newest creation that she’s selling at Orange Tree (though there is the possibility I might sneak in there late one night and steal them off the wall, so here is my fair warning):
I just died. Are these not the coolest paintings ever? Again, kitchen. Need.
Why must my kitchen be so needy?
I caught Avalon singing the other day while she was sitting in her bouncy chair, and man, she was LOVING IT. She just discovered her lips and how she can say “ooooo.” She probably figured she better find something to do with her mouth now that mean old Mommy took her binky away, MUAH HA HAAAA.
Hey! Guess what?! You know that post I did all about my weight-loss/fitness goals? And how I was going to weigh in every Sunday and post my progress?
Well I’m already chickening out and a little bit and have decided not to post my weight. It’s just that, well, I have issues but, duh, that’s obvious.
So instead of putting the numbers all up here, I’m just going to remember them in my head and only post my progress. For example, if the universe is really good to me this week, maybe next Monday I’ll be all, HEY! I LOST 2 POUNDS! SQEEEE! And if not, meet me at Dairy Queen.
So, with that taken care of, yes I did weigh myself yesterday and now I know exactly where I am starting at and where I want to end up. I have been cycling and throwing my kettlebell around and have even been thinking about running outside in the frigid temps. Weird, I know.
The eating has been going well too, probably because I’m not being too strict with myself and all0wing myself the free pass at dinner. It makes it a lot easier to eat really healthy during the day when I know I can eat enchiladas for dinner. Needless to say, six o’clock is my favorite time of day, OINK.
******
In other news, today is the first day of no binky for Avalon. She really needed it in the past, but now I’m realizing it’s becoming much more of a hassle than a help. I’m convinced that she’ll sleep better without it after she learns how to self-soothe in other ways. Going in her room all the time to re-plug her when it falls out is getting really old, and I really do think that she’ll sleep much more soundly without it. I know that it only gets harder the longer you wait, so for us today is the day.
Does anybody have any advice on how to do this? On how not to lose your mind? Do I just need to suck it up, put some earplugs in, and ride it out?
I need a Xanax already.
