State of the household

Oh boy, where to start when it's been so long since I've written. Things have been incredibly busy - more so even than usual and it seems that when that happens the first thing that goes is this blog. Both my friend Vicki and now my Grandmother have been after me why I haven't written at all lately. Hmmmm - I don't want to just skip over the past couple of weeks since there has been so much happening, but not sure right now how much time I'll have. Tommy is awake eating his Cheerios and watching Sesame Street.

I think I last wrote on a Thursday or a Friday morning, so I'll try to pick up from there later with highlights.

But first, a few notes...I've lost 10 or 11 lbs., so I'm REALLY psyched about that!! Finally the effort is starting to pay off. I'm not sure exactly how much I've lost since (as I've mentioned before) I didn't get on the scale for the first couple of days because I was too afraid haha. From my first weigh in I've lost 8 pounds and I figure you usually lose 2-3 pounds the first couple of days (primarily in water weight, but hey, I'll take it!), so a total of 10-11 pounds so far. YAY! For the first couple of weeks or so I did basically phase 1 of the South Beach Diet, restricting my intake and eating 20 grams or less of carbohydrates per day. Since then I've been transitioning into more of a calorie counting thing. I've always said that calories don't lie and at the end of the day that's what really counts. It's just harder because you have to weigh and measure everything, keep lists and so on, so I think people like the carbs thing also because it's a lot less work. Oh well. I signed up for this Spark People diet - weird name, but it was cheap and makes a great diet aid. There's a web site: http://www.sparkpeople.com and I log in and can track everything that I've been doing. I find that it works really well for me because by logging my food every day I can tell how many good days vs. bad days I'm having. I'm starting to realize that that may be why I've been having such a tough time losing weight. It may sound dumb, but what I think I've been doing in the past is having only a couple of good days and then thinking that I should be losing all this weight and getting discouraged when it doesn't happen. My patience with dieting seems to be much less these days. Anyway, the Spark thing really lays it out for me and also tracks the amount of carbs, protein, and fat that I'm getting. I really like it. Now if I can just add some exercise and focus on drinking all my water (64 ounces, ugh) I'll feel even better. I probably won't focus on intense exercise until I start eating more calories. Right now I'm only eating 1000-1200 calories per day. My goal is to eat 1100-1400 but, surprisingly enough I'm not even getting 1100 every day so far. Part of that lately is working all these night shifts, it's pretty easy to not eat all night since I still feel like I'd normally be sleeping. Then I eat a light breakfast in the morning and sleep all day. By the time I get up it's time to make dinner for all of us and that's the only real meal I'm eating all day. Obviously, it's not the ideal way to get your calories. I've got every person under the sun wanting to lecture me about the best way to diet, it drives me crazy. I've been struggling with my weight for my entire life, or at least the last 20+ years. I KNOW how much, when and what you are supposed to eat, I KNOW how many calories are in things. I AM NOT FAT BECAUSE I AM STUPID, I AM FAT BECAUSE I LIKE TO EAT!!!!

Okay, just wanted to get that off my chest. Also, for the record, I think that however the weight comes off at this point is what's important. Right now I am medically obese and that's a much greater health risk than anything I can do to myself with a short term diet. I have to do what is best for me, and works for me. It may not be the best thing for everyone and it may not be the best thing for long term weight maintenance, but right now I've got to take whatever measures necessary to getting this extra poundage off.

Moving on from diet talk - I have been busy planning a Halloween party as well. We are going to have a big (?) 'adult' party - Tommy will hopefully be with a babysitter for the evening so we won't have to worry about how people behave when they're intoxicated. So far it looks like our turnout isn't going to be very good and that's really disappointing, but I'll throw it out to a couple of my mailing lists and we'll see what happens. Anyway, we've been working hard on figuring out decorations, menus, alcohol, costumes. Very fun and exciting, can't wait to see how it all turns out. I'm throwing the party jointly with Deb and Heidi, so it's bound to be interesting.

We may even all get so crazy that we sing karaoke. I hope not. :-) I got a karaoke machine from my parents for my birthday and just realized that I SUCK!! What a surprise - here I thought I was so good. I suck royally. It's almost been an incentive to stop singing, but since I usually don't abuse anyone else's ears, I suppose it's okay if I keep singing in private haha. Hearing my voice over that microphone I really do sound like a dying whale. Terrible. I embarass myself. haha I'm hoping if I practice more I can keep from sounding so awful that I hurt my own ears.

What else is going on currently? Hmmmm. Well, I'm thinking seriously about my own education. Our first priority right now is to get Emmett into law school, but I've been wondering lately if I might go to school also. We will have to figure out how the grants and financial aid go because obviously we can't both claim that we are 'single parents'. But I think that may not be as much of a benefit for Emmett anyway since he is going to be going to graduate school and I'm still finishing my undergraduate degree. So we have to figure all this out. But assuming that Emmett doesn't get much benefit from being a 'single parent', I could get a LOT of assistance to finish up my degree and, if that's the case, then I definitely need to do that. I feel a little bit guilty about that, since for all intents and purposes I am not a single parent, but I figure that I'm not reaping the benefits of being married (tax break, potential social security benefits, etc.) so I might as well reap the benefits of being single. It may be that all of my tuition, books and supplies would be covered and I may be eligible for subsidized student loans to cover my living expenses in which case I could basically go to school and work a couple of days a week to cover Tommy's day care expenses. We'll have to see, but I am definitely going to start the application process and see what happens. I really hate the idea of putting my education on hold for another four years. I'm trying really hard to be trusting, but I have to admit a part of me is still scared that I will wait 4 years for Emmett to finish law school and, at some point our relationship will falter and I'll be left without my education and a decent job. I'll be 37 years old with no education, no means to give my child the things I want for him. Not to mention that I'll be without my family intact and diminshed hope for having any more children. It would be horrifically depressing to find myself in that situation so I'm going to try like the devil to avoid ending up there.

Well, better run for now - Sesame Street is almost over and that boy has had MORE than enough tv already today (1.5 hours - ug - there is a new schedule on our local PBS station and it's been harder to time his television watching than it used to be because Sesame Street comes on like an hour and a half later than it used to). I've got to reconfigure our time to so that he's not watching so much. He's getting to be a real pain about tv - he throws an absolute fit when I turn it off and that's unacceptable. I'll throw the damn thing in the trash. Of course Emmett is the television watcher in our family so he might have something to say about that. :-)

I'll try to make time to do recap later tonight.

Love,
Melissa








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