It is a difficult thing to love your body.  I know of only a few who truly do.  This year I have worn a two-piece bathing suit (that bares my belly) for the first time since… EVER!  I’m 37, how did this happen?!  I look back at pictures and sigh because I thought I was fat THEN.

I’m blessed that my body works, my feet can dance, my arms can carry groceries, my hands can write. Yet, I often fail to appreciate those things.  When I was pregnant, and acutely aware of the power of my body, one of my mantras was, “my body was made to do this”.  Now I use the same mantra in spin class.  I was hit by a car when I was six years old. I spent three months recuperating, but I did. I healed to be a happy healthy kid whose body functions as intended.

We are so hard on ourselves, why? Wouldn’t we be happier if we accepted our bodies for their limitations, but worked within them to make them the strongest and healthiest possible? I think so.

You are young, vibrant, healthy. Love your body, you are beautiful!!!

For those who want to know the math: 400 discs with approximately two hours of entertainment (a serious average, not including the extra features) that’s 48000 minutes of footage. That’s somewhere around 67 twelve hour days of constant DVD viewing. Whew! Over two months of couch-potatoism. I’m not saying we couldn’t do it (ha!) but truly how? If we watched three hours every night it would take us 267 nights, nearly two-thirds of a year. Wow. (By the way I hope, since I’m posting this to the world, that I did the math right!)

When people find out how long our queue is they ask how I hear about all the movies. JD often asks the same thing after we watch yet another Indie flick that wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. I find titles a few ways.

1. I watch the Oscars every year and keep a running list of what looks interesting, wins awards and/or has Hollywood buzzing.
2. I read entertainment news online and notice titles of films from Cannes (or other festivals) that garner much praise.
3. I pay attention online or in person when a friend or aquaintance mentions a good film.
4. I troll the Netflix site for “because you liked _______ you might like ______” type recommendations.
5. I see TV shows that look good but are either on channels we don’t get (HBO, Showtime) or the show has already been on for years and we are slow to come around to it (24 is a perfect example of that).

For us that’s pretty much how it works. It has ended up for some reason that I mostly post to the queue. JD has been encouraged many a time and does select some. He has also learned to bump up what he wants to see because the end of the list never seems to get to the top, because it keeps growing…

The little girl and I recently returned from a trip out west. Due to a savvy case worker and a six hour road trip we were able to reconnect with the children over lunch and a playdate at the park. Let me say this, there are alot of things wrong with CPS and the foster care system, but any social worker willing to drive six hours (each way) with three small children in one day so that we could all see each other gets some kudos in my book. We drove from WA, they drove from CA and we met in OR. As soon as the kiddos saw each other they were instantly “best cousins” all over again. At lunch they were making potty jokes, giggling and telling stories. The youngest babe sat on my lap and ate fries. It was delightful. After we filled our bellies we headed to the park.

We lucked out and it was a fabulous sunny day. We had packed snacks, sand toys, sidewalk chalk, and bubbles. They ran, swung on the swings, spun around, shot basketballs, blew bubbles, slid down the slide(s), traced each other in chalk, hopped hopscotch, and smiled for the camera. We were able to savor this family bliss for about 2.5 hours. It was not long enough. I had to make a conscious effort not to cry when it was time to say good-bye. I knew if I started they would follow and that would just be bad all the way around. We gave them gifts to play with on the car ride back to CA, we blew kisses and the social worker made promises of trying to get a visit to NC this summer. And instead of my heart breaking while saying good-bye, it grew. It grew as only a parent’s (guardian, care-giver) heart can. It grew the size of four small children (including our own dear sweet little girl) ranging in age from seven to one. It was great to see them all smiling, happy and healthy.

It was good to reconnect. Aug. 10th is the next court date.

A few things made the shift to letting her watch a little easier. 1) JD gets home later than he used to.  So their time together was taking a hit. 2) The little girl was starting to do the bedtime procrastination thing.  All parents and caregivers are familiar with it. The dawdling, the requests for water, time in the bathroom, did I mention dawdling?  It was pushing bedtime further and further (closer to my prime-time viewing actually). And by allowing her to watch Wheel of Fortune both of these things were solved.  JD watches with her and it has become one of their special things.  Be careful if you watch with them, you can’t just blurt out the puzzle if you think you know.  Our rule has become that she has to be ready for bed (jammied up and teeth brushed) before she can watch.  Done.  Easy Peasy.

It’s hilarious to watch with her.  She’ll usually comment on Vanna’s lovely dress (the color, how sparkly, how long it is).  Then she does what we all did.  It’ll be a five word puzzle and they’ve called T,H and E. “I know, it’s something, something, THE, something, something, something”.  I’m not even kidding.  That’s exactly what she says.  And I laugh EVERY time.  She was shocked to learn that when mommy watched the show as a little girl Vanna had to actually turn the letters.  It took some explaining, but she was impressed.

Another generation of Wheel.  Merv would be proud.

I know how to do this, really, I’ve done it before. How could I forget the drinking water part?

To be perfectly honest I’m not much of a beverage girl. We have coffee in the morning, but if Jeremy didn’t want it I wouldn’t make it. As a kid I had milk or water with meals, but now I don’t. I don’t crave milk, juice or soda. I drink diet soda instead of grabbing a handful of cookies. And I often forget about water altogether. One of the things I often forgot in the first weeks of working out at the gym was my water bottle. After paying over $1 a bottle for water whenever that happened I quickly caught on to remembering my Sigg bottle. At home I rarely have a glass of water. At the nanny family’s house I’m more apt to keep a cup of ice water around (not sure why it’s easier there).

I do know however that in order to get the pounds off the scale (and my thighs) I’ve got to drink a decent to significant amount of water. For me the important time is after dinner. I usually want to munch something while hanging out in front of the TV. If I drink 2-3 glasses of water between 8-11pm I see a difference on the scale. No lie. This of course is in addition to working out and tracking my calories.

It makes sense, it’s just something I tend to forget. So I’m here to remind you, just add water. 

Today is a perfect example of why I should take a scale break. I weighed first thing this morning, as per above and the scale produced a lovely number, I was thrilled. Oh happy day the new plan is working. Then I showered, dried off, blew my hair dry and just before I got dressed I wanted to see that beautiful (confirming) number again. The second time around the number was increased by 1.5. *sigh* seriously?  Where did my fabulous number go? I had seen the second number several times. There is nothing magical about the second number. Hm… maybe that means there’s nothing magical about the first number either. And why should how I feel be dictated by a number?

Then I saw this quote and it made me think that my days on the scale may be numbered (no pun intended)

“Balance is what you find when you step off the scale”

2100 calories on “rest” days

2400 calories on workout days, workouts ~500 calories, 5 days out of seven

This takes alot of trust on my part. Trust isn’t exactly my strong suit (stop laughing!) and 2400 calories sounds like, feels like and is more calories than it seems like should work. We’ll see.

2000 calories a day, 500 calorie workouts at least five times a week. This for twelve weeks.

Food is fuel.

Work-out #1 is complete, looking forward to workout #2 tomorrow. 

Strong, healthy girls! (By the way this what I tell our daughter when she asks why we go to the gym, “Because we need to be strong, healthy girls”)

I’m halfway to my original goal, ok, maybe more like three-fifths.  Still, I’ve got a ways to go.  Even though I’m extremely proud of my results thus far I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with myself if I settled.  So here’s to not settling!  Here’s to not being afraid of swimsuit season!  Here’s to being a strong healthy woman (and an example to our daughter).

Oh! did I mention I’ve committed to a 5K in May.  Yikes!

I don’t know that I’m siding with him so much as cutting him some slack.  Running a household is a job.  The schedules, shopping, maintenance, cleaning, childcare, it’s a huge job.  Ideally every home and family would have it’s own version of nanny/admin/housekeeper, but they don’t and these tasks fall to the adults in the family.  So what happens when one of the adults is out of town? Why is it expected that when someone else has to do that job that they would be able to step up to the plate immediately and hit a home run?  Why should we expect everything to be the same with someone else in charge?

If I had to do my spouses job I would be utterly useless, and that would be just figuring out the parking.  I don’t know how to run a team, read office politics, let alone the actual brainiac work that is IT Management.  So why then when I go away should I expect that he would know how to run the house like I do?  And why is how I do it the right way?

Honestly, from the time I started leaving for a weekend (when the baby was two years old) I was so thrilled at the thought of not being responsible for anyone else for two whole days that I didn’t really care what I came home to.  I’m happy that I have a husband who works a job that provides us with the cushion of enjoying extra things like weekends away.  Sometimes I take flak for prepping the pantry, laying out snacks, putting a casserole in the fridge, or planning an activity for them before I leave.  But isn’t this similar to what the teacher does for the substitute?  Wouldn’t I need some direction if I had to walk into an unfamiliar building and run a business?  If even for a day?

It’s my job to know that Friday is Spirit Day at school and our daughter needs to wear blue and a funny hat.  It’s my job to pack a nutritious lunch and have the pantry stocked so I can do so.  It’s my job to know the name, number and location of the vet.  It’s my job to know where all the vital household documents are. I’m on-call if the child gets sick at school.  Why is it my job?  Because we talked about it before we got married.  I’m a traditional gal and we decided that whoever could make the most money would work and whoever didn’t would stay home.  Most of the time I’m content to do it and yet like everyone else in their job it’s a grind sometimes.  I’m pretty sure though that no one else is signing up for it so it’s all mine.   Gotta love job security.