It’s August first! I finished off my July goals yesterday, and started developing new goals for August.

How’d I do in July? Not too bad. I didn’t keep up with the exercising like I planned, but I did manage at least an hour of hooping almost every day. I almost figured out chest hooping, too. I only drank one soda (special circumstances– We got some Vernor’s from MI), and I followed through on my water goals. The walking fell short. I underestimated how hard it is to take a three year old out walking. She gets easily distracted, and gets easily disappointed if we aren’t heading straight to the nearest park.

For my measurements…

Waist- 38″

Hips- 40″

Thighs- 22.5″

Weight- 177.4 lbs

All together, I lost 7.5″ across the three areas, and about 3.5 lbs. Good enough.  Overall, July was a success, and I’m happy with my progress.

Today is the first day of August. It’s going to be a very busy month. We have a trip (or two, possibly) to the State fair, two family reunions, and our week-long trip to Plymouth. When figuring out goals, I had to keep all of that in mind. There won’t be a lot of time for extra exercise.

With that in mind, here are my August goals:

• Four bottles of water daily
• 45 minutes of hooping daily
• Eat healthier. Fewer sweets, more fruits and veggies.

Just like last month, I’m not setting any weight loss goals. We’ll just see what happens. I’ll still fit in actual exercise where I can. I am one month away from being able to actual start dieting (lightly), so this month, I’m just warming up to the idea a bit.

I made a deal with my husband. If I work hard and get bikini-ready by next spring, he’s buying me a bikini from Victoria Secrets. Not that it took much to convince him, of course. I’ve never comfortably worn a bikini before, but I’d like to. That gives me eight or nine months to drop just over 30 pounds. Easy. I’m also thinking a couple shirts (also from VS– have you seen the amazing things those shirts can do for the, uhm, ladies?) may also be necessary. And some new jeans (not from VS).

I’m giving myself more time than I need, so I know I can do this. Even if I only drop 5 pounds a month, I can still reach my goal in time. I want this, and I’m going to make it happen.

I’m a bit past the halfway point in my July goals. I forgot to take official before pictures, but I have a few I might be able to use. My starting weight was 181. My measurements were:

Hips– 44″

waist– 40″

Thighs– 24″

I have been more or less keeping up with everything. No soda, and I’ve managed to drink all of my water. I’ve hooped every day except maybe one or two. I’ve missed a few days of exercise, but I think it’s evened out overall.

As for the walking… My pedometer is dead, and I keep forgetting batteries. It’s also been hotter than hell most days. But, when we can get out to walk, we do. And we’ve visited several state parks, with plenty of hiking involved.

I have dropped another belt hole. One more hole, and I’ll need to find a smaller belt. For reference, the thing didn’t fit at all for the first 3 weeks after Fiona was born. I’m making progress. Yay!

Last Saturday was my two month hoopiversary. I’m still loving it, and I am so much closer to chest hooping than I was at the beginning of the month. It almost stays up, even if it does clunk around my body more than it glides. It’s better than hitting an arm and dropping like a rock. There’s a new hooping group starting up locally, and I’ll be going there on Saturday. I’m also attending the Ithaca hoop troupe regularly. Both are very family-oriented, so Becca gets to meet a lot of kids her age, too. And she’s even picked up a few of her own hoop tricks.

I’m working on piecing together my first hooping video, and possibly helping Becca make one as well. I’ve come a long way in two months of hooping. I want to record where I am now, so I can look back a few months from now to see how far I’ve come. I’ll be ordering my second hoop in September, one that is smaller and lighter than the one I currently have. Early next spring, I’ll be ordering my LED hoop.

I don’t want to commit to a blog post between now and the end of July, but I’ll see what happens. I’ll be putting up the results post as soon after August 1st as I can.

In the mean time… Look! Kittens!!

Okay. Forget it. The darn thing isn’t posting right. Want cute kittens? Go here: http://youtu.be/bTLgeqCaYMY

Beautiful sandy beaches.. Here I come!

It’s nearly the first of July. For the past week, I’ve been working out the details for my July challenge, and I think I’ve got it.

We booked our reservations for camping last night, so there’s no going back. I either work hard, and look better in a swim suit, or I slack and have to deal with wishing I could hide in the sand instead of enjoying the surf. This isn’t a crash diet, or an attempt to lose 30 pounds in a month. I’m not even focusing on losing weight. It’d be nice, but that’s not my goal.

I want to tone and slim. I want to gain some definition in my arms and shoulders, tighten my thighs, and shed a few inches from my waist and hips. I finally have time to exercise, so that will be the main focus of this challenge. I’ll also be focusing on eating healthier, but that’s a side point. I already eat fairly healthy anyhow, and I usually keep within my calorie recommendations.

July Challenge:

First Phase (July 1-16)

• 350 calories burned daily
• 10 minutes of strength training
• 30 minutes of hooping daily
• 15,000 steps/week (7.5 miles)
• 3 bottles of water daily (Each bottle is 27 oz.)
• No Soda

Second Phase (July 17-31)

• 450 calories burned daily
• 20 minutes of strength training
• 45 minutes of hooping daily
• 20,000 steps/week (10 miles)
• 4 Bottles of water daily
• No Soda

The second half of the month is going to be a bit more of a challenge. Also, I’ll be blogging once a week to keep myself accountable for the work.

I don’t want to worry about my weight or the progress I’m making during the month. I’m taking all of my measurements on Thursday (the 30th), and then asking my husband to hide the scale and measuring tape. On August first, I’ll get them back and check my progress. I’ll also be posting before and after pictures.

I don’t want to fail. I love the ocean, and I don’t want to spoil it by feeling self conscious. I know that 30 days isn’t long enough to work miracles, but it’s long enough to make a difference. It’s long enough to tighten and tone. And it’s long enough to make a regularly active lifestyle (in a scheduled exercise sense) more of a habit.

As a side note, I love the idea of monthly challenges. If this works out, I might pick a new challenge for August.

It’s been nearly four months since Fiona joined our family. Four months that have passed at an impossibly fast rate. Having two girls keeps me on my toes, and off of my blog, unfortunately. I have a half dozen uncompleted posts sitting in my queue, and nothing finished up enough to post.

Things are great. Fiona sleeps and eats like a champ. We’ve cheated a bit, and she’s already tried yogurt, ice cream, whipped cream and she’s gnawed a bit on a banana. She’s more than ready for actual food, but we’re going to hold off until the official 4 month mark. Becca was the same way– she snuck a bite of my sandwich when she was Fiona’s age. I was holding it up, turned my head, and she was happily working through the bit of peanut butter and jelly she managed to get.

Work is a bit more of a challenge than it used to be. I need to stop waiting until the actual due date to get things done. Fiona and Becca both try extra hard to distract me on my busy work days… Last week, Fiona even went so far as to give up naps for the day. Fun!!

As a family, things are smoother now than they were with only one child. Fiona fits right into our lifestyle. She even loves all of the hiking we’ve been doing lately, which is great because Mark and I have decided to see how many State Parks we can get to this summer. We’re at two now, and our goal is 25-30. With all of this hiking, I’m hoping that this will help me drop some of these extra pounds…

Which is important because… VACATION!!!!

We had a few different ideas for vacation(s) this summer. Visit Mark’s family in Michigan? Spend a few days down visiting my sister (and going to the Bronx zoo)? Camping? Michigan was passed on because of the cost, but we still wanted a week’s vacation somewhere, so we looked more into camping. Lake George area? Maybe. And then I looked into campsites near my sister. Finally, while looking at the map, I realized that if we’re going to drive 3-4 hours to the downstate area (where the sister lives), we might as well add a couple more hours, and go somewhere really awesome. (Sorry, Shannon.)

In the middle of August, we’re packing up the girls and a week’s worth of supplies, and heading off to the beach! We found a campground right outside of Plymouth, MA, at $12 a night. We’ll be about 10 minutes from the beach, an hour from Boston (we’re spending a couple days there), and we’re really close to Cape Cod. I’m beyond excited.

Of course, this means I have about nine weeks to feel a bit more confident in a swimsuit. (YIKES!) That means extra hooping (hula hoops are awesome for toning your torso. I’m already seeing great results.), and a 31 day challenge.

There are 31 days in July. I’ll be posting before pictures on the day before, regardless of how scary they look. Starting on the first, I’ll be concentrating on kicking up my daily exercise. I’ve been doing 10 minutes or so a day, in addition to hooping, but I want to see if I can find time to do more. I’ll set weekly goals (and a monthly step goal– time to dig out the pedometer), and then try to keep up with regular updates here. This is going to be a challenge, but it’s only 31 days. I can do anything for 31 days.

On the morning of August 1st, I’ll be posting my after pics (and reposting the before pics, for comparison). While I’m not expecting miracles (I won’t be sporting a bikini at the beach), I do want to see how far I can get. This will be a great way to get a little further on my overall goals. My goal is to hit my ideal weight by Thanksgiving, and that’s a lot closer than it sounds, especially when I can’t cut back on calories because I’m breastfeeding.

It’s going to be a busy summer. And I can’t wait!

I started writing this post on March 6th… I am finally posting it now, 20 days later. Things have been… busy. That, and trying to type with both a laptop and baby in your lap is a challenge.

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Fiona joined our family on Tuesday, March 1st, at 1:38 in the afternoon. She weighed 7 lbs, 13 oz., and was 20.5″ long.

Tuesday started off like every other day of the week or two before it. No contractions, and no other signs of what was to come. Then, right around 11:30, I started feeling what I assumed were braxton hicks contractions. Not entirely painful, but they were enough for me to notice them. After a couple, I started timing them– 3-4 minutes apart, each lasting around 45 seconds. Most moms-to-be would be grabbing their bags and heading to the hospital. I, on the other hand, was even more convinced that this wasn’t the real thing. They came from nowhere…  No build-up, no hours spent timing them as they went from 15 minutes apart to less than 5 minutes apart.

Thinking that these might at least lead to the real thing, I told Mark that he might want to fix lunch and start getting Becca ready. I went in to shave my legs (that was the one thing that bothered me when Becca was born– I hadn’t had the chance to shave my legs in the week or so leading up to her birth). By the time I got done, less than 10 minutes later, I told Mark to call the doctor and then my dad and step-mom. We might need to be checked out.

Dad and my step-mom showed up 10 minutes later. We left immediately after, checking into the hospital shortly after 1:00. Fiona was born a half hour later, 15 minutes after my doctor arrived. The whole thing, start to finish, lasted right around two hours. No time for pain medications. When she was handed to me, I was still in shock. What happened to the epidural and normal labor I had been hoping for (and counting on)?

We went home the following day. Becca was having fun with her Aunt Sam, but I missed her and was more than ready to get out of the hospital. This is our fifth day home, and we’re settling into a bit of a routine. Becca is sleeping better than usual in her own bed (less middle-of-the-night waking), and she’s eager to help out wherever she can. Fiona is very easy-going, and is willing to sleep in her playard, rocker, and almost anywhere else she is set. This is a huge change from Becca, who insisted on being held non-stop from the time she was a few hours old. It might change in the next few weeks, but right now, it’s making things so much easier.

Our family is settled in, and adjusting well to being a little bigger. Things are going well. There have been a few challenges, with our new big sister and with trying to re-acclimate to having a newborn in the house, but I’m loving (almost) every minute. 

I am 38 weeks and three days pregnant. My hospital bag is packed, Becca’s hospital bag (filled with snacks and toys) is ready to go, and Mark swears that he’s doing his bag today. I finished the last bit of my work for maternity leave last night, unless one client miraculously comes through with the information for a blog post in the next day or so.

Today, I am spending the day getting some housework done. Sweeping, mopping, vacuuming… The floors are the big problem right now, just because I haven’t had the chance to give them a real cleaning in a while. Mark… spot cleans. Which I appreciate, but I would really like to get things cleaned up. And I’ve heard that mopping and vacuuming can get things going. I also need to clean up the bathrooms, which Mark gets to help with. He gets to use the real chemicals.. I’ll be doing the easy stuff.

I’m also going to spend some time relaxing and hanging out with Becca. With me pushing to get my writing done the last week or two, I haven’t had much time to spend with her. Last night we cuddled up to watch The Lion King, and tonight we’re watching one of the Princess movies. I don’t know what else we’ll be doing yet, but I do want to make sure we get some quality time in. Tomorrow, I am replacing a snapped guitar string and getting some play time in, if I’m lucky. We’re also going to be doing a whole lot of walking. I have an appointment Friday, and I’m hoping for some good news.

I am ready to go. I’d like a day or two to rest, but we’re prepared now. Finally. Everything is set up, we actually have diapers and wipes, and the clothes and blankets are all washed and taken care of. We got a new washer last week, so I’ve been doing a lot of laundry, just for the excuse to play with my new toy.

Just because I am ready to go now, it’ll probably be a while before anything exciting happens. If I waited, and had nothing ready at all, she’d be here already. lol. That’s okay, though, because I’m ready for a few days free before we return to life with a newborn.

Happy Top Five Tuesday! By the end of the day, I will officially be on maternity leave. I have four and a half articles to go, and then I am done.

Because I work from home, I’m scheduling myself to be back to work, officially, in five weeks (starting at the end of next week). I’m finishing up this week’s work early, so I can get a little more time off. Then, when I do come back, I have it set up so I start some clients right off, and the rest are spread out over the following few weeks, letting me ease back into work.

This means I have five weeks, and then some, of time off. After the first few weeks of adjusting to having a new baby in the house, I can actually start planning out some stuff I want to get done.

1. Catch up  on some of the movies I’ve missed lately, both on cable and out for rent. Also, watch a few of the series I’ve been meaning to get started on, and just haven’t yet.
2. Read. I have over 100 books sitting on my Kindle, just waiting for me to get started on them. As the Kindle is light and easy to read with one hand, I’ll be doing this while holding Fiona. Most likely in the middle of the night.
3. Practice with my mandolin and keyboard. I haven’t had a chance to play the mandolin without my bump in the way. I’m looking forward to the difference, and I know Fiona already loves music; she usually is most active when I’m practicing. I also want to get a little further in my piano lesson books.
4. Spend time with my family. In the past month or two, between getting everything ready for Fiona, Mark’s work and my writing, we haven’t had much of a chance to just hang out together. I’m looking forward to that.
5. Get started on pilates and yoga, as soon as I can. This won’t be happening until Fiona’s a few weeks old, and I’ll be starting out with post-natal exercise DVDs, but it will still be nice to get back to exercising. Starting in the end of April, I’ll be kicking it up a bit and adding in Zumba and some Jillian Michaels.

It sounds like a lot for five weeks, especially as I’ll be readjusting to no sleep and having two kids in the house instead of just one. The only one I’m iffy about is the exercise, and that’s probably the one I need the most. I need to get started again so I can be ready for the more strenuous exercise after my six week check-up.

It’s been a couple weeks. My only excuse is that I have been beyond busy. And when I’m not busy, I’m too tired to come up with a decent blog post idea. Or I have an idea, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

I am about half-way through week 37. Becca was born the day before week 39. We’re thisclose and I am mostly ready. I’m still trying to finish up work, but the actual baby gear is all in place. She has clothes, and washcloths, and burp clothes… I was actually a bit panicky over the burp cloth thing. We just get the cheap cloth diapers, and then use them for everything the first couple of months. Baby with an upset stomach? Out-of-control leaky boobs? Spilled juice on the side table while trying to balance a baby, book, and TV remote? Grab a cloth diaper! Problem solved. The thought of not having any was kinda terrifying. Fortunately, Walmart carried a brand close to what I was looking for, and I just found a couple of our old ones.

Our new washer was delivered this morning. It’s nice. It’s big. And I can’t wait to try it out. It needs to warm up a bit first, so it’ll be this afternoon before I can actually start washing anything. Eventually, we’ll be getting the matching dryer (hopefully in the next month or so). We had money set aside for it, and then my laptop battery finally died the rest of the way. If the cord even came a little loose, the laptop shut itself off, instantly. It made work a bit difficult, so we finally took the plunge and got a new one. It’s smaller than my old one, and the keyboard is taking a bit of getting used to, but it works! It has almost 8x the speed as the old one, and 4x the space. In practical terms, I can now run Word, Chrome and a photo editing program all at once without my computer threatening to explode. I can also use Skype, which wouldn’t even download right on the old one. I got a bluetooth adapter, a headset, and a few other accessories, along with a printer. We haven’t had a printer in three years. I’ve missed it.

Between the rest of the baby stuff, a surprise car repair, the laptop and the washer, our tax refund is gone. It lasted all of four days, which is fine. We always put it towards big purchase for the home. A few years ago, it was a couch, couple of recliners, and a bed. Before that, it was a TV, sound system and camcorder. All of the big purchases are saved for tax season, and it works for us.

We’re still working on getting Becca to stay in her bed all night. She sleeps there without a problem, but she wakes up 3-4 times during the night and has to come get me to get back to sleep. It’s not as bad as it was, but I’d still like uninterrupted sleep at least one night before Fiona arrives. She’s really doing great, though, and I’m so proud of her. She still finds her way back into our bed by 5:30 or 6:00 every day, but I’m okay with that. I enjoy the hour of cuddling before she’s ready for us to get up and start our day. It’s a nice way to start the day.

Becca has a beautiful Princess toddler bed. It’s comfortable, it has matching sheets, blankets and pillowcases (also princess, of course), and it’s big enough for her and an armful of stuffed animals.

And she would just as soon not take her naps there. This is an almost daily struggle. Some days, I am insistent (the days when I have stuff to do in the rest of the house, and don’t want to keep her up). Other days, I don’t care. As long as she sleep somewhere, I am a happy mom.

For this week’s Top Five Tuesday, here are the places Becca would rather sleep:

1. The couch. Give her some pillows, blankets and a movie, and she’ll happily fall asleep, as long as there is nothing else better going on.
2. A recliner. Like above, put on a movie, and she won’t complain. She’ll just nod off, if she’s tired enough,
3. The floor. We have an area rug in the living room that seems to work well for naps. She uses it whenever she really, really doesn’t want a nap. She’ll sneak around to grab toys (thinking I can’t see her), or maybe she figures that it’s too uncomfortable for her to actually fall asleep on. As it happens, the floor works better than the couch or chair to actually get her to sleep. Strategy fail, kiddo. Might want to think this one through a bit more.
4. Under the table. Yep. She hides from me (to avoid her nap) and ends up falling asleep anyhow. I’ve even caught her snoozing under her kid-sized table a couple times.
5. Our bed. If Mommy or Daddy need a nap, too (and don’t want to be woken up after one of her much-shorter naps), we’ll cheat a bit and let her take a nap with us. It doesn’t happen very often, but it always works. She’ll sleep a couple hours (if not longer) and we get to catch up on some much-needed sleep at the same time. Win-win.

Yesterday’s choice was the living room floor, at her insistence. I almost felt bad for her, no pillows (her choice) and only half on the blanket she spread out, but this is so much easier than fighting to get her into her own bed, so it works.

Our New Playard

After eight months of procrastination, we are now in full baby buying mode. We have a pile of baby stuff on our coffee table, and more stuff stacked beside it. And we’ll be ordering more in the next week.

Today’s big adventure was driving to Syracuse to get the playard. Babies-R-Us are having their trade-in event right now. In exchange for Becca’s old (broken and recalled) crib, we received a coupon for 25% off the playard we wanted. We also picked up a couple smaller things (including an adorable ‘Babies 1st St. Patrick’s Day’ bib). We stopped for lunch (found a McDonald’s with a play area), and then brought it home to set up.

And that’s when the problems started. I managed to get 75% of it done myself, within 15 minutes. Nice and easy. Then it came time to fasten on the changing table part. The cloth cover for the main bassinet part doesn’t quite fit in a couple areas, which was causing problems. It’s a bit too small. And the parts to the changing table don’t quite line up and hook on the way they’re supposed to. We managed to get it, but it was frustrating.

Then we tried to move the playard into the bedroom. Portable my ass (sorry kids). We couldn’t get one side to fold up, so we had to fight with it again. It barely fit through the bedroom door. As soon as we did get it through, Mark and I declared that it was staying right where it was for a few months. Neither of us are in a big hurry to try all of that again. It is nice, though, and very pretty. It it wasn’t such a pain to set up and move, we’d be absolutely thrilled.

In the next couple of weeks, we’ll be ordering the crib, glider, breast pump and changing table. We’ll also be getting all of the approximately 1,000 smaller items babies require. And then, we’ll be done. I’m hoping to have everything in place within the next three weeks, just so I know we’re ready to go before we need to be (although, even three weeks is cutting it kinda close).

A lot of it we may not need, really, (like the adorable pink skirt from Target that I have fallen in love with), but a lot of it, we do. Bibs, for example. I have decided that bibs are a one-time use item. They aren’t meant to be used for more than one child. Becca was kind of rough on hers, so we need to get all new ones. Socks are another one-time use item, because they are tiny, and who can actually keep track of them for the 2-3 months they are used, much less the 2-3 years between children?

This influx of stuff means that we need to get serious about cleaning and organizing. It took a while this morning to find room in the bedroom for the playard. It’s going to take a couple hours to clear out Becca’s room (Becca and Fiona’s room now, I guess) to make space for the crib and changing table. The good news is that, once we get done, we should have a clean and organized home to go with it.

You know, theoretically…