Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Thank you Peapod!

Thank you Peapod grocery delivery for doing my grocery shopping for me. Thank you for delivering beautiful produce right to my door. Thank you for not tempting me with tortilla and potato chips. I hope you return soon.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Is that really my butt??????

After I had SB I noticed a distinct change in the distribution of fat on my body. Instead of it just hanging out on my lower stomach it seemed to migrate to my upper stomach, my butt and my thighs. I can remember that in those first few months after having him I would sometimes think that I could actually feel the fat growing on my thighs. So much for that whole notion of breast feeding helping you to lose weight. I can't say that I've felt the same way now that I've had QT but although I haven't felt anything I can see it. Right now, today, I weigh less than I did when I got pregnant with QT and yet my butt is quite a bit bigger. Yesterday I took SB to the air show down at the lakefront. It was a mommy and me day for him as my mom took care of QT. We had fun just walking around, sitting and watching the planes and eating ice-cream. On our long trek back to the car we passed by some glass office buildings and I did a double take to make sure the fat woman I saw in the glass was really my reflection. Everything, and I mean everything, was giggling. When I get dressed in the morning I look in the mirror and don't think that the front view is too bad, or the back view but the side view is hard to take and my reflection was the side view and it was moving. It was a depressing moment and a horrible end to what had been a very enjoyable afternoon. All this begs the question what am I going to do about it?

Monday, July 20, 2009

The Hours

Some days drag on and on and it seems as though the end of the work day will never come. Today was not that kind of a day. Today I looked at my clock and was shocked to see it was past 12:30 when I honestly didn't even think it had hit 10:30 yet. We are in the midst of a big system upgrade at work which equals extra work for me. At the same time a co-worker is on maternity leave and so that too equals extra work for me. Honestly, I'm busy but I'm also enjoying it. I can remember after I had SB and I was home on maternity leave thinking about how much I'd love to be a stay at home mom. Not returning to work was not an option but what I found after I did return was that I had actually missed my job. Being a mother gives me a huge sense of purpose but not in the same way that my job does. I think that could be because the reward is so much more immediate at work. As a mom my reward will be seeing SB grow up into a great young man but every day at work when I accomplish something it is rewarding. Also, upon realizing that I have at least 30 more years of work to look forward to I thought it might be a good idea to make certain that my work is not boring but instead challenging and more of a career than just a job.

One thing about working that is not so rewarding is the amount of food I've been eating there lately. A while back my boss instituted hour long lunches. Previously we had the option of taking half an hour or an hour depending on how late we wanted to work. With only a half an hour most days I tended to not go out to lunch all that often and it's way easier to eat better when I pack a lunch. Now that I'm forced into taking an hour lunch everyday it just tempts me everyday to go out to lunch and going out to lunch only leads to eating things like Real Chili, chicken pitas, tacos, tuna melts, etc.

Today I had another blood draw to have my Coumadin levels checked. If I have a good reading I won't have to go back for another for an entire month. Please keep your fingers crossed for me and help me to get up the nerve to ask the nurse if I'll really be able to stop taking it altogether come October. I've seen a ton of pregnant women the last few days and it makes me want another baby all the more. I have adjusted to putting our baby making on hold but in my mind we'll be able to start again come October so I'm not prepared to hear anything other than that.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Getting Warmer

I read something yesterday which just made so much sense to me and it got me to wondering if every question we're faced with can really be answered by answering one simple question. The simple question is am I getting warmer or colder. You know that game where someone hides something and then you are only told if you are getting colder or warmer to the hidden object as you move around the room? Well, that's the idea you should apply to your entire life. Decide what it is that you want, so health, to lose weight, eat better, have more free time, read more, spend more time with your husband/kids/dogs, etc., whatever it is, whenever you have to make a decision ask yourself if your decision will make you warmer or colder.

On a side note, I may have discovered something else that could make losing weight easier. Behold the mighty iron supplements:




As I reported before, it has been discovered that I am anemic. Now, everyone I know who has ever had to take iron supplements has complained about how hard it can be on your stomach. That made me not look forward to taking them and then I read in the drug information that one possible side effect is "lack of appetite" and I immediately popped open the container and took my first pill.

On a really side note, how in the world did I miss the entire third season of The Tudors on Showtime? I kept wondering when it would start up again so I checked the web site and saw that the third season had already aired. Now I have a lot of catching up to do. When I last left Henry he had just had Ann Boleyn excuted and now he is currently on his third wife, Jane Seymour. You know, the one who actually gives him a son. How odd is it to look back on that entire period in history and wonder what, if anything, would have been different had they known that the sex of a baby is determined by the man's sperm and not by the woman? Thus, that Henry kept having girls was his own "fault." I think even had he known this he still would have beheaded two of his wives. After he killed Ann I'm really amazed that he managed to get four more women to marry him. Some women are just gluttons for punishment I guess.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Nowhere to Hide

Here's the rundown of the last three days:

Friday - Decided to walk over to Bastille Days for lunch and ended up eating some wonderful garlic steak, sour cream and chive fries and a super rich chocolate mousse crepe. For those of you not from or familiar with Milwaukee we are not just all about beer, although don't get me wrong, we are a lot about the beer, but even more so I'd say we are all about festivals. Beginning in May and going through at least September there is some sort of festival going on every weekend. Summer is so short in Wisconsin that we tend to try and pack everything in to just three months because you never know when it's going to snow. We are the home to Polish Fest, Irish Fest, Festa Italiana, German Fest, Mexican Fiesta, Pride Fest, Asian Moon Festival, Bastille Days, River Splash and the fest to beat all fests, Summerfest, the world's largest musical festival. Add all this to some additional ethnic fests which are slipping my mind and the church festivals and the state fair and it adds up to opportunities to eat around every corner. It's really hard to get out in the summer and not be faced with a wide array of too tempting, not healthy enough foods. Not that I'm trying to make excuses...........

When I got home from work the husband wanted pizza and so we ordered in and my dinner was a meatball pizza with a slice of garlic bread.

On to Saturday- Started the day with coffee and egg burritos. Honestly I don't even remember lunch but I do remember dinner. My other husband came over and babysat the kids which allowed the husband and I to go the Brewer's game. Imagine a sold out game at the wonderful Miller Park. Imagine a big bowl of nachos, a hot dog, peanuts and a beer. Imagine the Brewer's winning and you'll have a pretty good picture of my Saturday night.

Sunday - More coffee and then an all too familiar feeling came over me. It's a feeling of defeat and disappointment. It's rationalizing that since I've already eaten so much junk over the last few days that I might as well just keep eating that way the entire weekend.

Let's hope that there's a better week ahead and that I can shake these feelings and cravings.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

From Perfect to Pathetic in Less Than Ten Hours

I started off the day just right. I got up on time and was out the door with time to spare. Upon arriving at work I heated up the oatmeal I made last night and then I added a spoonful of peanut butter and a few butterscotch chips.




It was a wonderful, rich, creamy, hearty breakfast. Coffee with a little creamer is a morning staple and I needed some caffeine to help rid myself of yet another headache.




For lunch I avoided going to Bastille Days where I would have certainly had some sour cream and chive fries and hot, powdered beignets and instead stayed in and had a Lean Cuisine bbq chicken pizza. At some point I snacked on a 100 cal pack of Cheez-it mix but by 5:00 p.m. I was very hungry. It's never a good idea to arrive home hungry. I've found that I can help myself eat better if I just don't have tempting foods in the house. Unfortunately, I have little to no control over what the husband brings into the house. Sometime between yesterday and today a bag of tortilla chips found it's way into the house. They caught my eye and then I swear they were calling to me. I was in the living room holding Quinn and I could hear whispers of "Kelly, come eat us; Keellllyyyy there must be salsa somewhere just come have a snack." Then the whispers got louder and louder until I was pouring salsa into a bowl and opening the chips. In some ways it felt as though I was on auto-pilot. I ate the chips straight from the bag.




After eating the chips 'n salsa I should have just stopped eating but then the husband suggested going to the nearby custard stand for dinner and I gave in and had him bring me back a blt and a Snickers sundae. Now here I sit here feeling sick to my stomach and wondering when things will become easier. Will I ever be able to be as happy reaching for an apple as I am reaching for chips? How could a day that started off so perfectly end so pathetically?

Have you heard that Project Runway is set to start in August? I'm eagerly awaiting it's return and now I just saw an ad for the new season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Can tv get much trashier? Oh yes, it already has, it's called NYC Prep.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Going Bananas

I woke up this morning with a very bad headache which normally means that it is going to rain and although it looked like rain all day as of right now it hasn't yet. One of my go to headache cures is caffeine so in addition to my coffee this morning I did have a Coke with lunch. Soda is something I generally try and stay away from as it is just empty calories and I really dislike diet sodas with perhaps the exception of diet Dr. Pepper. But, that Coke did seem to do wonders so I think it was worth it. Was the rest of my lunch worth it? I think not. I was all set to have a turkey wrap for lunch when a co-worker invited me to go out to lunch. Now, I've been trying to bring my lunch for two reasons. First, if I plan out my lunch then I can pack healthy foods with very little left to chance or temptation and second, eating out is expensive. Always eating in though isn't much fun so I accepted the invitation and out to lunch I went. The buffalo chicken wrap called to me from the menu, as did the coleslaw. As it turned out, the wrap had way too much of the hot buffalo sauce and I barely was able to get half of the wrap down so I asked that the other half be wrapped up and I took it home for the husband. I must say that the coleslaw was quite excellent.

Arriving home from work I found dinner already made:



It was a mix of rice, diced tomatoes and chicken. The husband has a way of using what we have to make one pot meals. The chicken and tomatoes came from the Share program. I discovered the Share program about a year ago and we've been buying groceries from them every month. Share is a food buying co-op and there are no income restrictions so anyone and everyone is encouraged to take advantage of the deals they offer. This is what one serving looks like:



On my way back into the kitchen to clean up I walked right into this, something I've done at least five times in the last few months and yet it took one more time for me to actually move the crate to a place where I won't constantly be walking into it.



As my little toe throbbed with pain I set about making oatmeal. I cooked it with a sliced up banana, let it cool, and packed it up for breakfast tomorrow.



Now my mind is thinking about yummy bananas and has wandered to a blog entry I read here which explained how you can take frozen bananas and make them into something resembling soft serve ice-cream. It sounded and looked excellent so I figured I'd give it a try. I started with two frozen bananas:



Into the food processor they went:



I let them go for five minutes:


And this is what I ended up with:


Not quite what I was expecting as it was more like a banana smoothie than ice-cream. Perhaps I hadn't let my bananas freeze long enough. I was disappointed in the result so I stuck the container back into the freezer hoping for better results tomorrow. Since I was still hungry for something I opted for the lunch I didn't have earlier. This was half a Flatout wrap, a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese, the great Gulden's spicy brown mustard, some deli shaved chicken and fresh yellow and red peppers. I love peppers:



Doesn't it look super stuffed? All this for under 150 calories!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Test Results

Three big cheers for having my second consecutive good INR level. I only need one more good reading and I can go four whole weeks between checks.

Three "oh craps" for finding out that I am anemic AND that I need to go back in four weeks to have my iron levels checked again. So, no matter what my INR reading is in two weeks I will still have to go get my blood drawn two weeks later for the iron level and then two weeks after that for another INR.

Little Firecracker

On the Fourth of July I took SB to see the fireworks while the husband stayed home with QT. It was nice to have a little mom and son time as normally SB does all the "fun" stuff with his dad. We found a decent parking spot and walked a few blocks to the park where we found a great piece of grass right near the double R's. What are double R's you ask? Well, they are the two R's that are on railroad crossing signs. SB is a little, no, a lot obsessed with trains and in particular railroad tracks. Lately every car trip we take requires us to find some tracks so that we can drive over them and then the minute we get over them he says "I want to go over them again." So, finding a spot right near the tracks was both a blessing and a curse. SB loved when a train came by but I did not love him asking a million times if we could go walk over the tracks. It was fun just to sit on our blanket enjoying the warm night air and waiting with anticipation for the show to start. When it finally got dark and the fireworks started it was wonderful. I had such a hard time watching them because I was having so much fun watching SB's reaction. He was awestruck by the colors, the loud bangs, the height and the reactions of everyone around us. After the grand finale he clapped and cheered and just could not stop talking about everything he had just seen.

I wish that the rest of the weekend had been as much fun. As is always the case, I don't feel as though I got enough accomplished. And, as so often seems to be the case, I used the holiday weekend as an excuse to eat unhealthy foods. There was a small break through this evening though. I made a quick stop at the grocery store to grab something for dinner prior to my acupuncture appointment and I fought off all temptation. I wanted the tuna salad sandwich, I wanted the cheese spread with crackers, I really wanted the triple chocolate cake, I wanted chips and salsa but at some point while wandering the aisles trying to decide what to get I realized that if I bought and ate any of those things that I would just feel stuffed and bloated once I was done, not to mention all the disappointment from knowing that I ate healthy all day up until then. So, instead of buying junk, I bought cherries, Greek yogurt, low-carb tortillas, sea salt almonds and a Healthy Choice frozen dinner. For dessert I had this:




I love that these are single servings and although it's not ice-cream or rich creamy yummy custard, it was very refreshing for a summer night and well worth 210 calories.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Never Go to Bed Angry

No, the husband and I weren't fighting, but last night once we were in bed we were discussing a topic that should really just be banned from the bedroom - taxes. Actually, it should probably just be banned all the time because all it does is upset me. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, in the city of Milwaukee to be exact, and I always assumed that I would raise my children here. When the husband and I bought our house I was overjoyed that it was only two blocks away from where I grew up. I was excited to think about my kids going to the same school that I did, playing at the same park, etc. Every year though it gets a little harder for us to stay in the city and in the state. The year after we bought our house our property taxes went up a crippling 72%. Yes, you read that correctly - 72%! In the past two years our property value has fallen by over $20,000 and yet our taxes have barely gone down at all. The cost for registering our cars rose by $40 last year, WE Energies was granted even more rate increases, soon there will be yet another fee tacked on to my cell phone because we wouldn't want cable tv to be the only thing that has a bunch of fees tacked onto it. There's so many more but I'm getting angry just typing this. And, these are just state issues, if I begin to even think all the federal tax and spending increases I will not be able to sleep again tonight. Ugh.

So, instead of wondering what Thomas Jefferson would think of the state of our union today I'm going to go watch some reality tv. Tori & Dean here I come.