a happier girl

Genetic testing isn't fun but I guess breast cancer isn't either

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Mon, 27 May 2019 21:03:00 +0000

I was 25 years old before I ever went to a gynecologist. I had a kidney condition as a kid and had a traumatic experience at the urologist. It involved stirrups. In the car on the ride home, I told my mother I wasn't taking my clothes off at the urologist again without a knock down drag out fist fight. Then I told her if I lost the fist fight, the next time I just wouldn't agree to get out of the car and go into the doctor's office ever again. That's how my brain works. Solving the problem so it won't happen again. Also, slightly militant.

After my mother had ovarian cancer, pretty much everyone I knew wanted me to know that sort of thing can run in families. My regular doctor looked sort of confused I hadn't been. And then my father even called me to discuss the importance of pap smears. Gag me. I decided to find a gynecologist just so I never had to discuss pap smears with him again.

This is the face of a woman who does not like discussing pap smears with her father.

It's also worth mentioning my mother's mother had uterine cancer right around the same time. 44 year old me wishes 23 year old me had paid better attention. 44 year old me now gets asked about it and feels like an idiot every time she doesn't have the details.

After my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, doctors were literally pausing when we got to that part of my medical history. They started having follow up questions asking how old she was when she got each one. The gynecologist looked very serious during the conversation. Once I had my last baby, I got to start mammograms. Twice a year. I alternate a regular mammogram with an MRI every 6 months.

And then they started talking about genetic testing. And then one day the internet showed me an add for Color.com. And then one day about a year after my mother died, I was swabbing my cheek and mailing it off. And then a nice lady on the other end of the phone told me I have the BRCA1 genetic mutation.

I didn't immediately do anything. I guess I just sat with the information. I mean I shed some tears and did a lot of googling. Then I didn't do much for like a year and half. But #selfcare2019 means putting on your big girl panties and doing what grown adults are supposed to do. You don't have to like the big girl panties. Maybe you're even scared of the big girl panties. But you do it it anyway.

It started with my annual gynecologist appointment and giving the doctor my Color.com results. She told having my ovaries and Fallopian tubes was recommended by age 40 for people with that genetic mutation. I'm 44 so she she made a point of telling me several times that I was actually overdue and should have it right away. She also recommended I see a genetic counselor to discuss my results in detail along with enrolling me in the breast cancer early prevention program in my area.

The genetic counselor was the most sobering medical appointment I've ever been to. For 30 minutes, they essentially tell you they really, really, really recommend you have your ovaries and Fallopian tubes removed. They tell you how high your chances are of getting ovarian cancer and how hard it is to detect. They tell you about breast cancer and how high your chances are of getting it and how your chances of getting it will only go up the older you get. They show you lots of lovely graphs and charts and you get a giant stack of super depressing handouts to take home with you. My husband is made of twisted steel and told me he almost cried while the lady was talking to us. It was a downer.

Next up was the early prevention program. You get a breast exam and more of the graph and chart talk. Then a mammogram with the doctor reviewing the results right there and if they need any different angles you step back in and take them right then. It's all very efficient.

This is the face of a woman who had to be stuck 3 different times to try to get an IV into her apparently tiny veins. She didn't cry but she did say a lot of bad words inside her head.

And then you are back to your surgeon and they pick a date and then there you are looking at the ceiling while they put in your IV and then you're waking up in a room that looks exactly like the room your mother woke up in and you sat next to her bed feeding her ice chips until they moved her to recovery. And then life feels like it's really coming full circle. And then you die a little inside thinking about your two daughters taking their turn someday and you take a steadying breath and remind yourself you're going through this so you can be there to feed them ice chips.

One of my girls blowing bubbles in her Easter dress and Peppa Pig rain boots. Also a good reason to suck it up, buttercup.

The ovaries and Fallopian tubes are done. It sucked. Three incisions. The left side hurt the most because that's apparently the side they took the ovaries out of. I sleep on my stomach so I slept crappy for about 2 weeks. Too bad there's no fast forward button in life so you can skip the feeling sore period.

I'm also going to need that same fast forward button for the the other surgery. You know. The big one. The one I'm dreading. The one they say I don't have to have but that I know is in my future because that's how my brain works. Solving problems so the same thing doesn't happen again.

At least the first surgery is done.

The best and worst of times

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 00:42:00 +0000

One month before my mother found the lump, I found out I was pregnant with my 3rd child. My mother had cancer 2 other times before in her life. Neither time was fun. I'm here to tell you it's even less fun when you're pregnant. And if it's less fun when you're pregnant, it's exponentially less fun the more pregnant you get and the more hormones you have raging through your body.

Being pregnant at 40 didn't help. I'm sure there are lots of women who rock pregnancy at 40, I'm not one of them. I didn't rock pregnancy when I wasn't 40 and I'm here to report I rocked it even less at 40.

My last day being pregnant.

I was quickly the size of a house. Some of that was definitely Taco Bell drive through related. But

some of it was also because I carried extra amniotic fluid throughout. That led to trouble breathing when I laid down from 26 weeks on. Just when you thought sleeping while pregnant was hard, try feeling like you're not getting enough air. I don't care how much Tylenol PM you took, the panic you start to feel when you can't breathe really throws off your mojo. I started binge watching Law & Order reruns late into the night. I watched so many I actually had to set my DVR to "record all" so enough recorded all day to last until I was ready to fall asleep. That's a lot of episodes.

Worst photo from the worst angle of me looking as big as I felt. Super tempting to delete but also a motivating "before" photo.

I was also the size of a house because I was carrying the worlds biggest baby. She was 10 pounds when she was born. And she was born at 39 weeks! Unfortunately, the doctor was guesstimating more like 9 pounds so she didn't schedule me for a c-section. Shoot me now. She's lucky she's cute.

1 day old.

But in the meantime, I was visiting oncologists and surgeons with my mother. On the bright side, everyone at the hospital is really, really nice to you when you are six month's pregnant with the world's largest baby and pushing your mother in a wheelchair. On the downside, it's hard to lift a folded up wheelchair into the trunk of a 4 door sedan when you are the size of a house. I had a little lift and bump maneuver with my hip that worked for awhile. And when it worked less well, my husband only asked once about the scrape on the bumper and we didn't discuss it again.

Meeting grandma

At 7 months, I finally had to arrange for someone else to drive her to radiation because it was physically just too much for me. That's a hard call to make. But you do it. And because your mother is kind and sweet and never wants to be a burden, she assures you it's fine and even looks on the bright side that the other person agrees to hit the Krispy Kreme drive thru for a hot now afterward. But you still feel like a crappy daughter so sometimes you close your office door and cry at your desk at work.

Blue eyes. My husband and I both have brown eyes. Who dis?

A new baby on the way brought my mother a great deal of happiness. I firmly believe she lived as long as she did after the diagnosis because of the new baby. I think it lifted her up and carried her during some difficult days. And I think sometimes I felt lifted up, too. Three days after having a baby, I drug my tired, swollen and emotional self to the cell phone store and upgraded my mother's crappy 10 year old flip phone to an iPhone 6 Plus so I could text her photos and videos every day. Money well spent.

Photos of babies with giant hair bows are good for you.

I was 2 months pregnant when my mother had the biopsy. 5 months pregnant when she had the double mastectomy. 7 months pregnant when they said she needed chemotherapy but that chemo wasn't medically recommended because she'd had chemo two times before. I was also 7 months pregnant when my mother told me she figured she'd had 69 years and 69 Christmases and that that was pretty good and made her peace with her prognosis.

A 70th Christmas

I gave birth to my third child in the midst of radiation. My new baby was 6 months old when the cancer returned. 9 months old when I had to pick a hospice company. And 11 months and 21 days old when I held my mother's hand for the last time.

7 month photos taken in her hospital room.

My two older kids actually had their first day of school the day before. I'd taken their pictures in front of the house. Four hours later the amazingly kind hospice lady called to tell me the end was near and that I should come. Nothing highlights how the world keeps turning even when your own life is falling apart like showing your mother photos of the first day of school on her deathbed. Celebrating a first birthday just a couple days after the funeral is pretty surreal, too.

That first day of school photo. Also the last photo I showed my mother.

Life is complicated. Rarely convenient. And sometimes the worst stuff happens at the same time as the great stuff. The story of my mother's death is intertwined with the arrival of this third child. She is cute and sweet and arrived when I needed her. There are days when she is a tyrant who saps my will to live. But there are also days she restores me. And that's life.

The cutest dictator on the block.

January 2019: Self Care Summary

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Sat, 09 Feb 2019 21:30:00 +0000

I think there are a lot of ways to take care of yourself. Especially if you haven't been doing a particularly good job of it. So I'm sure some of my #selfcare2019 goals probably seem pretty basic. So basic I feel a little ridiculous admitting them. I made my peace with ridiculous. Life had me feeling defeated. Rebuilding is a process and you rebuild brick by brick.

Goal 1 for January: Make doctor and dental appointments

Grown ups make long overdue medical and dental appointments for them and their family members. I'd drug my feet on some. Others I just never seemed to get around to. Everyone in my house was overdue for everything.

I started scheduling one appointment a week to squeeze them in without having to use vacation days at work. And then I went to them even when my work schedule made it more complicated. Every appointment I've gone to has led to extra appointment. I took 2 kids to the dentist and ended up with a follow up appointment and an orthodontist referral. I went to the gynecologist and got a referral that led to 5 more appointments. Even my dentist appointment got me 2 follow up appointments. At the rate I'm going, it will be July before I'm done.

While at the dentist, the topic of the wall of tartar behind my lower teeth led to a discussion about sonic toothbrushes. I'm apparently the only loser left in America using a manual toothbrush. Then we discussed that I might need to start coming to the dentist every 4 months instead of every 6 months to fight the wall o' tartar. And then I started paying attention. I'd like to say I had a life epiphany about the importance of listening to trained dental professionals when they give you advice. But let's be real.

The magical multiplying appointments have me booked up through July. It was the every 4 months comment that scared me straight. Straight on Amazon to Prime myself a sonic toothbrush.

First sonic toothbrush at 44. I felt like such a mature grown adult.

And then I started using it. It's sounds like I'm running a chain saw and I thought I was going to vomit when I tried brushing my tongue with it. But I'll be darned if my teeth don't feel cleaner. Go figure.

Two weeks of sonic toothbrush use. I keep boring people with sonic toothbrush stories and asking if my teeth look whiter.

Goal 2 for January: Read a Book.
I'm kind of embarrassed that actually needed to be a goal. I've always read a lot. I've always had books on my nightstand. I've always liked laying in bed reading before going to sleep.

But part of what I like about reading is the peace and quiet of it. And peace and quiet was hard. Because peace and quiet lets you think. And thinking can be hard. Sometimes the days are easier to get through when you don't give yourself quiet time to think. Watching Real Housewives and surfing the net felt easier, maybe even less scary. It kept the wolves at bay in the dark.

Little Fires Everywhere was the best of the 3. Really well written and so good I didn't want to put it down the last 100 pages.

I read literally two books the year after my mother died. Both of them were about grief. I read three books the second year. None were about grief. It felt like progress. But as time went on and I finally began to think about rebuilding, I realized it was going to have to include finding my way back to something that's so inherently part of who I am. The time felt right so I bought a couple books and committed to reading for a few minutes every night before bed. I tried the same thing last January. I got through 2 books by May. I decided the time wasn't right. This time it was. Some days I'm so tired it's only 5 minutes. Some days the book gets good and it's 45. I read 3 books in January. And I started looking forward to that time. I like to think it's helping me fall asleep faster. But I know it's helping me feel like myself again.

Goal 3 for January: Start Couch to 5K

I'd been wearing my Fitbit for 7 months. My goal was 10,000 steps a day. I have a desk job and that helped me find ways to get steps in during the day and be intentional about it. I started using my breaks at work to get some steps. Then I started trying to take the stairs more. When that felt like a habit, I tried a couple StepBets to help me stick with it and keep me on my toes.

I'm the idiot taking the stairs now. Up when it's only 1 or 2 floors. But mostly down. But that's saying something when I have 12 floors to go down at the end of the day. We'll know I've officially gone off the deep end when I start trying to take the stairs up 12 floors in the morning.

The more steps you take the more steps you have to take to meet the StepBet goals so I started trying to think of something new to try to keep pushing me. Exercise is good for me. Making time in my day to get some exercise is good for me. Good for my body. But more importantly, good for my mind.

Reminding myself that I've done it before actually didn't help. In fact, that was more of a downer than anything. I once ran a marathon. Seeing how far away that is in my rear view mirror is tough. Marathon to lazy and fluffy is humbling. Knowing how long and hard the road is to get back there is overwhelming. I had to forgive myself for the mistakes I thought I'd made and put it behind me. It's not about trying to be back where I was. It's only about moving forward and doing better than yesterday and feeling better than yesterday.

Tragically slow. Sigh.

When I watched the new season of "Orange is the New Black" last year, I liked not skipping the intro so I could hear the theme song. "Think of all the roads. Think of all their crossings. Taking steps is easy. Standing still is hard. Remember all their faces. Remember all their voices. Everything is different the second time around." Sometimes I'd cry listening to it. Sometimes I'd even rewind to listen to it again. Because I think maybe I stood still for a long time. I think maybe I thought that was easier. Easier not to think. Easier not to try.

I marked them off as I went. I also wrote the day in the box because by day three I started getting confused if I'd marked my miles for that day or not. Didn't want any double counting. Especially didn't want to miss getting credit for any.

But taking steps feels better. I don't know that any of it's actually easy. But I want to feel better. For January, my new goal was 100 miles for the month. Walking or running counted. I got 104 for the month. I also completed the first 5 weeks of Couch to 5K. I'm here to tell you it's just as hard the 2nd time around as it was the first time I did it. But I did it anyway. And that felt good.

#selfcare2019

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 20:54:00 +0000

The first year after my mother’s death was hard. I knew it would be hard. But I had no idea just how hard or what the hard would look like.

Like, I didn’t realize it was possible to sit at a table and eat dinner with your family and just silently cry while continuing to eat. More than once. A lot more than once.

So, yeah. It was much harder than I ever imagined. Really hard. Sort of like how the Grand Canyon is really big.

According to Google and every self help book I read, the first year would be the hardest. So I kept my expectations for myself low. I focused on enduring not conquering. You know, like, get out of bed in the morning. Sit on the couch with the kids. Inhale a sleeve of Oreos. Take enough sleeping pills so can fall right to sleep without laying in the dark thinking after you turn the lights out.

Some days were good. Some weren’t.

The 2^nd year I decided it was time to turn the page. I was feeling stronger and rarely cried in the shower anymore. But I also found myself sort of directionless. There’s a freedom in feeling like you're starting the next chapter of your life but it can also be intimidating to think about all the different ways you can write that next chapter. Like when you go to a restaurant with a 32 page menu and everything sounds good but you’re scared you’ll choose the wrong thing and hate it. Except it’s your life and it's overwhelming. And then you decide to go lay in bed and watch Real Housewives and play Toy Blast on your phone.

I like to think I’m finally starting to right the ship. I didn’t start dramatically when the 2nd anniversary rolled around or anything like that. Just one random day in May when I was tired of being tired and decided to try to do better. And then I did. One small thing at a time. I stopped drinking soda. I got an overdue hair cut. I started wearing my Fitbit again. I tried a new shampoo.

Stupid stuff other people probably do all the time without thinking about. Stuff it's requiring me some thought to figure out.

And when the 2^nd anniversary came, I just promised myself I'd stay the course. And when New Year’s came, I even decided to call it #selfcare2019.

And as soon as the thought passed through my brain, I knew my mother would be a fan. She always looked for things she could do or give me to make my day better, easier, prettier or funnier. Sometimes it was watching the kids for me so I could go wander around Target and buy things I don't need. Sometimes it was going to the doctor with me so I didn’t have to sit alone in the waiting room. Sometimes it was running an errand for me. She once gave me a big gift card for a maid service. I’d never paid someone to clean my house before. I guess I thought that was for rich people and that it wasn’t anything I could afford. I can also be kinda cheap. But she thought I worked hard and never had time for myself and that if someone else cleaned my house that would save me time and she wanted to be able to give me that. She also knew it was something I’d never do for myself. For six months I walked into my clean house once a week and every time I’d sort of exhale and smile and the sun would shine brighter that day.

I remind myself of that when I try to cut a corner on #selfcare2019. It would be like cutting a corner on her not just myself. I should honor her memory not cut her corners.

Me and the world's loudest toothbrush. Let's not discuss how many times the dentist has recommended one and I blew off the advice of a trained professional.

My self-care this month as been starting Couch to 5K again. I also bought myself a sonic toothbrush. Both are good for me. Both have had me on the verge of throwing up. Who knew brushing your tongue with an electric toothbrush is so gag inducing if you’re not careful.

At any rate, my dentist would be proud. So would my mother.

Today was that day

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Sat, 19 Jan 2019 01:21:00 +0000

My mother died 2 years ago. She died 9 months after the last radiation treatment. 14 months after the double mastectomy. 21 months after she found the lump.

She became a single mother when I was 10, worked full time, raised two kids and did the best she could. As a mother, she was loving and kind and always our biggest fan. She bought me super girl t-shirts and Wonder Woman knick knacks throughout my life and I know that’s because that’s how she saw me. Capable of anything.

She always took an interest in whatever we were interested in. There can be no other explanation for her interest in fish when my brother got a giant fish tank or the number of times we spent our summer vacation at a professional football training camp even though she had no interest in football. We went on adventures to the World Figure Skating Championships, romance novel conventions and Graceland. She was up for anything and just happy to be there with us.

She was an avid reader, watched The Young and the Restless every day and loved shopping online for things she was convinced I needed. She thought getting her fingernails painted was a big treat, her favorite ice cream was butter pecan and she loved these stupid Maple Cream Eggs at Easter that they only sold at Walgreens. She loved chocolate, Orange Crush soda with a bowl of popcorn and a good steak. She thought Tina Turner was a tough chick, Tom Select was handsome and Joan Rivers was funny. She was stubborn but sweet. Frugal but generous. Feisty but funny. She weathered many health issues over the course of her life. Too many to name. But she survived cancer and chemo two times. The third time she didn’t.

She was 70 years old when she died.

She died on a Tuesday. The service was on Friday and I went back to work on Monday. She was cremated and her ashes will be buried under a tree someday when I’m ready. I think she’ll like that. I think she’d like the shade it would provide. She’d like the strong limbs to hold a swing for a kid. And she’d like for me to have a place to go to sit and talk to her. Because there are many things about losing her that are difficult but losing my best friend is by far the hardest. I talked to her every day for as long as I could remember. And now I don’t. No one could ever find the mundane details of my life so interesting. No one’s voice was such a calm and fortifying force on my difficult days. I’m thankful to have had that for as long as I did. She was kind and sweet and the world is a little less sweet without her. Or at least I know my world is.

She lived with me for almost 10 years before her death. But even before that, I spent most of my life taking care of her in one way or another. Sometimes it almost feels like losing a child. Except with children you had a life before they arrived. You can remember a life before them even though the memories are distant and fuzzy. But in this case, there was no before. There had always been her. Except now there isn’t.

It's been a hard two years. There hasn’t been one day that’s gone by without me thinking of her.

I stopped writing on my blog right around the time she found the lump. Looking back I know that wasn’t a coincidence. All my words were gone. And I had no courage to try to look for them. It was enough to just get up in the morning.

But that can’t be enough forever. And eventually you realize the words are there again. And then one day you find the courage to say them.

I didn’t know it when I woke up this morning. But turns out today was that day.

And it feels a little like finding an old friend that you missed. Or maybe I’m just finding myself again. Or maybe I'm just finding myself period.

I found this photo of my mother last year and couldn't get over how much she looked like me. I'd never once thought that before. And that was the first time since her death that I genuinely felt like she'd always be with me.

Let the dishes wait a minute

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 21:56:00 +0000

My husband went out of town last week and I’m not totally sure when he’ll be back. Three minutes after he left, I missed his face. Three minutes after I missed his face, I missed the extra set of hands to help with all the household tasks that pile up and sap my will to live. Three minutes after that, I got sick. Naturally. Because if life is going to pile on the stress, it will definitely pile it on all at once. Because, well, that’s life.

I spent two days laying in bed. I didn’t even really sleep. My only symptoms were my entire body ached and my head felt completely fuzzy. Oh, and I felt incapable of remaining upright. So I mostly channel surfed, read, and wished I felt better. Friday I probably could have gotten up and accomplished something productive at 2:00 in the afternoon. But since I knew I was flying solo for Halloween shenanigans, I opted to save my strength for that night. Good call.

I then used the saved up strength to deliver crap to a neighborhood party. My husband had volunteered a table and an appetizer. I had stupidly volunteered an ice chest of water simultaneously. You can’t very well back out at the last minute when you are the one producing the table everyone’s crap is going to go on. But all of it required effort to produce. And by “produce” I mean I ordered wings from Papa Johns and heated them up in time for the party. Don’t judge. They were having pizza at the party. This was an acceptable item to bring.

This was an acceptable kid to bring. Iron Patriot. Someone had to explain to me who he was. I have been assured he did not make this character up.

The harder part was the folding table and cooler. Both required me to be upright while putting forth effort. The table had to be cleared off and wiped down. The cooler required locating and filling.

Does it make me a bad person if I momentarily just wanted to sweep everything off the table onto the floor?

Then they had to be drug down the street. Not sure why I felt the need to carry the table by hand rather than using a dolly. Also not clear why my daughter danced along next to me the whole way instead of helping me carry it. Such are the mysteries of motherhood.

No dogs were harmed in the staging of this photo of Katniss Everdeen and her bow and arrow.

And we hadn’t even trick or treated yet. Or gotten anyone dressed and out the door. Sheesh.

Iron Patriot and Katniss flexing their muscles for no apparent reason.

My daughter had friends coming over to trick or treat with us. My son was ready to leave an hour early. I successfully made small talk with other parents and stayed upright for a two full hours. I’m counting it as a win. Especially because my evening wasn’t over. Next up, drag all the crap back down the block to our house. Drop daughter at sleepover. Eat candy and cuddle the only baby left in the house for the night.

By 9:30 I raised the white flag and laid my head down on my pillow. I told my 8 year old son to turn off the television and go to bed at 10:00. I don’t know that he’s particularly trustworthy to accomplish that, but the cooties convinced me I didn’t care and his sugar high appeared to be wearing off. He took “turn off the television and go to bed” as turn out the television and go to sleep right there in bed next to me. I know this because his cold feet were pressed up on my thighs right around 3 am. Around 5 am he flopped over and began breathing on my right eye.

That morning, we got up and had breakfast together. Nothing special. Just the usual. I had two sinks overflowing with dishes, the kitchen floor was a mess, the trash needed to be taken out, the fridge needed to be cleaned out, grocery shopping needed to be done and we had volleyball, soccer and dance looming ahead on the schedule for the day. But my eight year old had had a fun night the night before, eaten his fill of candy, slept in Daddy’s spot in our bed and he was loving life as the only baby in the house. Plus he got to love life as the only baby in the house while sorting and counting Halloween candy. He radiated happiness and contentment. He rambled on uninterrupted telling me his every thought.

And all my troubles fell away in that moment. And life was bright and shiny and sweet. It’s November and a good time to be thankful. So it was nice to have a moment that brought me back to feeling thankful. Because I am. For him and each day with him and her and their father. Even if their father is far away and can’t wash dishes for me right now.
So I sat myself down next to him and let the dishes wait a little while.

And the universe repaid me by giving me a great day followed by another great day. We watched Galaxy Quest and laughed. We went grocery shopping and they actually retrieved items we needed from aisles on the other side of the store. Yes, a case of Propel appeared in my cart. Yes, so did a roll of Gum Tape. But no one freaked the hell out or thought about killing anyone. And at one point my sweet babies even tried to convince me I look like I’m in my 20s.

Love notes from my babies. They either love me or plan to hit me up for an X Box tonight.

My glass is officially half full.

Fast track to blah

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 21:14:00 +0000

Let’s all agree it’s been a hot minute since I blogged. Let’s all agree I’ve likely gained several pounds in the meantime and fallen behind on everything. And let’s all agree to just move on to more interesting topics. Because I’m quite sure we’re all very busy. And I’m quite sure it annoys everyone to hear someone else excusing anything with that explanation.

My husband headed out of town yesterday for work. It’s not totally clear when he’ll be back, he’ll likely miss Halloween which leaves assorted neighborhood party stuff to me and there’s an upcoming camping trip I feel confident I will be one hacked off wench to go on alone with the kids. There’s also all the crap that needs to be taken care of every day. All the super mundane crap that keeps a household running but saps your will to live trying to keep track of. As an example, my recycle bucket was supposed to go to the curb today to get replaced. I just realized it didn’t. It’s a stupid recycling bucket but I still feel like life just got ahead of me because I didn’t remember to drag it to the curb. Sigh.

It’s funny how my husband going out of town can have immediate consequences. The man can barely be three hours away from the house on the first day and it all just feels different.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s in my own head or if it’s the kids. But it’s like the sky is just a little move overcast. The dogs are barking just a little louder. The kids are just a little more prone to fighting. More sighing.

I miss having three other faces crammed up next to mine.

As if my day wasn’t on the fast track to blah yesterday, I then compounded things by falling into a black hole of True Tori episodes. I have no idea how that happened. I’ve successfully avoided watching any of her reality show stuff and then while flipping channels I started watching her ramble about her hoarding. And then next thing I know I’m watching older episodes on demand and then before I know it I’m up way past my bedtime.
I’d like to describe it as watching a car wreck but I honestly think it’s more depressing than watching a car wreck. Because at least with a car wreck you eventually drive past the car wreck and a good song comes on the radio and then it fades in your memory as you start making a mental list of stuff to get at the grocery store on the way home.

True Tori is about Tori Spelling’s husband having an affair and the fall out from it. I’m on episode 3 and I’m here to report there’s a lot of low self esteem involved. It also does a good job of reminding you visually of what crying all the time looks like. If you’ve ever gone through a period where you cried so much so felt like you were going to run out of tears and your eyes were going to swell out of your head and you could barely hear anything over the throbbing in your head – this show takes you there. So it’s not fun. So then it’s strange to still be watching it 2 hours later.

I’m also slightly obsessed with trying to figure out if she’s had plastic surgery on her face or botox or is just wearing too much makeup or is not aging well. Maybe that female is just crying herself to sleep every night and that’s what depression does to your face. I don’t know. What I do know is less of the bright red lipstick would probably help. I also think she should hire a nanny. On the other hand, I have no idea whether or not she should stay married. So now I’m pretty convinced I need to watch a few more episodes tonight to help me decide.

Naturally, the True Tori marathon led me to oversleep this morning. You know it’s going to be a good day when it starts with being woken up by another mother calling to ask where my daughter is because she’s holding up the group she rides her bike to school with. Um. Yeah. Don’t wait on us. We are a day late and a dollar short today.

On the bright side, surely tomorrow will be a better day.

Weigh In: Excuses I tell myself

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 22:40:00 +0000

My husband was on the verge of staging an intervention last week after reading three posts in a row staring photos of my pasty white feet on the scale. He threatened to hide my scale after explaining to me that I am healthy and that’s the most important thing.

Sigh. I know. First, he’s nice. Two, I clearly need to periodically write about things other than my scale. Three, let’s all agree he probably won’t like that I’m about to post another photo of the scale. And I swear I'm going to start writing about other things. But it was a hectic week and I got distracted. But I swear I don't need an intervention:

Not the windfall of lost weight I had been hoping for after pushing through That Time of the Month week. But down .8 pounds is still .8 pounds less than last week. And at least we’re headed in the right direction. That’s always a positive. On the other hand, I successfully resisted donuts, freshly baked cinnamon rolls, a free 2 liter of Dr. Pepper in the fridge at work, creamy stroganoff, a pot of rice I was ready to face plant into and Little Debbie Swiss Rolls. So what the hell is up with .8? Can’t a girl at least get that number to round off to a full pound lost.

Eh.

While reminding myself that .8 is actually a loss and that any loss is actually a good thing and all that rah rah rah crap, I did manage to find time to brainstorm my top 8 excuses I have given consideration to this week to blame for my scale not showing me what I want to see:

Excuses I tell myself when the scale doesn’t read the way I think it should:
1. I must not be eating enough calories. I can’t begin to tell you how much I wish this one was true. I should be so lucky.

2. I must be eating too many calories. Strongest candidate on this list. All day everyday.

3. I must be building muscle. Because everyone knows muscle weighs more than fat. And Project “Do an actual pushup” is still in effect. Except if I gained this amount of weight every time I lifted some weights, I’d be 437 pounds by now. And since I’m not, there are some holes in this story.

4. The battery in my scale must be dying. Despite the fact that the screen is just as bright and lit up as always.

5. That wet towel on the side of the tub just touched the scale before I got on so they obviously left water on the scale and that made the number go up. Except my scale automatically zeroes itself every time it starts.

6. I must need to go to the bathroom. Clearly there's a lack of fiber in my diet and I will just be sure I suck a few fiber pills down.

7. I ate too much salty stuff yesterday. I reached that conclusion one day this week after noticing that my favorite 45 calories for 2 tablespoons Caesar dressing has 280 mg of salt. That’s a lot of salt. Clearly the dressing is the problem. Clearly eating dry salad for lunch should fix that.

8. I must need to exercise more to burn more calories. Next thing I know I’m on Amazon buying a Fitbit Flex. This will clearly fix everything.

Weigh In: That Time of the Month

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 20:50:00 +0000

This week was the lead in to That Time of The Month and several days of full fledged That Time of The Month for me. Naturally, we decided to eat out two days in a row. And naturally, we went for Mexican so I face planted into a giant bowl of chips and salsa both times. One time I washed the three zillion chips down with a margarita. One time I resisted the siren’s call. And naturally, my old friend the scale laughed in my face when I climbed on. Then we got closer to the full fledged That Time of the Month and the scale laughed in my face a little extra.

That Time of the Month is by far the most demoralizing if you are a daily scale watcher like me. Two days before, I usually mysteriously float upward by at least a pound. To add insult to injury, I will have exercised and eaten well the day before, too. And if you are doing what you are supposed to be doing and the scale heads upward that’s wrong on every level and messes with my head. The next day, I’ll float another half a pound up. By the time it’s showtime and it’s an actual wings day, the scale will imploding. This go round it imploded the day of hitting 156.6 pounds. What the what?

It’s really, really, really hard not to suck down a 44 ounce Dr. Pepper after seeing that number. It’s also really, really, really hard not to want to shove all the food everywhere into my mouth all at once. Every bad habit begs you to revert back. Every instinct in your body wants to give up. And the hormones in your body second that emotion. A lot. They also like to ramp up the drama inside your head pointing out your every flaw and the complete futility of even trying to lose weight ever again.

So when you successfully close out the day and the worst thing you did was have a slice of cake at a going away party you call it a good day. Because at least you didn’t have 2 pieces of cake. And the next morning, the scale does you a solid and goes down .2 and you actually take that as a good sign. And then you scrape yourself together enough to exercise for 30 minutes before work. And the next morning it floats down a little more.

I didn't even take a picture of my 156.6 thanks to the shock and awe descending on my soul.

But holy cow alll that floating is annoying. Mainly because it’s so vague and nothing you can count on. Because it floats downward, too. And every day it floats down you hope it’s not done floating down and that it will magically float down some more tomorrow. But you don’t know if it will. So you’re stuck hoping and crossing your fingers. But a hoping and hoping and hoping and hoping is hard. Because it’s like you’re throwing so much good effort down a useless black hole. It’s discouraging is what it is. Discouraging.

By this morning I’ve floated back down to 154.6 pounds. My husband tried to be enthusiastic when I had floated down into the 155s. I tried to not kill his enthusiasm and just said thank you. He’s a supportive fellow and I’m appreciative. And the 155s are better than 204.4. So there’s that. But seriously. Go away That Time of the Month. Go away and take with you the magical extra pounds that float in and out to torture my scale watching soul.

The award for worst scale shot lighting ever goes to this girl right here.

And feel free to take the Papa John’s pizza leftover from dinner last night with you, too. Because heaven help me I wanted to inhale every last piece. I even put 2 pieces on my plate mentally throwing in the towel on a good weigh in the next day. And then after I changed out of my work clothes my will to succeed got back from break and I marched myself right back downstairs to put one of the pieces back in the box and make myself a salad instead. But it was touch and go. Because I was feeling vulnerable. And the extra cheese was calling to me. But I put on my big girl panties and did it. And I should get a good weigh in out of, dang it.

But difficult weeks are what make or break your success. I believe that. Pushing through the difficult upward floating sets you up for a great weigh in the next week. Because you’ll have parted with the extra magical floating pounds plus you’ll have a good week and lose whatever you’d normally lose in a good week. And then your weigh in will be like a double weigh in almost with 2 weeks worth of loss. Except you have to successfully not throw in the towel. And that’s hard. Really, really, really hard.

Sigh.

But if you can do it, man that weigh in is always a good one. Nothing worth having comes easy. I keep reminding myself that zipping up my size 6 jeans will be worth it. But my brain keeps reminding me that french fries are pretty worth it, too.

More sighing.

So frustrating. But must stay strong. Must add exclamation points to prove I really mean it and can do it!!! Now all I have to do is actually do it!

Weigh In: Hungry

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 21:03:00 +0000

I am now well into my 2nd week since my scale scared me straight and I got back on the wagon to attempt to fit into my size 6 jeans again. Last week, I was at 156.4 and feeling pretty happy to be headed the right direction and breaking bad habits.

Yesterday my scale had me at 153.8 and loving the sight of that “3” in there.

See. I told you.

Then I got a headache around 3 pm and couldn’t talk myself out of swiping the icing of a leftover piece of birthday cake in the break room at work. And then more icing off the cake plate. And then a giant vat of rice at dinner and cheesy cracker things. And then the headache convinced me that peanut butter on saltines shoved down my gullet was a great idea before bedtime. So not exactly a perfect day. And the scale knew it and went up slightly to 154.2 pounds. Nothing earth shattering but always slightly frustrating to witness and know good and well you did it to yourself and that you coulda woulda shoulda done better.

If I let that coulda woulda shoulda be the only thing I think about this week, it could easily be a real bummer. But coming back here and realizing I was at 156.4 last Friday, I’m thinking I need to shut the hell up. Because that’s 2.2 pounds less than last week. And in what universe is anyone allowed to be even moderately disappointed by losing 2.2 pounds? Not any universe I want to live in. So I’m thankful and happy and hungry to keep going.

Hungry has been the definition of this week for me.

Hungry to get my habits back in place. So I made a list for the grocery store and went shopping. I had a healthy grilled chicken sandwich when we ate out Sunday. And I resisted the lure of donuts when my husband tried to declare it donuts for everyone day on Saturday. Not even one teeny tiny donut hole went in my mouth even though they were in front of me for the taking. Or in the case of a chocolate twist, abandoned half eaten directly in front of me and calling my name. I’ve diligently packed my lunch every day and had a plan for dinner.

But week 2 of a diet is always a big adjustment week for me. I like to think it’s when my stomach protests smaller portions a little and wants to know why it’s not getting more. That’s tough and some days I do better at it than others. Headaches never help. But I did super overanalyze my roughest days this week which included yet another birthday cake that I fully intended to skip until I reminded myself that if you go you should participate. So there was cake. And then another small piece. Then there was my peanut butter and saltines day which I blame on a lack of extra snacks to tide me over. I kept forgetting to pack raw carrots in my lunch and those are usually my go to snack when I’m hungry and need something that’s barely any calories so I can eat as many as I want. I always figure I can eat a boatload and it’s just a hell of a lot of fiber and possibly a tired jaw from all the chewing. When I don’t have it I end up eating a lot of apples and almonds. Not that those aren’t healthy. They just contain more calories than carrots so they’re not a freebie in my head like carrots are. I’m on top of the carrot situation now and have packed them and shoved them down my gullet since then. And all is feeling right in the world again.

Much like all feels right in the world when I listen to this song.

Hungry to finally get back to working out. Saturday and Sunday were both great days for that. Saturday morning I decided I was starting Couch to 5K come hell or high water. Hell or high water turned out to be not getting it done in the morning and then it was 100 degrees outside. I said to hell with it and did it outside anyway on the way to the gym with my husband. #worstideaever My husband rode his bike and periodically shot water at me from his water bottle. He also suggested I run faster so we could hurry up and end it as well as questioning my sanity for thinking that was an acceptable idea.

Once there, I attempted to wipe some of the sweat off my body and let my husband convince me to enter the weighlifting area of my gym. I’ve always headed straight upstairs to the land of treadmills and group exercise classes. They also have a small circuit of weight machines up there that I periodically use. In my mind, the weightlifting area is only for serious people and that you should sort of graduate to that once you get your act together a little. My act isn’t even remotely together.

But it wasn’t crowded and my husband knows his way around a weightlifting room and actually showed me some stuff. He explained how to use several machine things. Then we squatted. As always. My husband has never met a moment he didn’t think was good for squatting. Just finished sprinting? Drop it like a squat. Just finish some push ups? Sounds like we should squat again. I’m still trying to decide if I hate squats or lunges more. I’m going with lunges this time but only because he had us hold weights in our hands while lunging. Just when my scotch tape thighs didn’t think it could be worse you add weight. Perfect.

Sunday I got my sweat on at Zumba. Then I did Couch to 5K 2 more times during the week. My husband also kept claiming we were going to get our workout on several other days but then we mostly overslept or were lazy bums that refused to get up and do anything after dinner. So I’m thinking I need to work on my oversleeping lazy bum issues next. But at least I’m working out again. And I finished C25K Week 4 thanks to my husband convincing me starting with Week 1 seemed overly dramatic. I started with Week 4 and was sweaty hot mess express clock watching for the time to be up. Oh, well.

Down 2.2 pounds this week and still hungry for more. Mostly hungry for stuff you get at a drive thru window. But also hungry to keep going and have more good days than bad.

Weigh In: Sobering

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 14:56:00 +0000

I had finally started to get myself back on the healthy eating train when I recently ran smack into 16 straight days of travel that included roughly 48 hours of driving. Literally.

First there was 17 hours of driving to one place where we spent a week. I’d call it the start of our vacation except I actually attended work related stuff for 3 days while we were ther. I sat in a room in Florida watching PowerPoint presentations while my husband and kids hit the beach, goofed on in a museum and texted me photos of their late breakfasts that included stacks of fluffy pancakes with a mound of whip cream on top. I don’t care how much you love your family. Being the one on PowerPoint duty in that scenario tests your ability to be generous of spirit.

3 minutes after the last PowerPoint ended my husband had us back in the car driving another 8 hours. After which we spent a week in a rental house on the beach in North Carolina. There was pretty much vodka coming out of the kitchen faucet and much drinking was done by all adults. An old school ice cream truck also came by roughly ever 12 minutes and how do you resist your 8 year old wanting ice cream in the shape of Sponge Bob served from the side of a van. You don’t. That’s how. You don’t. Instead you sprint up the steps of that beach house to find your wallet while your 8 year old stands unattended next to the street waving the van down. By the time you sprint back with the wallet, you’re will to resist is just as tired as your lungs are and you inhale a $3 ice cream sandwich without even thinking about it.

The return trip from the beach house was a mere 23 hours of driving. We accomplished that in a day and a half. Oh, the joy.

I returned to work the next day and immediately recounted for the world my cross country trek drive thru by drive thru and one extra large Dr. Pepper at a time. But I didn’t really need to. The pants that wouldn't fit were already doing the talking for me. Not to mention the scale telling me I was a lovely 159.6 pounds.

That’s 15.2 pounds over my lowest weight which was 144.4 pounds last may. It's also roughly 7 pounds higher than where I was when I had beem righting the ship on my healthy eating before I left on vacation. But even more than that, it was sobering. Because that's like one Twinkie away from 160. And almost 160 may as well be 160. And 160 is a slippery slope to 170 and 170 may as well be 204.4 pounds as far as I’m concerned and that's where I started and that's where I was profoundly embarrassed and ashamed and I had clearly lost my way. It was a stone cold sober moment in my bathroom. 160 is the bright line of unacceptable. Pretty sure 150 really needs to be from now on. But I know 160 is right now. Going over 160 is a deal breaker.

So, this stone cold sober female packed her lunch, sucked down a gallon of water and coped with caffeine and sugar withdrawals the rest of the day. And she woke up to 159.2 pounds the next day.
Make no mistake. That was water weight I parted with. I certainly didn't burn .4 pounds in one day. Parting with water weight happens every time I’ve been on a bender and go back to giving up soda. But I'll take it. Because a quick loss can fuel another good day and the scale rewarded me again the next day reading 157 pounds.

And that fueled another good day right up until I got stuck cutting cake at work at an awards celebration type thing and the cake smelled good and it’d be rude not to celebrate with the winners and then if you’re going to have 1 piece what’s the hard in a second small piece.

Three seconds after I finished the 2nd piece I started beating myself up about it. I felt a little fear in the dark corner inside my soul that fears this time losing weight will be like others and that the real me will eventually surface to gain the weight back. I also came up with stupid theories about not eating anything for the rest of the day to make up for those calories. This classic maneuver never works since you become starvin’ Marvin and begin shoving all the food into your face roughly 5 hours later thereby turning one mistake into a complete and utter trainwreck of a day that leaves you disillusioned and prone to giving up the next day figuring there’s no point in starting again.

Instead, I put on my big girl panties and had the healthy lunch I’d planned and spent the rest of the day behaving myself. And I held firm at 157 the next morning and, lo, there was much joy in my heart.

Holding at 157 despite the cake incident even fueled a good day. Not great because I did get a McDonald’s soft serve ice cream cone with my husband. But when your husband wants to toodle with you for an ice cream cone you say yes and enoy the toodle and remind yourself those were only 3 weight watchers points back when you did weight watchers points several years ago so you know it’s not breaking the bank an otherwise good day. And the scale backs you up on this theory with 156 the next morning. Holla.

The first week of getting back on the wagon and attempting to lose weight is hard. You have to break bad habits. You’re more hungry than usual. And you might even get a headache from giving up caffeine. And you may forget to say no when your brain suggests the 2nd piece of cake. But the scale is your friend during the first week. I’m not under the impression I actually burned 3.6 pounds worth of calories this week. Especially since I know I haven’t been doing much exercise to burn much of anything. But I have been eating better and it’s enough that the scale is moving in the right direction and telling me I’m doing something right. By this time next week, the scale most likely won’t be by friend anymore. So I’ll take my inspiration where I can. Because you have to start somewhere.

This female is scared straight.

Nothing says vacation like shoving random hats on your head in the souveir store. It helps if you don't think too much about whose head the hat was on before you.

I even tracked my food in My Fitness Pal. For one day anyway. But I haven’t done that in months. So there. And yesterday I downloaded the Couch to 5K app again. Even if I feel stupid starting at ground zero, apparently that’s what I need.

Stone cold sober, people.

Things I did today

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 21:19:00 +0000

1. Realized I’m finally starting to feel better and that I can no longer blame my ultra bad food choices and general laziness on not feeling well. Besides, exercise gives you energy and helps you feel good. Google says so. So does Pinterest.

2. Weighed myself and decided I need to drop a few pounds. 152.4 pounds. Up from 144.4 my lowest weight. My husband would probably tell you he thought that might have been verging on waify. He also thinks he’s practically a hippie when his hair starts to grow past the top of his ears. He goes his own way. It’s part of his charm. But 152 is most definitely maintaining the Jelly Belly. The Jelly Belly isn’t going anywhere until some of the 152 goes somewhere. I’m also pretty convinced I could run a tiny bit faster than my usual slow crawl if I weighed less. But mostly it just feels like I’m permanently trapped in the 152 neighborhood. Like I bought a house there and then the property values went down and now I’m upside down on my mortgage and who in their right mind would buy it at that price. I’m going to need to break the cycle.

3. Decided I need to start running again in order to run a tiny bit faster than my usual crawl. I haven't been running much since I wasn't feeling well. I started wondering if I need to do Couch to 5K again. Talk about a sobering moment. Also probably slightly overdramatic. Whatever. 3. Started reading This Is Why You're Fat by Jackie Warnerevery chance I get. She has me convinced I’m addicted to sugar, bread, rice and pasta and I've decided I have to give them up. She also convinced me to drop a pretty penny online for supplements she claims I need.

4. Did not have two slices of Honey Wheat Toast with a smear of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter on it. I always have two slices of Honey Wheat toast with a smear of I Can’t Believe It’s not Butter on it. And I wanted to. But I didn’t. Scrambled eggs for the win.

5. Decided I need to hard boil some eggs. I don’t think I’m capable of scrambling eggs every morning.

6. Actually got up from my desk to take my two 15 minute breaks at work. In the morning, I dragged my lazy carcass up and down 8 flights of stairs 3 times. I had the nerve to start out jogging up the first 2 flights. As if. By the 8th floor I was a panting mess and moderately concerned a coworker was going to come into the stairwell and think I was having a heart attack. In the afternoon, I hit the tiny old gym in my building. It’s mostly treadmills and some weight machines. Project Push Up was in the back of my head trying to convince me to get on the floor and knock a few out. My fear of disgusting old carpet kept me upright though. I checked out the barbells and all the different weight machines. I even hopped on the treadmill to do some sprints to get my heart rate up. And by sprints I mean I put the speed on 7 for 2 minutes and quickly realized I wasn’t wearing a sports bra. Awkward. But it did get my heart rate up. It also nearly flung my badge up into my face on its stretchy cord. Holla at a player, yo. Fitting it in where I can.

7. Started over. Again. This is a place I’ve been before. Too many times to count.

8. Forgave myself for having to start over. It happens. Doesn’t make me a bad person. Just makes me human. Nothing worth having comes easy.

Currently

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 16:39:00 +0000

Things that have not been going right for me:

1. I’ve been sick. First there were migraines. Then I couldn’t remember anything to save my life. Then there was a sinus infection. Then a urinary tract infection. Then general feeling crappy. Then a head cold. Then another urinary tract infection. Then more feeling crappy. And now they have me on antibiotics and weaning off a sleep medication that may have been leaving me with “lingering confusion.” Um. What the hell kind of side effect and why would anyone want to take a medication that would leave you confused. I feel plenty confused as it is without medication to help me feel lost in the forest.

2. I actually managed to develop the bubonic plague the day we were leaving on a long weekend mini vacation with 2 other families. Because it’s not bad enough to be sick while wearing a swimsuit. It’s infinitely more lame to then have a rental house already paid for so you have to go and bring your cooties with you to contaminate other people’s otherwise healthy children. Seriously. I am the wench that gave your kid cooties. I suck. And I had a Kleenex box with me poolside. That’s lamesauce.

3. Our refrigerator died for like the 8th time in a row. We kept having the world’s nicest appliance repair lady come and apparently put it back together with the equivalent of duct tape. The duct tape kept fraying and we’d be back to no fridge two days later. It’s a vicious cycle and involved buying a new gallon of milk every 3 days. Not cool. We finally decided the world’s nicest appliance repair lady was going to need to tag out on this one and let the big dogs at Fridgidaire give it a shot. Because this girl right here is tired of her blueberries going bad.

4. Everyone in my house has taken over my DVR and I now have 17 episodes of Full House, 8 episodes of some survival National Geographic channel crap called Life Below Zero. And yet my Real Housewives recordings are all roughly 11 minutes long because apparently that’s how long it takes before someone tells the DVR to stop recording my stuff so they can change the channel. I’m sure there was a riveting episode of VicTORIous we couldn’t possibly miss.

5. I have not been to my new gym in almost 3 weeks. The cooties have also been sapping my will to fight the flab and I haven’t eaten great either. Therefore, my size 8 jeans aren’t hanging off the tush anymore. They are clinging wildly to the tush and sending memos to my brain that we will soon be at Defcon 4 on the pants size front if I don’t get it together. My push up project has also been on hold for 3 weeks. What measly little muscle I had managed to build is in jeopardy of wasting away.

6. I broke the charger to my Garmin GPS watch. I'm now holding it together with a giant binder clip. It's full blown ghetto make it work.

7. The maintenance light in my car has been on for 2 months now.

8. I’m roughly 6 months overdue for a hair cut.

9. My sink has been full of dishes for 2 days.

Things that are totally going right for me:

1. It’s Friday.

2. It's still Friday. Did I mention that?

Rainbow Dash died on my watch

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Thu, 22 May 2014 00:46:00 +0000

Rainbow Dash died yesterday. One of the world’s most annoying dogs decided she had to go. To add insult to injury, she was left in shredded pieces outside my 10 year old’s door.

The guilty party.

I’d like to tell you my 10 is too old for My Little Pony except they have a television show now and it’s actually fairly cute and sweet. It’s essentially 30 minute lessons about how to be a good friend and help others. What kind of hag wouldn’t be in favor of their kid clinging to their youth and watching that crap? Not this one is all I know. So let’s shove popcorn in our faces and binge watch them on the DVR. A beanie baby Rainbow Dash even appeared in her Easter basket.

Sadly, the 10 year old made the mistake of leaving the door to her room open yesterday and the rest is history. The 10 year old was overly tired so there were tears shed. Poor sweet little Rainbow Dash. We’ll never forget you. Especially since you are so easily replaced courtesy of Amazon Prime.

Despite my deep and abiding sympathy for the tragic loss of Rainbow Dash, her stuffing is still scattered on the landing at the top of our stairs. That’s because it’s been a long couple of days. It’s the end of the school year and 320 million activities seem to be crammed into the last 2 weeks of school. I’m ready to rip my hair out trying to keep track of everything that is going on and everything I need to be doing to be ready for everything that’s coming up.

My memory hasn’t been great the last couple of months. The last two weeks it's been frazzled and nonexistent. I’m now handling issues day by day without any planning ahead. It’s awesome. It also means my sink is periodically full of dishes and this gets on my nerves and adds to the awesome. Yesterday the only thing on the schedule was volleyball. I spent my “free time” catching up on the aforementioned dishes. My life is one giant party. I’d probably feel less worn out if my entire weekend hadn’t been sucked down the black hole of kids’ activities only to lead directly into another busy week.

Sunday was the biggest black hole of them all with my daughter’s first dance recital. They make a big fuss over it and do it at a big theater downtown. She’s been looking forward to it for months and slightly obsessed with everything about it. Her enthusiasm is so sweet it sort of renews my faith in the universe. But the heavy lift getting there was all me. Costumes, stuff to go with costumes, the right color tights for each costume, hair net, bobby pins and pretty much my life’s blood.

Post recital. Hungry but above average delighted by the entire experience.

I thought the week leading up it was stressful with extra rehearsals and running around to get everything. But then the actual day of the recital they had a dress rehearsal in the afternoon at the actual theater. My kid’s first scheduled time was 1:40. We’re supposed to be there 30 minutes early just in case so we needed to be there at 1:10. We’d need roughly 30 minutes to get there so now we’re leaving the house at 12:40. And we were going to do her hair and makeup before we left the house so now my day is starting at 11:30. Right after I feed everyone and run to the grocery store for the week. And we did not return to the house after the recital until 8 pm that night. 8 hours later. Sigh.

How happy the make up and the costumes and the dancing make this kid is clearly the motivating force here.

My kid danced in three numbers that lasted roughly 10 minutes total during the recital. But I sat through another 2 hours and 20 minutes of other people’s kids dancing. I’m told I’m lucky her 3 dance numbers were spaced out during the recital so I always had something to look forward to during the other 2 hours and 20 minutes. Too bad I had an 8 year old boy in tow because his father was out of town for work.

My 8 year old would like it noted that 8 hours of watching girls in tutus is not his idea of a good time. I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of taking one for the team and that I should buy him a car or something as a token of appreciation. At minimum, he gets dibs on the television remote until September.

One 10 year old on the edge of her seat for her turn. One bored 8 year old. He got exponentially more bored after the fake iPad battery died an hour into our 8 hour journey.

And who knew what a total beat down dance was for the parents?!? I seriously never knew that. My daughter is now trying to explain to me why she should try out for the dance company team. I feel confident that involves more long days and more cosmetology related duties for me. Sigh.

Walk Like an Egyptian number. Duh. It blew her mind that her father and I guessed the name of the song she was dancing to just by seeing the costume.

As if 8 hours sitting in a dark theater waiting for my kid’s turn to dance wasn’t enough, I came home to discover my refrigerator was again on the fritz again. We’ve had it fixed 3 times since living the cooler life last month. It’s been a joy. It was Sunday night. We were tired. I decided not to worry about the fridge until morning.

Then I went to make everyone something quick to eat before bed and discovered I’d successfully flooded the fridge with water thanks to a Tupperware container with a crack in it. Egg cartons were literally disintegrating from soaking in a pool of water all day and then I successfully flooded the kitchen floor trying to take care of it. Then I went and laid down on a heating pad and told everyone I was done for the day. No one was allowed to need anything else from me. We watched another riveting episode of some stupid Disney channel show and called it a night. Mostly because I was ready to go to bed. So everyone else had to go to bed, too, regardless of how they felt about it.

If only that worked for other things. Sort of like the other mothers that want to keep emailing about terrific new ideas for more end of the year crap we can all add to our overburdened schedules. Like our kids will be scarred for life if we don’t do snow cones at the park Friday afternoon after a full day at Field Day. Because, you know, there won’t be any popsicles or anything at that event. We definitely need snow cones. Much like last week we needed bowling and laser tag. Much like this weekend we need an overnight space camp. I’m officially drowning.

Someone asked me if I signed my daughter up for a volleyball camp that’s coming up in June. I told the other mother that the idea of willingly signing up for anything at this point make my skin crawl. The calendar is full, people. Make it stop. Either that or stick my husband on a plane and send him home from his work trip. Or tell my dogs to stop waking me up at 3 am every night. Or tell my kids to stop dirtying dishes. Even work is super hectic. I'm just so done. Tag me out.

The Year of Muscle: Project Push Up

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Mon, 05 May 2014 21:04:00 +0000

April was the 2nd month in my year of muscle campaign. This is my post marathon quest to do a push up and maybe even, dare I hope, lose a little Jelly Belly.

The first month of the year of muscle, I spent most of my time dipping my toe into Crossfit and free falling onto the toilet from all the squats. That Crossfit water was ice cold and didn’t feel inviting. Me and my scotch tape thighs decided to try something else for awhile. So I joined a gym. Go, me.

I joined a gym once when I was stupid and 18 and no one had warned me about not signing long expensive contracts to a place I really wasn’t that interested in going. I’ve never been a member of a gym since. And I was never a regular gym goer when I was. It’s new to me. And it felt new and strange.

I picked the gym based on the range and schedule of group exercise classes they offer as well as the fact that it gets us a discount for a summer camp we were already planning to send our kids to. The discount times 2 kids and the gym membership pays for itself through the summer. So it’s practically free and has a variety of classes and a schedule that fits my life. That’s what I call win-win and a sign from the universe.

This is the face of a woman that successfully joined a gym and is going to leave her house and go there.

I successfully went for a week of classes and then got sick. And then I spent 2 weeks hating life and wanting to crawl in a hole and die. Seriously. I was so tired at one point I was trying to decide if it felt like the time I had mono back in college. It didn’t. I had a sinus infection, constant headaches from the sinus infection which led to lack of sleep and all of that successfully distracted me from noticing that I had a terrible urinary tract infection that got bad enough that I had back pain and fever and chills. I also felt like I had to go to the bathroom every 3 minutes. It was awesome. Especially at night when you may want to, oh, I don’t know, sleep 8 hours in a row.

When I finally started feeling better, I started going for walks outside to get some fresh air and sunshine. I am convinced fresh air and sunshine have medicinal properties. They eased me back into exercise and I was reminded how much I like going for a walk and listening to the radio.

Even though I joined a gym and essentially didn’t get maximum usage out of it in the first month, my year of muscle campaign did actually make progress this month. A couple months ago, I read a post by Mama Laughlin explaining how to gain muscle. It essentially explained that you have to systematically increase the volume. You can increase the amount of weight you are lifting, the number of reps or the number of sets. For example, if last week I did bicep curls and I did 5 sets of 8 reps using a 10 pound weight, then the next week, I could up it to 5 sets of 10. Then the next week 5 sets of 12. Then the next week 5 sets of 15. And then I’d increase the amount of weight I was lifting but lower the number of reps and sets back down. So maybe the next week I’d do 3 sets of 8 reps with a 12 pound weight. It said you should do 3 to 5 sets and that your sets should have between 8 to 15 reps in them.

For stuff that doesn’t involve weights, you just increase the number or the difficulty. So for push ups, you might do 10 on your knees and then increase the number you do each week. And then when you feel ready, you start substituting in some that aren’t on your knees and then the rest on your knees. Each week you’d try to progress.

This all made perfect sense to me. It was like a total light bulb coming on for me. I’m not a weight lifting kind of girl. It’s almost pathetic how clueless I feel about all of it. But this made absolute and complete sense to me so I clung to it and gave it a go. I decided to pick some arm exercises and then work on them using that strategy. Then my first day doing push ups on my knees, my marshmallow core spoke to me and told me my arms weren’t the only body part holding me back from doing a push up. So I added sit ups to the plan, too.

For my arms, I do push ups, bicep curls curling the barbell up to my chest from my waist , tricep extensions extending my arm behind me, shoulder presses lifting straight up while standing and chest presses lifting straight up while laying down. For sit ups, I do a full sit up coming all the way up, a reverse sit up lifting my legs up straight above me and tons of crunches coming part of the way up.

Every Saturday, I work on my goofball little plan in my bedroom using my little barbells. And that includes weekends where I wasn’t feeling well. Just that one day a week and the fact that it is only one day helps to make it feel less intimidating.

My memory is a sieve and I always suck at remembering how many I’ve done. But that’s what dry erase boards are for! So I use one. I go in groups of 10 on everything that doesn’t involve barbells and then I get one tick for every 10. Nice and easy to keep track of.

My children decided they each needed their own chart, too. The effect is sweet but cluttery. Pretty much summarizes my life with kids.

For the stuff that involves barbells, I use the same number of sets and reps for everything and I mark the number down so I don’t have to remember. Then when I do a set, I mark it down along with the amount of weight I used. Because the weight does vary. I really wanted the weight to be the same for everything, too. It seemed so much simpler. But my biceps would not cooperate. So now the weight varies for bicep curls.
My main goal was for the muscles to feel really sore the next day. Not, incapacitated sore. More like, heaven help me washing my hair in the shower requires a lot of effort sore. I try to decide before I start what I’m going to do and that includes intentionally increasing a little from the week before. Deciding before I start is important for me so I can’t decide to do less once it starts to feel hard. It’s going to feel hard. I’m just going to do it anyway. In the beginning when I was still figuring out what I was doing, I’d gauge if I’d done enough based on how hard it felt. I’d go as far as I thought I should and then intentionally did a little more to be sure I was good and sore the next day. Because my natural instinct is to do less. So when I get to that “less” that feels like enough, I don’t listen to my brain telling me that’s enough. Now that I’ve settled into my goofball little plan, it’s a lot easier because I just stick to the plan and it feels like enough.

I started with 10 pound weights and progressed pretty quickly to 12 for most things. Makes me think 10 was probably too light to begin with but you have to start somewhere. I’m up to 15 for bicep curls and 20 for the others. My biceps have been hating life with the 15s for the last 3 weeks but I’m really going to need them to get it together because they are some dead weight considering my triceps are ready for 25. My shoulders will likely protest the 25 but I’ll drag them kicking and screaming.

I'd like to know who actually purchases 1 pound barbells. Do they not own a can of soup they could use instead? And next time I start to think I have made no progress, I'm will go back to the sporting goods aisle to lift the 1 pound barbell with 2 fingers.

I have no idea what I will do after 25 because the Target sporting goods aisle does not appear to stock barbells that weigh 30 pounds. I might have to actually leave my bedroom and use the weights at the gym. Although I find that super intimidating so let’s agree to not speak of that until I get there.

Pumping iron with the tiny 1 pound weight.

For push ups, I started by doing 20 on my knees. I couldn’t even go all the way down. It felt really, really hard though so I was convinced my nose was practically in the carpet fiber. But I was just a hot mess express going down a little. The paparazzi got a nice shot of my craptastic form from when I started. Note the lack of straight line in my back. That’s my marshmallow core hard at work. Don’t be jealous.

Note all the space between me and the floor.

Each week I’d up the number of push ups I did by at least 20. When I got to 100 push ups on my knees, I started trading out some of the knee push ups for regular (not on my knees) push ups. I started out doing 20 regular and then 80 on my knees. And by “doing 20 regular” I really mean “attempting.” Because I barely dipped my chest down. It was a pathetic mess.

I’ve now traded all the knee push ups out for regular push ups and I’m up to 100. Now I’m working on dipping down more each week. How low I dip is becoming hard to gauge though so it makes it hard to push myself each week. So I’m debating upping the number of push ups instead. My brain likes things to be exact like that. Because then I know I made progress. Except this whole operation is super not exact. I’m still mulling it over. I also periodically start my day with 10 push ups in my closet before I get dressed for the day. I like to think I’m getting bonus points for them. If I could give myself a gold star for them on the magical dry erase board, I probably would.

For sit ups, I started out doing 20 of each kind (regular, reverse and crunch). I quickly noticed that crunches were easier so then I started doing twice as many of them to even that out. I’m up to 100 of the regular and reverse sit ups and 200 crunches. I’ve done that for two weeks now and am debating how to make them harder. I tried holding a barbell in my hands last week while doing the regular sit ups but I think my neck didn’t appreciate that. I have a finicky neck. I’m going to be spending some quality time with my friend Google this week working on this problem. I may actually have to dust off my yoga ball and use it. The horror.

My attempt at a reverse sit up.

Since doing a few sit ups, I can vouch for them playing an essential role in Project Push Up. Should you be as stupid as me and want to do a push up, you might consider doing a few sit ups to help you out. I can also attest to the fact that when I started, my arms would still be sore on Wednesday after doing all the arm stuff on Saturday. It would be Thursday before I felt capable of doing push ups again. Except if I did arms again on Thursday, I wouldn’t have 4 days to recover again before I do it again on Saturday. And my arms needed to be ready for Saturday because that was my day. So I stuck with only doing But, lo and behold, 2 months in and my muscles seem to recover better. They feel a lot better by Tuesday so I might add something on Wednesday. So maybe I am making progress even if my scale doesn’t think so!

My Handy Year of Muscle Summary:
Month 1 – Dipped my toe in Crossfit. The water was cold and uninviting. My core is the consistency of marshmallow and push ups on my knees are hard. Started using a 15 pound barbell.
Month 2 – I joined a gym but got sick and didn’t go much. My push ups aren't on my knees anymore but Push ups not on my knees are hard, too, even when you barely dip down. Bought a 20 pound barbell.

Living the Cooler Life

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 17:09:00 +0000

Our refrigerator started making a really loud humming noise on Saturday morning. My 8 year old has since described it to his father as sounding like a lawnmower. I started to dismiss his description until our 10 year old said she didn’t think that was a bad description. Then I started wondering if I’m deafer than I realized.

It was hard to not notice the lawnmower sound in the middle of the kitchen. I did what every other normal grown adult would do in that situation. I turned that puppy off and on and when it stopped making the noise called it a victory and ate breakfast. Then I went for a walk.

Pretty sure the freezer and fridge aren't supposed to be the same temperature. Not a good sign.

When I got back, the noise had returned. So I did what any normal grown adult would do in that situation. I yanked that puppy out from the wall and unplugged it for awhile. In my head, the fridge just needed a little rest before it got back to work. When I plugged it back in, no noise again. I called it a victory and took my kids to see the new Muppet movie. When we got back, the fridge was giving me an error message and was clearly nowhere near as cold as it should be.

You know you are in trouble when the temperature readings have become letters instead of numbers.

My husband was out town. This is unfortunate. Mainly because I know next to nothing about appliances let alone how to fix problems with appliances. Therefore, I was forced to consult Google. Much like googling random medical issues will lead you think you are dying, my googling mostly had me convinced we’d be shopping for a new fridge soon. But I did detour onto a few pages that claimed the back of my fridge might just have a lot of dust and crap in it. So there went an hour of my life dragging a shop vac in the house and climbing behind the fridge to blow dust all over my clean kitchen floor. Google is a lying whore and that did not magically fix what was clearly a more serious issue.

Sadly, by this time it was 4:30 in the afternoon and it was Easter weekend. No one but me was going to care about that refrigerator until Monday. Cue the coolers.

We have a giant freezer which came in super handy for shoving crap in. Obviously the whole freezer section of our fridge got shoved in there. But for that matter so did plenty of stuff from the fridge section, too. I went through the fridge doing an actual “can I freeze it?” assessment. As an example, my assessment determined Lunchables might turn out okay in the freezer. Turns out, I was right. Toss that thing in your kid’s lunch and it’s just the right temperature by lunch. My 8 year old would like you to know his ham slices were a little colder than he would prefer. I would like you to know he eats lunch early and no one cares about his ham temperature preferences anyway. It wasn’t frozen and the crackers were absolutely fine. Work with me here.

I’ve discovered that my household is clearly addicted to condiments. The majority of what I had to shove into the coolers were condiments. Why one household needs 7 bottles of salad dressing is beyond me. My husband’s pickle and mustard collection was also impressive.

At one point we were operating two large coolers and one small one. It was beautiful. That’s if beautiful means super annoying because daily ice runs are annoying. Monday I took the small cooler to work with me. Instead of filling it with ice again, I just shoved it all in the fridge at work and then brought it home with me again that night. Someone mentioned at work that a half drunk gallon of milk was odd to find on Monday morning. I told them to stop judging me. My husband brought home a smaller fridge he had at his desk at work. It was like a gift from heaven. That’s if a gift from heaven makes you feel like you are living in a dorm in college again. But we have successfully shoved a whole lot of stuff in that little fridge and it’s awesome. We’re down to one large cooler only and the fridge. Important stuff goes in the fridge. Less important no one will die if it goes bad stuff goes in the cooler. That means the butter for my morning toast is in the fridge and the fleet of salad dressing is in the cooler.

The current set up. I'd post a photo of the 3 cooler set up but I was too busy freaking the hell out at the time. And , yes, the set up includes putting the cooler up on a chair. Less bending and stooping while you dig through the ice. If you were living the cooler life you'd understand that was a popular innovation we came up with.

Every meal since has been something out of that fridge to empty it as much as possible. Leftovers were the first to go. Scrambled eggs for breakfast. Pizza to use up the dough and half empty sauce jar even though we only just finished eating the leftovers from the last time we made it. I do not care if anyone is tired of scrambled eggs. Eggs were on sale at the grocery store three weeks ago and we stocked up. That’s the cooler life. The cooler life also includes shoving egg cartons made of cardboard into the cooler only to have the ice melt and get the carton wet and then the carton slowly starts to disintegrate. Then you find yourself with little bits of egg carton on your salad dressing as you make everyone start every meal with salad to move the lettuce along.
Monday we finally got the call about fixing our fridge. Too bad the call was to let us know they’d be coming Tuesday between 8 and 12. Too bad my mother who was supposed to open the door for the repair guy suddenly announced the next morning that she had a doctor’s appointment at 10. Naturally, that meant the repair guy was at our door at 10 on the dot. No heads up phone call to let us know he was on his way so we could meet him.

While standing on our front porch, they called my husband to make him aware of the situation. He immediately had visions of extended cooler life in his head and told them he was jumping in his car and don’t leave. He said he’d be there in 15 minutes. Apparently, the repair guy didn’t care and left shortly thereafter. So then my husband had nightmares of extended cooler life in his head and called the company and convinced them to send the repair guy back. Except then he didn’t come back so apparently he’s a big fat liar. So then my husband called again and it’s for the best there were no small children in the vicinity for that phone call because odds are there was cursing involved when they told my husband the repair guy couldn’t come back.

My mother called me at 11:30 on her way back from the doctor. She asked what the status of the fridge repair was. I told her the guy was there at 10. She was delighted and asked if it’s working now. I told her the repair guy decided not to break and enter into our house and left since no one was there.

We are rescheduled but have to wait another two days. In the meantime, my hacked off husband called someone else and they are coming today. My hacked off husband also let me know that he’s prepared to not cancel the rescheduled appointment and will just let that repair guy ring our doorbell for 10 minutes again. I guess that’s repair service karma. The goody goody in my soul is pained by even the idea. But the goody goody in my soul is also confused about when it became acceptable to issue an 8 to 12 window and not provide a courtesy heads up phone call to tell you they are on their way.

Some guys at work have been doing some fad diet they read about online that involved counting carbs. They’ve been trying to get me to do it, too. I was forced to explain to them Monday morning that I’m living the cooler life currently and that I’m not prepared to do any food related branching out right now. Cooking out of coolers is enough work. Every ingredient requires digging through ice to locate it. Not to mention you have to be able to locate stuff based on the top of the container not the side and everything seems to look alike. It’s like a fun scavenger hunt that’s light on the fun but heavy on the scavenger. Not to mention, pretty sure “counting carbs” is diet code for “limiting your carbs” which is code for “less carbs entering my body” which is code for “crabby as hell.”

The cooler life is not intended to be carb less. It’s also not for the faint of heart.

A tent free weekend in my future

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 20:46:00 +0000

On the downside, it’s been 6 days since I exercised last. On the upside I successfully did not snack after dinner last night and am down another .4 pounds this morning. And that’s despite the 2 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts that were sitting in my kitchen this morning. Holla.

I lifted the lid and smelled. No more. No less.

I’m so very glad it’s Friday. As always. I have big plans for the weekend that include my pajamas, my pajamas and my pajamas. Sadly, my Italian Stallion husband will be leaving my general vicinity for over 24 hours. I will be forced to hog the entire bed in his absence. I will also be forced to pay attention to our 2 annoying dogs who will be in Italian Stallion withdrawal. I swear they stare at me the entire time he’s gone silently asking where the hell he went and if he's coming back. I'm pretty sure they blame me and call me names, too.

I may agree to get dressed long enough to take my children to the movies over the weekend. Or not. We’ll see how I feel.

I mostly know I’m going to feel better than I did last weekend. Because last weekend I got stuck on a Girl Scout campout despite feeling sick and puny. Even in my sick and puny state, I could tell my daughter was equating my attendance at this campout as a testament to whether or not I love her. Therefore, it was to the campsite this sick and puny female went! Then we had 18 mile an hour winds that did this to the side of our tent:

How to turn a 4 man tent into a 2 man tent.

We still shoved some hot dogs and popsicles in our faces, hiked around and told ghost stories. My kid naturally passed out 3 minutes after she finally laid down at 10:30. My kid was still passed out while I was laying in my sleeping bag trying to figure out how I was going to last another 9 hours with a headache laying on the hard ground listening to the 18 mile an hour wind whip our tent around. I decided a trip to the bathroom might restore my life energy. I'm so glad I did. I discovered that three tents had caved in and the supports literally cracked. While a 4th one was beginning to come apart, us parental types did the math and concluded 12 people and a small Chihuahua in a crate were not going to fit in my 4 man tent that was the last one standing with any space left.

We threw our crap in our cars and hit the road. The girls had already had lots of big fun and didn’t care a bit that we were leaving. In fact, they thought our middle of the night flight from the campgrounds was part of the adventure. I, on the other hand, like to think the universe broke those other tents so I could sleep in my own bed that night.

So any weekend that will not include tents collapsing around me is bound to be a good one. In other news, I took my 10 year old to the doctor recently and had my first opportunity to field questions about whether or not she’s on birth control or if there’s any chance she’s pregnant. Um. Yeah.

So, to their credit the kid was going to have X-rays and those are standard questions before X-rays. To my horror though, there was an actual form to fill out and they asked me if I wanted to fill it out for her. She’s 10. Please hand me the form and stop talking lest this kid look up from her iTouch and want to get nosey Rosie on me.

Apparently this form becomes mandatory at 10 years old. It asks all sorts of crap about menstrual cycles, hysterectomy and possible pregnancy. I prefer to not think of this child anywhere near a menstrual cycle. This kid is volatile on a good day. I do not look forward to running into her on a wings day.

At least the doctor’s office had the decency to provide ridiculously oversized shorts for her to wear because who doesn’t love taking amusing photos of their children while killing time.

It 's the least they could do after having the nerve to post a sign on the back of the exam room door telling me to refrain from using my cell phone in the exam room and don't let your kid play with the rolling stool. Can't have it both ways, people. Either we start rolling that stool around or we get busy texting people wacky photos of the balloon shorts.

We're rebels like that. And by rebels, I mean we decided they wouldn't be able to hear us texting photos from the nurse's station. And if they can't hear you, I think we all know that means it's okay.

Maintaining is hard, too

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 19:29:00 +0000

I weighed myself four days ago and was 159 pounds. That is 15 pounds heavier than I was in May of 2013. That is not good.

In the year since losing 60 pounds, it’s been interesting to learn that losing weight is hard. But keeping it off is hard, too. It's a different hard. A hard that can sort of creep up on you. A hard that can let you get comfortable and loosen the reigns on the habits that got you there.

I’ve kept exercising since losing the 60 pounds. But I found myself slipping up to 148 pound range. Then I kind of settled there and considered it a nice maintanable spot that I'd bounce around depending on what I ate the day before. It felt like a good weight for me. Maybe I just say that because I was wearing baggy size 8 jeans and I finally trained my brain that I wear a size medium not an XL.

Then I started training for a marathon. It burns a lot of calories and definitely put some muscle on my legs. Muscle weighs more and my size 8s were still baggy so 148 to 150 still felt pretty good. But as marathon training went on, the long runs got longer and the valley of hunger it created got deeper and deeper. It took a lot of food to fill it up. And filling it up felt really necessary to having enough energy to finish the marathon. So in the final weeks before my marathon, I gave up even guesstimating calories or thinking about it.

I focused on eating healthy stuff so there was lots and lots of fruit, eggs whites and whatever my family was having for dinner that night. I just did the best I could to get me to the finish line. I weighed in after my marathon around 152. I didn’t beat myself up over it. The pride of having finished a marathon made it a lot easier.

But with the marathon done, it was time to return to business as usual. I did fine for awhile. Then I was sore from Crossfit. Then Crossfit was just plain discouraging. And then I gave it up. Then I started at a gym which was exciting. And then I started feeling really, really tired all the time. And then my brain decided it didn't want to function properly anymore. And that’s depressing. And then I became convinced that I’m just plain sick and under the weather. And then the gatekeeper of my waistline went completely off duty and all kinds of crap went down my pie hole. And then I started wearing my size 10 pants to work instead of my 8s. And my size 8 jeans still fit but, gee, they were a lot less baggy. And then I weighed myself and the scale read 157.6 and then I about flipped out.

The worst possible photo of a scale. Numbers you can't read and large albino white feet. It says 157.4. I took a photo of it because I thought I was busy hitting rock bottom that morning and ready to get back on track. Shows how much I know.

But apparently I didn't flip out enough enough because then I sucked down some more Cadbury Mini Eggs and Dr. Pepper and a whole lot of other crap. And then I weighed myself the next day and the scale read 159.

And then the world shrank to tunnel vision and those numbers were all I could see standing in my bathroom in the dark early morning hours. And then I was still standing on the scale 30 seconds later long after the numbers faded to black. And then I stepped off that scale and felt big, huge and out of control. It especially sucked to feel big, huge and out of control on top of feeling sick. But maybe feeling sick brought it home. Maybe it helped convince me I needed to get it the hell together. I don't know. But what I do know for a fact is that I left that bathroom that morning knowing that’s not who I want to be.

I even started thinking about joining a Weight Watchers meeting. I’ve never gone to a Weight Watchers meeting in my life. After I had kids, I used Weight Watcher points and lost the baby weight. But I did it all online. I never went in person. Then I lost 60 pounds on my own without any Weight Watchers. So it seemed slightly wacky that I would suddenly require meetings to lose 15 pounds. I don’t want to say I have a tendency to overreact. But let's just say I’ve successfully convinced myself to hold off handing over my credit card until I give it a few more days.

This morning I weighed in at 153.4. So I’m already down 5.6 pounds. The tunnel vision is letting up a little. But weigh ins like that are the ones that lead crazy people to think losing 5.6 pounds in four days is real. It’s not. It’s a lot of water weight that this female right here lets go of every single time she puts down the Dr. Pepper bottle and stays out of the Whataburger drive thru line.

I’m always amazed when people do a 10 day cleanse and are impressed when they lose 6 pounds. Duh. You dropped 4 pounds of water weight just from not eating crap. On top of that, you probably consumed less calories than you burned so you dropped some actual weight that way, too.

But losing an actual pound is equivalent to burning 2500 calories. And this female right here did not burn 13,000 calories over the last 4 days. I’ve mostly sat on my butt behind a desk at work and stayed upright long enough to cook dinner and wash some dishes. I count it as a victory that I successfully didn't freak the hell out when we ran late for soccer. It’s the little things in life. Especially when you don’t feel great.

But I’m back in the saddle and heading in the right direction. It's a start. And I'm happy with that.

I left the house in mismatched shoes

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 19:18:00 +0000

I was in a stall in the bathroom at work this morning and looked down and realized I had two different shoes on. Running shoes no less. And, no, the dress code for my job is not typically running shoes. But my back was stiff when I got up this morning. I figured it could use some good support all day. Running shoes it was. I regularly get made fun of for it. I regularly float out there vague references to medical issues. We all regularly lose interest and move on to other topics to discuss.

L is for loser. Right here. My pants normally hang over the laces so it's not as noticeable. But still. Who leaves the house like that?

Except it was dark in the bathroom when I got dressed this morning. I chuck all my tennis shoes in a bucket instead of stacking them neatly and I own 3 pairs of the exact same style of shoe in different colors. While picking two shoes out of the bucket this morning, I managed to pick 2 different ones and left the house wearing them and went to my grown adult job.

There is no better sign that I am not having a good day than looking down and seeing shoes that don’t match. Seriously. How do you convince yourself you are operating on all cylinders while looking at that? You don’t, that’s how. Because you are in left field. But not even far enough in left field because other grown adults can still see you and someone is eventually going to notice the mismatched shoes and then you will feel exponentially stupider.   And you already felt really, really stupid.

A week ago, I drove my family to dinner and was the last one out of the car. I left the keys in the ignition with the car running. We went in, I shoved fajitas down my gullet and then we came outside to a running car. Better than coming out to an empty parking spot. But only slightly better. Because it’s pretty demoralizing. I know from experience.

Sometimes I feel like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get it all done. Then sometimes I see the mess the chicken with the head cut off is creating running around like a lunatic and it's not good.

I spent the rest of the day at work in my mismatched shoes hoping my son’s soccer game would get rained out. Normally I hope for stuff like that so I can avoid having to get off my lazy butt and do anything. Today, it’s because I need to get on Amazon and order myself some Ginko Biloba.

Lately, I’ve just been off my game. Too many things to do. Too many little things to try to keep track of. Shopping lists left at home. Remembering volleyball games at the last minute. Running late for appointments. Forgetting phone calls to return. One tiny little brain trying to get too much stuff done. I can only have so many sticky notes on my desk with lists of stuff I need to get done.

Last night, I successfully registered my kids for 3 weeks of a summer program I know they really, really like. Since it’s April, I was mentally patting myself on the back all morning for getting on top of summer stuff so early. But I was mentally patting myself on the back while wearing mismatched shoes. There is something so tragically ironic about that I wish I were living a reality show and there was a camera to zoom in on my face as I stare at my mismatched shoes. Although I was in a bathroom stall at the time, so maybe the zooming in could wait until I came out of the stall.

You know, like maybe the camera could be there as I dramatically open the stall door. Then I could be washing my hands while I look suitably shocked and simultaneously horrified. Then I could segue to looking disoriented like maybe I’m realizing I’m developing some sort of early onset dementia. The music could build to a dramatic crescendo as it cuts to me rushing back to my desk to Google the symptoms but hiding the Google search from coworkers walking by because I’m not emotionally ready to talk about it yet. It would be very after school special only starring a grown up working mother wearing a wrinkled shirt and possibly no deodorant since she may or may not have forgotten to put any on that morning. Luckily, my office is freezing but let's all agree it's still not good.

Yesterday's problem was a headache. The best known cure for a headache is 29 graham crackers, a Dr. Pepper, some Fritos and 3 small bags of Cadbury mini eggs. So naturally I shoved all of that in my face and went to bed early. Today, my friend the scale reported what a total failure I am and have been for the last month. I also overslept for working out. And I forgot to mail something to someone. And I forgot a phone number I need at home. And the list of my deficiencies goes on and on.

So, pretty much everything is coming up aces and I should definitely buy a lottery ticket.

Let's call it a wash and try again tomorrow.  Sigh.

My Year of Muscle: I did Crossfit 4 times and lived to tell about it

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 20:29:00 +0000

I started my 2014 year of muscle at the end of February with a Groupon to a Crossfit place near my house. Me and my Groupon hit the basic Saturday morning introductory class.

I was a nervous mess but felt better when we started with a 400 meter run (Apparently meters is the preferred terminology in Crossfit because I googled it and that’s ¼ mile.) Mostly because I at least knew I could do that. So it bolstered my confidence. Then my confidence got bolstered even higher when I managed to finish ahead of a 2/3 of the intro class. Granted 2/3 of the class seemed like they had not been exercising regularly prior to buying their Groupon. But still. I take my victories where I can find them.

Then we headed inside to stretch and do some pushups. From there we moved on to some instructions. First up, let’s learn to squat. This should be called “Let’s learn to free fall onto the toilet.” Because that’s what I have to tell you about my thighs for the rest of my time in Crossfit. It’s like Tom Petty is singing to me every time I go into the bathroom. And I’m pretty sure all we did were 20 of them. That’s how weak my thighs are as I begin the Year of Muscle. It’s like I’m held together with scotch tape. I had no idea.

Next up, we got a PVC pipe and learned how to lift a barbell in a variety of ways. First up, a deadlift. That means lifting the barbell from the floor to roughly waist high. You lift with your hips not your back though. Mostly what I learned was that my back needs to be straight and that I need to remind myself to bring my shoulders back. That’s according to the coach. According to the girl directly to my left that had no doubt rolled in via a Groupon, too, I should stick my chest out.

Next up were cleans. That sounds very weight lifter intimidating technical jargon. It basically means getting the barbell up off the floor to right across in front of your collar bone. You also switch your hand position when you get close to the top. You are also supposed to dip your knees a little. I’m told I’m supposed to do all of that in one smooth sequence. To experienced weightlifting machines, it’s probably like breathing. Unfortunately, I lack coordination and could not grasp the sequence of events. My lack of coordination successfully drew the instructor’s attention and got me some one on one time. It was mostly him confused that I could not bend my knees and switch hand position at the same time. Either I made some progress or he got tired of explaining. But at least we moved on other things.

Next up, pull ups. To demonstrate, some humongous monster leaped up to the bar and cranked out like 10 in quick effortlessly perfect succession. I’m pretty sure I’m the worst student in the class for openly laughing out loud while watching. Not because the monster wasn’t good at them but because we was so good at them. It was nuts. And I feel slightly bad calling him a monster because he was really nice and friendly and when he jumped down he made a point of assuring all the horrified ladies that we’d be able to do one too in 6 months or so. I didn’t realize “or so” had such a loose open end to it. Because I predict now that “or so” in my case would be way longer than 6 months.

The intro class had guys and girls in it. Guys then hopped up on the high bars. Girls got a shorter bar with a little step or 2 big round weights stacked up in place of a step. We practiced swinging back and forth holding on to it with a our feet still supported.

Then it was on to wall balls. That’s where you get a really heavy medicine ball, throw it as high as you can up the side of the wall and go down into a squat as you catch it when it comes down. I predict I will hate walls balls far more than I will ever hate the pull ups I cannot do. Mostly because wall balls involve more squatting. And not just any squatting. Deep squatting. Me and the scotch tape thighs were horrified at just how deep I was supposed to go. I tried cutting corners not going so low but then the 14 pound wall ball was coming right back down that wall at me and those extra 14 pounds in my hands pushed me down deeper into the squat. Holy crud. The scotch tape in my thighs was ripping and fraying.

And then it was done. There was talk about class schedules. There was talk about how you can’t out train a bad diet. And then I went home.

My thighs didn’t immediately communicate to me how tired they were. So naturally I took a 4 mile walk and tried jump roping. My husband had been talking about “double unders” and I googled them and then became convinced I should practice them. “Double Under” is Crossfit talk for jumping rope only you are jumping up once and getting the jump rope to go around your body and under your feet two times. Normally you’d just jump once and the rope goes under your feet once. See where they get the name? See how it sounds easier than it probably is?

By the next morning, the scotch tape thighs were shrieking at me and I was in bathroom free fall mode. It was nuts. I foam rolled. I stretched. I whined. It sucked.

We had ice and snow and the entire universe was shut down for the day. I took it as a sign from the universe that the scotch tape thighs deserved an extra day of rest.

But the next morning I was up and out the door. And here’s where I get a little annoyed. I’m reading a book about Crossfit right now and I’m learning a lot. I’ve also googled the hell out of a lot of things. One of the things the book and most Crossfit websites mention is special classes for newbies. The book refers to it as “on ramping” and it’s to get you up to speed. Some places call them elements classes to essentially teach you what you need to know. Most have you go to a certain number of sessions or for the first month.

The Crossfit place Groupon brought me to doesn’t have that. Apparently, my intro class was it. The owner/coach had named two time slots that are the more newbie classes but he was mostly mentioning that there were more coaches at those sessions. But he said you could come to any. So I believed him because those 2 times didn’t work for me. One is right when I have to be getting my kids ready and to school in the morning. The other is during soccer/volleyball/piano/dance lessons time. I wanted 1 class time that I could go to consistently. I picked an early morning one that fit my life. Because my kid related duties are non negotiable. Picking a Crossfit place with convenient class times is significantly more negotiable.

So I go to this early morning class. It wasn’t a super huge class but the rest of the room was clearly very experienced. I was disappointed not to see any of the 2/3 of the intro class that I had successfully run faster than. But such is life in the wee morning hours. I’d introduced myself by name to the coach during the intro class. I’d even referenced my husband who goes there and worked in that I am new and clueless. I figure I’m going to stick right out in this experienced class. I’m not looking forward to it but I figure this must be how this works.

First up, some jumping jacks, we swing our legs around a little and then we stretch our backs. Then he writes the workout for the day on the board. In Crossfit that’s called a WOD. That is not pronounced the way it looks. It’s pronounced “Wahhhh.” Here’s exactly what he wrote on the board that day:

Bench 5-5-5-5-5
Power Cleans touch and go EMOM for 5 mins
Add 10 lbs every 5 mins
20 push ups x 5rds

At no time did anyone take me over to the board and explain what I was reading. But I guessed that bench meant bench press and I guessed that the dashes between the 5s meant doing the move 5 sets of 5 repetitions. I’ve done roughly that sort of thing at home with my little barbells. Except these are just guesses based on what I’ve read. And we didn’t go over form on a bench press at the intro class. And we didn’t talk about safety with the barbells or how much they even weigh. And we also didn’t talk about how much weight to start with or what weights the plates for the barbell come in or even what weights the barbell itself comes in. So there was hesitation and doubt in my soul.

Once he was done writing it down he went to his computer behind the counter. Everyone else in the room starts moving stuff and putting round weight plates on the end of barbells. I am standing there unsure where to head or what to do. My running buddy bought a Groupon too and she was standing there with me. And we just kept standing there figuring he would be over to see about us seeing as how he knows we are brand new. Except he didn’t. After standing there looking clueless for 15 seconds I actually took several steps towards the counter and asked him what we were doing. He then said bench press 5 sets of 5.

When we didn’t immediately get moving he must have realized more would be required of him and he walked us to one of the benches, centered it between the thing and told us what to do. He said we should spot each other and then my running buddy started and he walked away. We did just the bar by itself with no plates on it. We asked someone next to us and they said that bar by itself was 45 pounds. Another girl came late and ended up joining us and she was adding 30 pounds to the barbell for her turns. She tried to convince us we could too but she was wrong. I successfully convinced her I was working on not dropping the bar by itself on my teeth.

Next, power clean. I did not learn this from the white marker board. I learned this from someone else because I did not understand the board. That’s mostly because no one explained it. But that was the theme for the day so why should that be any different.

We started with a lighter barbell that someone tipped us off to that was laying against the wall. It wasn’t the end of the world to lift but my utter lack of coordination reared its ugly head again and I was not getting my knees to bend while I was flipping my hand position. The coach did not come over to assist us in starting this move. The girl we’d shared the barbell with showed us a couple times. Then after doing a couple a guy walked over from the opposite side of the gym to tell me I needed to bend my knees. I thanked him and attempted to not feel like the biggest loser on the planet.

Then the coach took another short break from behind the counter staring at his computer. We had the exact same conversation we’d had during the intro class. He kept trying to explain to me why bending my knees would make it easier. I kept trying to take a deep breath because I don’t need additional explanations about why I need to bend my knees. Intellectually, I understand the need for the bent knees. My coordination just isn’t there yet.

He stayed for two rounds. Then his computer withdrawal kicked in and he had to get back behind the counter.

Next up, 5 sets of 20 push ups. Right. Except we already did 20. And now we’re going to crank out 100. Yikes.

I immediately start doing girly push ups on my knees. Because I’m a girl. Because it’s only day 3 of my year of muscle and I haven’t gotten to regular ones yet. Because this is literally my first day at Crossfit and people she cut me some freaking slack. Except some tool on the other side of the room doesn’t care about any of that and starts calling “No knees.” I assume he called it several times. I even think maybe he was trying to be helpful and teach me the ropes because it was the same guy that had come over to tell me to bend my knees.

But, see, I was busy giving my pathetic girly push ups everything I had because I knew 100 was going to kill me. So I was pretty zoned out and didn’t realize anyone would be trying to shout at me. But he wasn’t going to let that stop him so he walked across the room to explain to me “No knees. It’s a gym rule. You don’t have to go deep but you can’t use your knees.”

My running buddy immediately switched to regular push ups whereas I stared at him in confusion. Because the one thing I felt like I grasped well was that you do girly push ups on your knees to work up to real push ups.

According to Google, in Crossfit they call that “scaling.” They set a workout for the day. You do the best you can to do everything. But if there’s stuff you can’t do, you scale the harder move down to something easier that you can do. So for pull ups, they put the little step under you. Because if they didn’t you’d just be there dangling. For bench press, the WOD may be a certain weight. But if you can’t lift that much weight, you lift less weight.

Well every Crossfit 101 website Google has taken me to says scaling for a push up is to do it on your knees until you work up to a real one. In fact, there’s even a name for it. They call them knee push ups not “girly push ups.”

So when this tool was standing over me telling me not to do them on my knees I had no idea what to say. I mostly wanted to just go home. Because how stupid and out of place is it necessary for me to feel on my first day?

To be helpful, the tool then said if I couldn’t do it I could help myself up. He was generous enough to then get down on the floor next to me to demonstrate what that meant. Again, because I guess he thought he was helping me. But it was essentially letting your stomach rest on the floor and sort of rolling up lifting your stomach off the floor last. It left my lower back hurting. More than my chest even. But once I started attempting his modification, he went back across the room to his spot. So it was worth it.

Naturally the coach was behind the counter staring at his computer during this. A nice guy next to me must have read shock and awe on my face. Either that or he sensed that I was on the verge of crying. So he told me quietly, “It’s okay to do them on your knees your first day.”

Another guy repeated that, too. And then I look over and I’ll be darned if I don’t see over in the corner the girl that shared the bar with us doing push ups on her knees. Seriously. That female wasn’t on her first day either. If you want to regulate on someone, how about her? Or if you are that militant about the rules, how about the whole freaking room? Or how about just shutting the hell up and not making people feel like outcasts?

And then we were done. No one actually announced we were done. But we figured it out and I put my coat on and got in the car. I cried on the way home. My optimistic hopes felt dashed.

I’m amazed I even regrouped enough to go back again. But I decided the problem must have been that I didn’t go to the 2 classes that were suggested for beginner. So I decided that must be the secret! I need to go to the right class! Off to the afternoon beginner class I went!

This is the face of a woman headed to a beginner class! Because that's secret!

The beginner class that is supposed to have more trainers. I can confirm there were more beginners in it. And I can confirm there were more trainers in the room. There were roughly 24 people in the class. Many of them were very new. 1 girl was on her 2nd week. Another girl was on her 3rd class. 1 trainer walked around the room guiding people. I definitely saw him helping people more than the guy from the first class. I’m told there 1 was one other in the room riding a stationary bike. The class started with 2 others in the room but they both left shortly after the class started. So, for the most part, 1 trainer for 24 people and most are newbies.

I liked having more clueless newbies to commiserate with. There’s always a feeling of comfort in not being the only idiot. But I did not like having to go in the evening. I am away from my children all day while I’m working. I view my time in the evening as time with them. So I felt like I was doing it on their time. They were in their pajamas when I got home. That further reinforced for me that it’s not how I roll on the regular. But I figured I needed to learn a few things so I tried it out.

The coach came out from behind the counter to announce the start of things. His comment about scaling was to say “Scale it to your ability.” We did a 400 meter run. Then we did some squats, some push ups and some deadlifts. I love how I just wrote that like I know what a deadlift is. Right. I totally researched it that morning on Google hoping I might feel less like a twit if I went in knowing what to expect. I even practiced at home in my bathroom like the total dork that I am.

Why, yes, that is a broom handle serving as my pretend barbell. Note for future reference, those buckets don't make the pretend barbell sit as low on the ground as the real one does at the Crossfit place. Future pretend Crossfit workouts in my bathroom will need to use something lower to be more authentic representations.

Keeping your back flat like a table seems to be key which you achieve by being sure you are sticking your butt out and pushing your chest out and shoulders back. Google also gave me the helpful tip of standing with the bar centered over my feet and the squatting enough that my shins sort of touch the bar before I start going up. I did not suck at deadlifts so that was a victory for Google and being a dork. I managed to deadlift 85 pounds and not die.

Then our WOD (workout of the day) was alternating Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (SDHP) and burpees. First we did 20 of each, then 15 of each, then 10 and then 5 and then the non robots in the room imploded from exhaustion. Because for anyone playing along at home that translates to 50 burpees and 50 sumo things.

My friend Google had explained that Sumo Deadlifts High Pulls were like a deadlift except that you have your feet wider apart like a Sumo wrestler and then you lift the bar all the way up to your chin. I sucked at it and kept forgetting to put my legs far enough apart. I used the 45 pound bar by itself and by the last one I could not lift it all the way up to my chin.

Burpees are burpees. That’s what the coach actually said in the room no less. Google says they are squatting, putting your hands to the ground, leaping your feet back so that you go to a push up position, leaping your feet back up by your hands and then leaping straight up. I say burpees are hard. Me and my scotch tape thighs didn’t do any leaping and there was nothing fluid about it. I stepped my feet back and forth one at a time, I did not do a push up when I got to the push up position and I stood up and then once I was upright I’d jump up with my arms up. So, basically, I was a complete mess. And I barely got through them.

Meanwhile, around the room, every clueless newbie in the room finished every single part of the workout ahead of me except for the 400 meter run. I finished the run in the first ¼. But everything else I was dead last. We did lunges across the room and back. I was last. We did push ups. I’m still down there and everyone else is standing up.

I normally would not care. Except there were people that couldn’t even run the 400 meters. There were people walking the 2nd half of it. There were several people that flat out just looked out of shape. I’m not saying that in a mean way either. I could care less. Because this girl right here has been way more out of shape and way more overweight than any of them. So I feel them and I know we all start somewhere. But it’s an observation I make because I’d like to know how the hell they cranked out 50 burpees and 50 sumo things ahead of me. There’s no way. There was some number fudging going on in that room. Had to be.

Finally, we did 5 sets of 10 toes to bar. I laugh just thinking about it. Toes to bar means you hang from a bar by your hands and try to lift your feet up to touch the bar by your hands. No really. It apparently requires a strong core. Sadly, my core is not strong. Sadly, my core lives in the Whataburger drive thru and is comprised of 96% marshmallow. For those of us with marshmallow cores, you mostly attempt to lift your knees to your elbows. I also found it challenging to get used to hanging from the bar that long. It’s hard on the hands. Naturally, I forgot my weight gloves that day. I’m nothing if not an expert at bad timing.

The coach mentioned to another girl that you could lay on the floor and try lifting your legs off the floor if you couldn’t do it. The experienced people offered to get right up there and crank them out. The newbies congregated to one side slowly dying. There was more widespread number fudging and I was the last girl desperately attempting to bring her knees up.

I guess he ran a timer while we were doing the WOD. I guess some people checked their time when they were finished. I have no idea. I also have no idea why half of them would need to check their time because they didn’t actually complete the assigned exercises in that time what with all the number fudging so I don’t really understand the point of even noting the time. And no one else in the room notes anyone’s time either. There’s no board where they write down your time or anything. I guess I could keep track myself but I was is an exhausted haze.

I took my scotch tape thighs home to rest. The next day I discovered I could not get my left hand behind my back. The pain built up and next thing I knew I couldn’t even pull my pants up with my left hand. I was doing everything with my right hand for 3 days. I totally blame the Sumo things. I also totally decided I needed my left hand to work so no more visits to Crossfit that week.

One of the reasons I'm convinced it was the Sumo things is that apparently it's easy to hurt yourself doing them. So easy people make little graphics joking it must be from that. Great.

Week 2 of Crossfit hit a snag when I turned my ankle on a 10 mile long run. I stupidly tried to push through it on Tuesday by running and lived to regret it. I decided to pretend I’m a reasonably intelligent grown adult and rest it for the rest of the week. I felt like a lazy bumpkin. And part of me felt like I was just avoiding the Crossfit place because I hadn’t been impressed with it.

Despite that I set my alarm and got up at the crack of dawn to start Week 3 off right. We started with a PVC pipe holding it and moving it behind our back up and over and to the front of our chest. Then 15 push ups and some stretching. Then we figured out our 1 rep maximum for clean and jerks. According to Google, a 1 rep maximum means figuring out the maximum amount of weight you can successfully lift for that specific move. In this case, the move was a clean and jerk. I did not have the luxury of Google to explain what the clean and jerk is though. Someone else in the class then explained that it’s basically getting a barbell up off the floor and up over your head with your arms straight. I’m supposed to bounce a little getting it up to my shoulders. And I’m supposed to kind of get up under it to push it up over my head from there. I mostly suck at it. The coach must have immediately identified my inability to master any move and made a beeline for me as we’re starting it. Can’t believe it took him this long to catch on but bully for him. He and I agreed that it’s about getting a feel for it and once I get it I will suck at it less. His way of saying that was, “I’ll be able to do it without thinking.” I did a lot of thinking about it that day though. Ugh. And, for everyone keeping score at home, my 1 rep maximum turned out to be 55 pounds. That is more than I would have expected so go me.

Next up was 10 rounds of 10 wall balls and 10 hang jerks. So that essentially meant 100 of each doing 10 of each at a time.

Hang jerks mean you hold a barbell just below your waist and you essentially get it up over your head. Then you bring it back down to your waist, take a deep breath, and then do it again. Wall balls are where you stand a foot from a wall with a giant ball in your hands. You throw the giant ball as far up on the wall as you can. It will then touch the wall and fall back down to you and you will squat and then stand back up and throw the ball again as you stand up.

It doesn’t seem too tough until you pick up the ball and realize it’s 12 pounds. The standard for girls is supposedly 14 pounds. The standard for girls can suck it. Because 12 gets pretty dang heavy when you do 100 of them and you’re hanging and jerking, too. And let’s not speak of what the scotch tape thighs thought of the squatting involved in wall balls. When I went to the intro class, the guy told me I was supposed to get really low in the squat. Like so low that crack whore showing me had my butt nearly to my feet. I made the conscious decision not to tear any scotch tape by getting super crazy. I went down until I felt it but not crack whore butt to the feet deep. By my third round if wall balls, my brain had somehow convinced me we only had to do 5 and I was high on life thinking I was still feeling pretty good and almost there. Then I read the little marker board again and I was trapped in an outer ring of hell with 7 more rounds to go. The scotch tape was fraying wildly by 100.

I was also using a bar that was 35 pounds and slowly trying to sap my will to live. The coach must have seen my will to live dribbling down the side of my neck and dripping on the floor. So he brought over a 20 pound bar he’d been hiding in a back room for when losers like me come to town. Either that it was against the wall and no one ever mentioned what the hell it was. Such sweet relief. There’s something you never think you’ll say about a 20 pound bar.

I’m nothing if not consistent so of course I finished the workout last again. People were actually leaving to go home and literally half the class had exited the room by the time I flung the last wall ball up and another ¼ of the class was by the door drinking water and getting their car keys out.

And that’s the last time I went to Crossfit. Stuff came up the rest of Week 3. And then the next week was the last week of the Groupon anyway and I knew there was no way in hell I was going to pay $100 a month to keep going to a place with such craptastic customer service. The cheapskate in my soul tried to tell me to get my money’s worth out of the Groupon. But it was $35 which is pretty bargain basement and maybe there’s a reason for it.

So that’s what I concluded. I’m not selling Crossfit down the river based on one crappy place. My husband loves it too much to be so quick to dismiss it. But I have decided to cleanse my palate a little so I’ll forget how annoying that place was. I’m thinking it’s time to set foot in a gym. With actual equipment. And weights.

Is it weird to be 39 years old and be intimidated by joining a gym for the first time? Does it make me a loser that I think I may need to Google gym etiquette so I don’t accidentally become the annoying gym idiot people hate?

Proof of life

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 21:27:00 +0000

1. My husband told our 10 year old to go tell her brother to put his pajamas on. She took 3 steps and shrieked downstairs to her brother. My husband pointed out that he could have done that himself. The 10 year old responded, “Well, then why didn’t you?” Classic.

2. That same 10 year old made the mistake of leaving her favorite doll in our bed, got distracted and it was there all day. Naturally, upon discovering the forgotten doll, my husband and I did what any normal parent would do and took the doll hostage and sent our kid a list of demands. And no kidnapper worth their salt would expect anyone to pay up without proof of life, so we included a photo of the doll to prove the doll was still okay. It's probably more motivational if your kidnap victim looks scared in the photo but I'm not aware of "scared" model of American Girl dolls. Our daughter thought our little joke was funny right up until she stopped thinking it was funny. That was when we pretended we didn't know what she was talking about and began dramatically asking her when she saw the doll last and if she could describe what the dolll was wearing.

3. I have not been eating healthy for the last 4 days. It started with a 2 liter of Dr. Pepper that found its way into my husband’s shopping cart when he stopped at the grocery store. Then there was the Jimmy John’s sandwich. Then there were the Cadbury mini eggs, bowl of ice cream before bed, cake, donuts, donut holes, more Cadbury mini eggs and fried okra. My train wreck eating habits culminated in a particularly tragic trip to the Wendy’s drive thru yesterday.

True that.

If you are going to go hog wild and eat like a female that wants to wear a larger pants size, I’m here to tell you don’t waste your hog wild meal on the Wendy’s drive thru. I’m not saying it’s the worst food I’ve ever had. I’m just saying, when I feel like a hungry hippo and dream of high calorie crap I’d like to shove in my face, it’s not a Wendy’s single with cheese that I picture in my head. So it feels like a waste. Except it’s a really high calorie waste because who gets a cheeseburger with no fries. And if you’re going to get fries, you may as well make it a large. And if you’re going to be a bear, be a grizzly bear and go ahead and get you an extra large Dr. Pepper to wash it down with. My size 8 jeans were not feeling so loose this morning and it was decidedly not cool. Apparently, this female right here needs to start tracking her calories again because she’s not trustworthy winging it.

Not the family photo you frame and stick on the mantle. But it is the one that reminds me of the endearing chaos that is my life with a crowded bathroom at bedtime. I look forward to a whole weekend with this crew.

4. I am happy its Friday. I’m always happy its Friday. Today more than others for no particular reason other than being glad I don’t have to come to work tomorrow. I’m considering attaching myself to my husband all weekend to get my cuddle on. I’m also not opposed to lengthy periods of time laying in bed reading. Holla.

Where my demons hide

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 12:04:00 +0000

On some random website several months ago, I saw a discount code for a half marathon near me that fell roughly a month after my marathon. Seeing it seemed like a sign from the universe because it would end up being roughly 1 year after I ran my first half marathon. It felt good to think I’d still be capable of doing it a year later. Sort of like proof that I had successfully maintained the progress I had made on my health kick. It also seemed fitting to run it to see where I’m at in comparison with last year. So I signed up.

It felt sort of personal and mine and just a box I wanted to be able to check off inside my head. So when my husband was asking if I wanted him to drive me, I really meant it when I told him there was no need. And the day of the race he felt bad for not bringing the kids to watch and I meant it when I told him it was fine and that it wasn’t about anything like that.

I signed up by myself. Didn’t tell anyone besides my husband I was doing it. Drove myself there. Rode the bus to the starting line by myself. And then I ran it by myself. And even all of that felt like part of the process. Proof that I am strong and capable and that the drive comes from within me not from any outside source. Other people can feel proud of me. But even if they don’t, it still feels worthy and good and complete. And that matters. Because the healthy changes I’ve made in my life won’t last if the drive doesn’t come from within me. And I want the changes to no longer even be changes. I want them to be so much a part of who I am that it’s no longer a change. And that the period when I wasn’t strong and capable was actually the out of the ordinary period.

This is the face of a woman that got up early and is ready to get the show on the road.

Leading up to the half marathon, my theory was that if I ran 26.2 miles a month before, 13.1 wouldn't turn my legs to jello. So the distance seemed doable. The only question mark in my head was how fast I’d get it done.

I’ve done 2 previous half marathons and my time for both was around 2:25. I was fine with those times and mostly just proud of myself for going couch to half marathon in 6 months. So I acclimated to not caring that I am a relatively slow runner. My pace is typically somewhere between a 10 to 11 minute mile. If I’m only going 3 miles, I don’t need to save any gas in the tank and I can do 3 miles in 29 minutes. But if I’m going longer distances, this female right here saves some gas in the tank. 6 miles and my body seems to think 10:30 leaves enough in the tank. Anything over 9 and my body seems to go with an 11 minute mile. I also walk when I drink water and take bathroom breaks. 2:25 seems to incorporate all of that and that was my time.

But as this half marathon approached, I realized that I didn’t want to just prove to myself that I could still do it. I realized that it had been a year since I did 2:25. And that in that year, I’ve been persistent and continued to make progress. And that’s when I knew I really wanted to beat my 2:25 time. I started calculating what I thought I could do and what I hoped I could do. I was clearly smoking crack because when I signed up for the race I even had the nerve to list my target time as 2:15.

While training for my marathon, I didn’t do any speed training. Meaning, I never once made an effort to work on getting faster. I’m not an expert on how to get faster anyway. But I have read about different speed work exercises you can do. And I consciously made the decision that it wasn’t about speed and just focused on finishing without injury.

On the other hand, at my marathon I finished the first 13 miles in roughly 2:30 so if I didn’t have to save any gas in the tank for another 13 miles, I figured I should be capable of doing it a little faster. So beating 2:25 didn’t seem like such a pipe dream.

So then it was all about seeing if I could.

That morning was cold, dark and windy as hell. It was also super crowded. The first 3 miles were hard as always. I thought about how stupid I was for going. That I don't need to pay to run 13.1 miles and could just do that for free anytime I want. I reminded myself that I ran a marathon a month before and had nothing left to prove. I reminded myself that I was tired and had to go to work the next day and why tire myself out before another long week.

Then Demons by Imagine Dragons came on in my headphones. And that’s when I realized that’s where my demons hide. They hide right inside my head and try to tell me I can’t do stuff.

So I sang along and kept going. Because that race right there was my kingdom come.

I ran when I didn’t feel like it. I ran when my fingers were so cold I could barely get my little fruity energy chews out of the bag. I ran when the hills were sapping my will to live. I ran when the wind was 17 miles an hour blowing into our faces for half the race. I ran after shaking off having to use a port o potty with no toilet paper.

Even having walked every water station and 1 bathroom break, I was at mile 10 in an hour and 48 minutes. I knew I was a 5K from whatever my finishing time would be and that I was on pace to beat 2:25. If I ran hard I knew I could even get 2:20. I knew my time was completely up to me and that it was just a matter of how much I wanted it. If I gave up, I could even finish slower than 2:25. If I didn’t give up, a better time was mine.

That’s where my demons hide.

My demons reminded me that I don’t care about time. My demons reminded me that of course I’ve made progress since last year and I didn’t need some stupid race time to prove that. I am a marathoner. I did that. What does a half marathon matter having climbed that mountain.

That’s where my demons hide.

I started playing my stupid alphabet game naming categories of things letter by letter. My favorite category was "Words to describe my health kick." Things like tough, persistent, goal oriented. Then my brain tried to suggest I name words I used to describe myself before my health kick. And I realized calling myself negative names was sapping my pride and the power I felt to see me through this race. So I stopped at the letter F and went back to dedicated, motivated and strong.

That's where my demons hide.

And then there was only a mile left. My husband called my cell phone and I answered called out loud and pretty out of breath, “Last mile! Can't talk! Have to run!” Then I hung up and kept going.

And I thought again about how stupid it is to care about time. Finishing is winning. I'd told myself that repeatedly about my marathon. And it's only a mile. Even if I walked it at a 15 minute mile I'd probably still bring it in just under 2:25.

That’s where my demons hide.

And then it was the final ½ mile. Barricades started on either side to block us off from spectators. And I started running faster knowing this was it. If I wanted it I needed to do it and do it then. I was passing people. People that had let their demons get to them and were walking. They were in front of me before so I knew they could run and run well for over 2 hours. But they had let their demons tell them walking it in would be okay. And I wanted to shout to them that they could do it and don’t give up. But I was a panting mess. Because I was running. Running so much faster than I had been. And I pulled up that stupid mantra I made up for myself to use during my marathon. And I told myself, I am a marathoner. And I choked up realizing that this time when I said it while running, I really was. And then I felt proud and told myself the mantra I'll be able to using for the rest of my life when something is difficult, "If I can run a marathon, I can totally do this."

And there was a guy in a blue “Who do you run for?” sleeveless shirt and he was encouraging some random girl he didn’t know that had just stopped running as we was passing her. He was calling back to her, “Don’t stop now. You can do it. This is the part where you see what you’re made of.” And it was beautiful and I wanted him to just keep talking me through to the finish line. But he wasn’t going fast enough so I had to pass him. Because I was running. Still so much faster than I had been.

And then I thought I was at the finish line. Because there was scaffolding for photographers going across the top of the course and apparently I'm an idiot who think scaffolding means finish line. So I sprinted my heart out to get there. And then I saw the 13 miles marker and knew it wasn’t the finish and I’d just sprinted my heart out and had .2 miles left to go. And I felt like an idiot. A panting idiot no less. Frantically trying to catch my breath because I only had .2 miles to pull myself together. I had to decide quickly what I was going to do. Sprint again or give up.

And then I saw the finish line. The real one this time. And the sides of the chute were crammed with cheering people. And I wanted so badly to finish well and beat that time. And I said to hell with it and started sprinting my heart out again.

And I started to wonder what would happen if I couldn’t get enough oxygen. And then I wondered if I’d fall out on the floor. And I wondered if I couldn't make it and had to slow down again.

That’s where my demons hide.

But I was supposed to be running as hard as I could. And if I had time to overthink my oxygen intake and potentially falling out, I clearly wasn’t running fast enough. So I ran even faster. The entire last .1 mile I was chanting to myself repeatedly, “Run. Run. Run. Run. Run.” And in that moment as I decided to give it everything I had, that was my kingdom come.

My legs were taking the biggest strides I could and my arms were pumping as hard as they could and I was leaning and stretching forward with every step. And I ran it in as fast as I am capable of. And then it was done. 2:20. My kingdom come.

I didn’t need a time to tell me I’m not the same girl I was a year ago. I’ve lost more weight since then. I wear a smaller pants size. I’ve set intimidating goals for myself and accomplished them. I’ve fallen off the wagon with cruddy eating and gotten back on the wagon again. And I’ve continued to make it my goal to do the best I can day in and day out.

I didn’t need a special finish time to tell me how far I’ve come in the last year. I know. But it still felt really good. Wow.

This is my kingdom come.

A year from now I hope it’s not my kingdom come anymore. Because I hope I continue to progress. Because 2:20 is totally beatable. Plenty of people regularly smoke that time. But it’s about progress not perfection. And that’s what I’ve made.

Who knows? Maybe next year I’ll even do some speed work to get ready. Just thinking that puts a smile on my face. Because it means I know there will be a next time. And because it means there’s something new I haven’t tried.

This is my kingdom come.

What I Eat

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 21:08:00 +0000

I’ve had several people ask me what I eat and what I ate in the beginning when I first started losing weight. I don’t know how exciting it is or even that anyone in their right mind would want to eat the stuff that gets me through the day. I also figure it makes me look pretty nutty because I tend to eat a lot of the same things day in and day out. But it does work for me and I don’t feel like Starvin Marvin or super deprived most of the time. So if anyone’s interested, here’s a little about what I eat.

First, I have a couple rules when it comes to food and eating. They’re not complicated, but they are my guiding principles. Figure I may as well explain those upfront:

1. Breakfast and lunch can’t be super complicated. I get my breakfast and lunch ready in the morning before I rush out the door for work. I have 2 kids, 2 annoying dogs and am a chicken with my head cut off trying to be sure I get everything done. Making my breakfast and packing my lunch should not be painful or a time suck complicating my life.

2. I never portion vegetables or fruit. Everything else, I do think about portions. But never those. My favorite line on this topic is, “I didn’t get to 204.4 pounds by eating too many grapes.” My husband would be glad to tell you about the significant volume of grapes I am capable of eating like popcorn while watching crappy reality television. I don’t care. That’s my rule. And it mostly applies when I want a snack after dinner. During the day, I try not to get crazy. But that rule is doubly true for veggies and it applies to veggies all day every day. If I’m still hungry at dinner, I will eat 3 cups of cauliflower and not feel even slightly bad about it. Because its veggies and they are good for me and they are not the culprit that got size 18 jeans in my closet.

3. I never make a separate meal for myself different than the meal for the rest of my family. One family. One meal. I do the best I can. If we’re having something less healthy, I have a smaller portion and a bazillion veggies. That’s life. I want to have a normal relationship with food. I want my kids to see a normal relationship with food. Me requiring a separate meal every night for dinner is not normal. Normal is eating together and doing the best I can. Some nights that’s 4 fishsticks, a handful of tater tots and half a plate of green beans. There are two exceptions to this rule. The first exception is when we are eating leftovers. If I’m pulling all the Tupperware out of the fridge and there’s a variety of stuff. I may route the fish stick leftovers to everyone else and I’ll take the grilled chicken leftovers. So we’re eating different stuff. But it’s leftover night and I’m eating leftovers so who cares. The second exception is pizza rolls. But that has nothing to do with calories and everything to do with the fact that I hate them and my kids think they are gifts falling from heaving. When I agree to make them, my kids have been known to cheer and jump up and down. That is not a joke. They’ve really done that. This either means I am an evil wench that doesn’t agree to make them very often or they need to get out of the house more so they can learn what’s really worth cheering for. So I just find something else to heat up for myself. I usually just find some leftovers.

4. My family and I eat out. Typically on Friday night because I’m lazy and want someone else to do the dishes after a long week. But we also like a Sunday morning breakfast out sometimes. And a random trip for FroYo ain’t so bad either. I eat out with my family and I’m not the annoying female that refuses to go places because there’s nothing low cal on the menu. We decide together where we eat. I pick something relatively healthy but that I know I’ll like and will fill me up. I usually go with grilled chicken, a big salad and avoid anything that sounds too creamy. I also try to remember to participate in the meal. So if we go for Mexican, I always have chips and salsa. I also enjoy a Grande Maragarita. My theory is that life is too short to be the annoying female when you go out to dinner. I know I don’t want to eat with her so I don’t want my family to either.

Sometimes eating out with my family involves lots and lots of french fries. That's life. So is that T-shirt my husband is wearing.

5. I shoot for somewhere around 1500 calories a day. That’s regardless of whether or not I worked out that day. I like having one consistent thing to aim for. I’m lazy. That’s how I roll. Having said that, I just shoot for it. If I’m a little over or a little under, I don’t care. I just look to be in the ball park. On bad days, I don’t even aim for the ballpark anymore. On bad days, my goal is to just eat healthy stuff instead of unhealthy stuff. So on a bad day, if it will help me not hit the Whataburger drive thru, I’ll suck down 3 heaping handfuls of almonds even though I know it’s probably a bazillion calories. Getting to the end of the day having eaten only healthy stuff is better than getting out of hand with crap so I count that as a success. Because, after all, there will be plenty of really bad days that end with crap. But I like to have a goal I aim for. And I have to be able to consciously adjust the goal when the day takes a turn. And on Friday nights when we eat out, I don't count calories. I make the best choices I can and roll with it.

So those are my guiding principles. Now here’s how they end up looking in action:

My breakfast every morning for the last year or so has been 2 slices of Honey Wheat toast with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter light. I also take a lot of vitamins and suck down an entire 32 ounce cup of water with them. Before that, I used to have a banana for breakfast. My main goal with breakfast is to eat something that will leave me feeling full enough to get to my morning snack around 10:30. I once ran out of bananas and tried to have a giant bowl of watermelon for breakfast. My thinking was that I was substituting one fruit for another. I am an idiot. I was hungry 3 minutes later. It’s called watermelon for a reason. Because it’s mostly water. And water doesn’t leave me feeling full until my morning snack. During marathon training I sometimes ate half a banana before I’d leave on an early morning run. I felt better with something to eat. But it just depends on how I feel that day. But that half a banana never counts as breakfast. I always still have my regular breakfast after I get back and take a shower.

During marathon training, I also started trying to eat more protein. A chick at work had me paranoid I wasn’t getting enough. I started having egg whites sometime mid morning. Sometimes with my toast. Sometimes an hour later. I was doing 100 calories worth of egg whites with a slice of 2% American cheese melted on top. Yum. I seriously love cheese. And I especially love that egg whites are so low in calorie you can have a lot without blowing a bazillion calories. Lately I’ve started eating them again but am skipping the cheese. Some people aren’t into egg whites. I feel you. But I like them. I don’t miss the yolks. Yes, the yolk is tasty. But after awhile I don’t even miss them. To me it was like adjusting to skim milk. I like skim milk now and really don’t miss regular milk.

My mid morning snack is typically around 10:30 and it’s just about always a banana. I seriously want to flip the hell out when I discover we are out of bananas. That is not a joke. Do not take my last banana. In an effort to always have bananas, I buy them nearly every time I go to the grocery store and I always get them in varying shades of yellow and green so that I always have some that are the perfect color (I’m a yellow with a few small brown freckles kind of girl).

I don't need a sign to remind me to eat. This female doesn't forget.

Then it’s on to lunch. I like to eat somewhere between 12:30 to 1:00. If my mid morning snack isn’t holding up and I’m feeling hungry by 11:30, my stand by snack to see me through is raw carrots. I like to keep some in my lunch bag just in case. If nothing else I just keep eating them right up until 12:30 and then start eating my lunch. If I feel really hungry, I inhale enough that my jaw literally feels tired of chewing. And if I’m a busy little bee working, I may not eat any and look up and it’s lunchtime. Yeah!

I eat roughly the same thing for lunch every day and it’s a frozen burrito . It’s such a daily occurrence that the guys that sit on my floor at work like to announce “Burrito time!” when they see me headed to the microwave. I like to call it “Burrito-thirty” if I’m on the half hour. Back when I first started my health kick, I used to make my own burritos to have for lunch. I used black beans, refried beans, a bazillion tomatoes, cumin, chili powder and onion. I still love those but they require an investment of time to make them every week and a half.

My brother had an Amy’s burrito in front of me one time and it looked good. I tried it and the rest is history. I’ve been eating them every day at work for like a year. On the weekend, I wing it and eat with my family. But 5 days a week I’m captain of the frozen burrito gang. My current favorite is Amy’s Organic Southwestern Burrito with corn masa, refried beans and cheese.

I have no idea what corn masa is but I know I like it and I like it a lot. They are frozen and 290 calories. I heat it in the microwave and I am fully aware that they contain roughly five trillion grams of sodium. Please know that I’m not under the impression that is the healthiest lunch on the planet. Please know that for now I’ve made my peace with it because it’s really easy to keep on hand and pack, I really like the taste and it always leave me satisfied until dinner for only 300 calories. One of my goals is to find other simple things that I like. One of my goals is also to attempt to be a clean eater. I’m currently not. Oh well. Suck it.

My afternoon snacks vary. Some days I last all the way until my drive home after work when I eat an apple. If I’m hungry before that, I usually have more carrots and fruit, fruit and more fruit. Generally whatever fruit is in season. Sometimes its grapes. Today it was strawberries.

The ride home from work is always an apple. First, because eating an apple while driving is easy. It’s one handed. You don’t really need to look at it. You get to chew a lot while eating it which I always like. And it always does a good job curbing my hunger. The second reason I love an apple on the drive home is that it takes the edge off my hunger so that I’m not Starvin Marvin by the time I get my kids and walk in our kitchen. If I’m starving, I am 3 times more weak and susceptible to ordering a pizza for dinner or snacking like a crazy person while I make dinner. An apple in the car is a 50 calorie investment that saves me from 400 random extra impulse calories while I’m making dinner. I used to think I was spoiling my dinner. Now I think it’s just simple math.

Dinner is whatever my family is having. My husband does most of the cooking but I do cook, too. I’m also master of reheating leftovers. My husband is a carnivore to the depths of his soul so we have some sort of meat, chicken or fish almost every day. For sure we have a red meat once a week but typically twice. We also eat a lot of chicken. There’s a frozen pizza on difficult nights as we’re running late for piano. We also love a good crock pot throw down that you walk in the door and just spoon onto plates. I always eat whatever the meat is that night. And we always have a vegetable and I always try to eat a lot of the vegetable. That’s a conscious decision on my part because I’m not naturally big on veggies.

Hands down my favorite veggies are broccoli and cauliflower baked in the oven with olive oil, butter and garlic on them. I like them a nice dark brown and could eat an entire cookie sheet of them by myself. I also like asparagus and green beans. I’ve been actively been trying out new veggies. During my Whole30 experience we broadened our horizons to include brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes. They are now officially in the rotation at our house. Which reminds me to buy more sweet potatoes because my husband makes a hella tasty sweet potato hash.

The two most popular sides in our house besides veggies are rice and any kind of beans. I love both of those and pack both of them away. About the only thing I flat out skip at dinner is macaroni and cheese and the cookies my husband hands out after dinner like tic tacs because to him the meal’s not over without a little something sweet to send you on your way. I usually just start the dishes while the cookies get distributed. It doesn’t hurt that 90% of the time he’s handing out Thin Mints which I hate.

From after dinner to before I go to bed is definitely my danger zone for wanting to shove food in my face. I have several strategies to avoid this. On the most basic level though, I mostly avoid buying stuff I know I’ll want to inhale. And if I do agree to buy it, I typically buy a small size of it. For example, this is the time of year the evil people at Cadbury distribute those addictive little mini eggs that like to scream my name when I am at the grocery store. They are my kryptonite and I can suck a million down. So I only buy the little bags and if the kryptonite is making my knees extra weak I buy two small bags. Saturday, the girl at the checkout told me it was buy 2 get 1 free and I got crazy with it and left with three small bags. I ate them all. I could pretend I shared some with my kids but I won’t bother. I ate all three. That same day. There I said it. Don’t judge me. They are an evil force that cannot be denied.

Things I typically avoid buying are Oreos, parmesan flavor blasted Goldfish crackers and ice cream. All three have the ability to call my name and try to convince me that just a little won’t hurt. Which is probably a true statement unless we’re talking about “just a little” every time I enter the kitchen. Because then we’re talking 12 Oreos in a day which we can all agree is a few too many.

In the beginning I also avoided buying potato chips. My household did not appreciate the lack of potato chips entering our house and voiced this. So then I’d try to buy kinds I’m not big on. They were happy chips were entering the house so the flavor didn’t seem like a big issue. But recently, I’ve discovered they don’t call my name as much as they used to. So when they went on sale recently I loaded up and have 20 bags in various flavors in my laundry room. Doesn’t bother me. But tomorrow it might. I seem to go through phases. As an example, I gave up Dr. Pepper for like a year and it became such a habit it didn’t feel hard. Lately it’s been hard passing it up. So I’m in a crave Dr. Pepper don't care about chips phase.

My other strategy is to keep snacks I’m willing to let myself eat on hand and plentiful. This means I eat a hell of a lot of fruit. In the summer, we inhale a lot of watermelon. I like it cold and I like it cut into long sort of French fries that are easy to eat. Summer is also peach time and I buy giant bags full of them twice a week to keep us stocked. I discovered that my kids aren’t big on peaches when they have to eat it like an apple but if you cut it up they will be a black hole sucking down peaches. Red grapes are a classic and when I’m in the “eating them like popcorn” mode I buy 3 bags at a time. I wash a whole bag and put them in a big popcorn bowl. That’s partially because my kids are pigs that automatically are hungry for whatever anyone else is eating. But it’s also because I give myself permission to eat as many as I want. See rule #2 above.

But when the fruit isn’t cutting it, I also keep Special K chips and Quaker Cheddar mini rice cakes on hand. My favorite thing about both of them is that even if I get carried away and eat the whole bag/box it’s not the end of the world. Worst case, the whole thing is around 500 calories. So then I don’t have to feel guilty. My other favorite treat before bed is for when I want something that feels more like dessert. I love the sugar free pudding cups by Jello. In particular, I’m partial to the ones with a layer of vanilla in the middle of two chocolate layers. One always leaves me wanting more so I go for two. I don’t even pretend I might only want one. I take two out of the fridge, grab a spoon and plop down to watch some crappy reality television. My husband calls that “Pudding-thirty.” And for the record, I’ve tried eating 3 in a row and it was too much. It started to taste very sugar free and the magic was over three bites into the third cup. Knowing that’s how I feel about 3 makes 2 taste and feel even better. Eating two is still only 140 calories. In my book, that’s not the end of the world for something that feels like a treat and leaves me satisfied. Winning.

And that’s it. I’ve gone through other phases along the way. I was big into green smoothies for like 6 months. I went through a red pepper hummus phase. But for the most part, that’s what I eat. Could I eat better? Hell, yeah. Do I do my best? Some days. And I could definitely eat cleaner. My current projects are to find a new lunch that isn’t a frozen burrito, keep trying new vegetables and resist the siren’s call of the evil Dr. Pepper mistress. I’m a work in progress as always.

10 More Things I’ve Learned From Running: Marathon Edition

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 12:38:00 +0000

I'm pretty done talking about the marathon I ran. And if I feel done talking about it, that must mean the universe is beyond done hearing about it. But I'd hate to not mention a few things I learned along the way. Pretty sure I could ramble for days on that topic. But I managed to boil trim the rambling down to 10 that were the revelations I put people to sleep with while when I'm asked about it over the water cooler.

10 More Things I've Learned From Running: Marathon Edition:
1. Marathons are long. You think you grasp how long it is. You don’t. I’m here to tell you, you don’t. Take how long you think it is and multiply that by 4. Then add 3. Then double it. It’s just so long. Way longer than 26.2 miles. Because it includes miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of repeatedly wondering “How much further can it possibly be?”

2. Marathons are hard. They are a whole different level of hard core. I had run a half marathon before and now understand it is nothing in comparison with a marathon. To me, my marathon felt a million times harder than my half marathon. I also now feel sort of weird when someone calls it a “full” marathon. It just feels like “full” takes something away from the magnitude of it. There are halfs and there are marathons. And that is all. Respect the distance.

3. You don’t have to lose any toe nails or get any blisters. I finished my marathon with all of my toe nails intact and zero blisters. No really. My worst physical complaint other than exhaustion, tired calves and regularly wanting to die was some chafing on the backs of my arms. But that was only when I got to double digit long runs. And once I got tired of having to wear band aids on the backs of my arms for 3 days afterwards, I invested in a stick of Gold Bond Friction Defense stuff and that’s all she wrote. I use it anytime I go for a long run over 6 miles.

4. It’s fun to be able to tell people you ran one. In the days after my marathon, I ran into several people at work that I only know casually and that had no idea I run let alone that I was training for a marathon. It was fun to watch their face when I’d tell them what I did over the weekend. It was also fun to watch them sort of reevaluate their impression of me. You could sort of see on their face that they were recategorizing me in their head like I’d moved into a new bracket of crazy or something. I love that they thought they knew me and that I caught them off guard and now they had to rethink what they thought they knew.

5. Your feet will hurt. I thought I needed to worry about my calves. But my feet took the pounding for over 5 hours. They were barking by mile 23. They were baying at the moon by 26. So. Bad. Let’s agree to never speak of that pain again. But be aware lest you be crazy enough to want to run a marathon, too.

6. You can train in any kind of weather you want but mother nature controls race day and sometimes mother nature wants to torture your soul changing it up on you. I had trained in mostly cold weather. It was 66 and humid during most of my marathon. WTH.

7. If it’s your first time, just let go of time. Finishing is winning. Remind yourself of that when you lose sight of the pacer for the time you’d secretly been hoping for. Remind yourself again when you start to think about trying to catch him. And remind yourself again when you see your final finish time. It's easier said than done. But that's why you just keep reminding yourself until it sinks in.

8. There’s always someone slower than you. After passing the 13 mile marker, there was a lot of elbow room on the route. As we started spacing out more and more, I couldn’t see too many other people. I started to feel like it was because I was the slowest runner on the planet. Especially when I’d get passed by someone that looked like they were falling apart which can only mean that I was falling apart more and just didn’t realize it. The day after my marathon I looked at my official time on the race website. And then I realized that I’d actually finished just slightly slower than the average time for all females and there were plenty of people slower than me. It put it in perspective for me and then I felt kinda proud of myself. Or rather, I felt more proud of myself than I had already felt. So what if I’ll never be the fastest. I’m not the slowest either. And that's something. That's also life.

9. You will be hungry when you are done. You will be so hungry you will wonder how you will ever fill the deep cavern of hungry in your soul. Enjoy filling it without concern for calories, sugar or anything else you normally restrict. Because you’ve earned it. My dad tried to suggest driving through McDonald’s for lunch after my marathon. Um. Yeah. This girl ran a marathon and a crappy McDonald’s burger was not on the wishlist of things I pictured stuffing my face with later.

10. You don't know what you are capable of until you try. I thought I couldn't run a marathon. I thought that’s something only fit people can do. I thought that’s something only strong people can do. I thought that’s something only younger, thinner and more athletic people can do. I was wrong about a lot of things. But the most important thing I was wrong about was what I am capable of. And if I had never tried, I would never have learned that.

I wonder if they have Candy Crush in jail

noreply@blogger.com (a happier girl) — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 19:00:00 +0000

1. I spent my weekend fighting the urge to eat Cadbury mini eggs and learning how to play Plants vs. Zombies. My husband and son have been addicted to it for awhile. For everyone keeping score at home I am now on Wild West section. I know this is all riveting for people that don’t play that game. I was one of them up until yesterday. I will most likely be one of them again by Friday.

I tend to lose interest if a game on my phone gets too hard. As an example, I gave up Candy Crush at level 169 because it was sapping my will to live. I moved on to Candy Mania. It’s clearly a Candy Crush knock off but get this . . . In Candy Mania, when you get to a bone crushing level, the game sort of throws you a bone and the fates align with great pieces that help you on your way. So you’re never stuck on a level for more than 3 or 4 days.

This is in sharp contrast to Candy Crush hell where you can and will be stuck for months or until you lose your will to live. I deleted it from my phone and my life several months ago. And I am all the better for it. It’s a game on my phone. It’s not a life obstacle I need to overcome.

One of the many nutjob Plants vs. Zombie seen in her natural habitat at CVS shopping for more Cadbury mini eggs.

2. I also found time over the weekend to Google the hell out of the Real Housewives of New Jersey Guidices who recently pled guilty to fraud charges. Specifically, my over analytical brain felt obligated to read up on all the charges and what the best guess for sentencing will be. Federal sentencing guidelines are pretty specific and it was interesting reading. I also read the indictment. I’m a nerd like that. And it was educational. As an example, if she tries to claim all they did was sign paperwork without reading it, someone should ask her about the fake paystubs that were submitted with the loan application. They should also ask about the lack of tax returns they filed. In what universe does someone think they don’t have to file an income tax return?
Things I have learned about their sentencing: He’s going to jail for 3 to 4 years and hers is up in the air. She plans to argue that she shouldn’t have to do jail time because they have 4 kids and one of them should get to stay with the kids. She tried to get that written into her deal and the government wouldn't agree to it but did allow her to ask the judge to do it. While I’m sympathetic to her kids, there is no justice if that female gets a slap on the wrist. We’re talking about flagrant fraud over multiple years. We’re also talking about a woman so arrogant she went on a television show that is all about flaunting wealth. We’re talking about filing bankruptcy while you are on that show and continuing to attempt to commit fraud and continue to spend, spend, spend.

That offends me. Send them both to prison. Send her first and let him stay with the kids until she’s done. Or send them both at once. I’m just not that sympathetic to her. If your kids suffer, it’s because you brought that on. You made the choices that got you there. No one else. I don’t wish anything bad for her kids. I don’t wish bad things for anyone’s kids. But it just doesn't seem fair that someone without kids would get jail time but because you have kids you get to escape that punishment. What if it was a violent crime? Does that same stupid rule apply to lowering the sentence for someone with a kid. Because if you are violent, it sucks to be your kid but you need to be locked up. I also think parents that make mistakes have a responsibility to their children to show them how to woman up and accept responsibility for your actions.

3. In other Real Housewives news, I’m officially over Kenya and Porsha on Atlanta. Kordell made a little guest appearance and remains just as cray as ever. Too bad there wasn’t anyone there to explain that to him during his scene so he mostly just told us about the great injustice of his marriage. I’m not sure what universe he lives in but there’s very little injustice when the most egregious complaint you can come up with is that his mother in law sat in a chair in his master bedroom eating pizza. I feel confident he thought he was doing damage control to his reputation in that scene. I feel confident he's wrong.

4. I successfully turned my ankle Sunday while on my long run. I often fretted about the possibility of turning my ankle while I was training for my marathon. I recall during the cold weather mud run with my husband I told him he’d never hear the end of it if I turned an ankle. Months later, it was an acorn on the sidewalk that got me. Danger lurks around every corner.

Grande Margaritas keep the danger away. Unless the danger is your husband making weird faces at you.

5. Naturally, I went ahead and finished my long run despite the turned ankle. It felt okay so I kept going. Later that night, while positioning the ice pack on my foot, I wondered if I should have maybe stopped. Eh. Who knew.

This is the face of a woman that's been drinking a Grande Margarita.

6. My “long run” was 10 miles. That is a post marathon “long run” which means it’s not 26 miles so it felt relatively short. I haven’t really decided what my idea of “long run” will be moving into the future. It’s important to me to hang on to the ability to run even though I’m going to be trying new things for My Year of Muscle. I fought too hard learning how to run. So I’m not willing to let it go. One theory has been to alternate 6 miles one week and 9 miles the next week. I’m still trying to decide.