Living

I don't have much to say about weight loss and eating, but I felt like I should write about something, otherwise this blog is going to end up abandoned.  So right now it's either evolve it or let it die.  I figure the real undertones to blogging are simplified to one word: Life.  That is why people read weight loss blogs anyway, to hear about real life. 

I've been under the weather the past week with another cold.  You would think my immune system would be getting stronger after being sick so much over the past year but apparently, it didn't get the message.  So although I had a cold just three weeks ago, that one was in my throat, this one is in my sinuses.  I'm not sure which is worse, having your throat so sore that you can't hardly breath or swallow, or having your head stuffed with so much snot that you can't thing straight, sleep, or do anything else because your head is pounding and the pressure is nearly unbearable.  hmmm, possibly the second one.  At least my teeth weren't hurting.  That's usually a sign of a sinus infection, when my molars start hurting due to the pressure in my head. 

Anyway, I just beat Dragon Quest 8 on my phone, because I am a nerd and love RPG games.  Not too much of a fan of playing online games where there are other gamers playing live with you, I just like me on my own system playing by myself. 

I'm trying to read one book a day with Lily.  After she finished her reading lessons, and then I ended up in the hospital and went through recovery, I let her reading slack and she is having a hard time with words she didn't use to have trouble with.  I have a friend who just had an Usborne book party and I bought their beginner readers set.  When that comes in I'm going to go through that with Lily, I think it will be a good refresher and also help build her confidence and get down some of the concepts she wasn't too rock solid on before.  She never did grasp the concept that an "e" on the end of a word makes the vowel say it's name... of course she doesn't quite remember what her vowels are either but hey, she hasn't even hit kindergarten yet so I'm not too worried.  I also hear the Billie B Brown books are great books to start reading after the Usborne set.  Chloe is doing much better now at learning and remembering her alphabet.  She only has two more princesses to get, so that is 10 more letters to learn, or rather 7, since she knows Q, R, and S and just needs to learn T, and U. 

We bought a season's pass to Elitch Gardens this summer, I figured it would be a good summer to go since both the kids are big enough to go on all the kiddie rides and we don't have any babies underfoot.  Chloe calls the roller coaster the "big train" and they both loved it.

I haven't played my flute much this week because of the pressure in my head.  I did record a song though and if I can figure out how to get a sound recording up on the blog I will post it.  Right now I just see video and picture, but flute has gotten hard again.  My teacher has changed my embouchure again.  Not as bad as the first time, but I have to make sure to drop my jaw and keep my tongue down at the bottom of my mouth which right now takes a lot of mental effort.  I'm sure it will get easier with time though, but I am bummed about not being able to practice much this week due to my cold.  Oh well, you can't win them all.

Mother's Day

I had a good Mother's Day today.  My husband and kids bought me an awesome necklace.

I love it, it's so sparkly! I haven't written in a while because I haven't had much to say.  I was tracking my food and not worrying about what I ate and noticed that I was eating about 2300-2500 calories a day.  That's a bit high, and is causing me to gain weight.  I'm back at about 175, and I bought some summer clothes and my pants are size 14 and my shirts are larges.  However, I just can't muster up the commitment to actually try to lose weight, especially with the prospect of getting pregnant soon.  It's like: why bother? 

So what I am doing is going to work on my habits.  The good thing about all of this is that I have finally reached a "norm" for me.  Or in other words I have established a baseline in which I feel like I can start changing habits to make healthier habits for myself.  I'm going to work on changing one habit a month and if I feel like I need a little extra time I will allow myself an extra month or whatever I need.  I feel like this is a good way to go at the moment since I am not exactly going to be losing weight while pregnant, but hopefully I can use the time to change bad habits I have and when I come out of it, maybe I won't be as large as I was when Chloe was born and maybe I will be eating healthier and in a better place, making long term changes slowly, and in a manner that I can actually sustain them for the long term. 

So  last month was Soda month.  My soda goal for now is to drink only two 12-oz cans a day.  No more than that.  I didn't succeed every day, and I'm still working on it, but I feel pretty good about being able to fairly consistently drink only 2 cans a day.  I feel like I'm in control and I can add a second habit to begin changing.  The habit I am going to work on this month is to make sure I eat only one dessert a day.  Tracking my food made me realize that many times I will eat multiple desserts or sweets a day.  I will have a handful of skittles and then cookies later.  I will eat dessert after lunch and dinner.  Usually consisting of a combination of candy at one point in the day and baked goods at another, or when I'm making desserts, I eat desserts while I am making them and also after they are finished.  So cutting it back to only one dessert a day is going to save me a lot of calories.  Now I'm not making that one pea sized dessert, but one good sized dessert a day for now.  That is a hard enough but small enough change for present and we can work on frequency and size later. 

That's about all I have for now.  I think I am going to try to make shorter posts more frequently rather than longer posts since I don't really have a whole lot to say on the weight loss side.  The tone of my blog is going to change for a while, but I hope you still find some value in it.