I Think I Can!!

I saw Meagan yesterday. She has lost a total of 28 pounds since the end of January and she looks great!!! Seeing what she has accomplished makes me want to wake up tomorrow and go cold turkey, but I know I need to be realistic. I have two more weeks until the end of tax season and my plate is filled with more than I can say grace over between now and then. On the bright side, I have done very well with the goals I set for myself a couple of weeks ago. My caffiene consumption has dropped dramatically. I have traded in sweets for fruit, white bread for 100% whole wheat, and sucessfully refrained from late night snacking (i.e. no eating after 9 pm). So considering all the circumstances I am actually pretty proud of myself. I am optimistic that I can stick with these changes until May 1st. That is the day I am going all or nothing. I picked it because it gives me two and a half weeks to get my life back to normal after April 15. Hopefully that works out for me because whether things actually calm down or not, May 1st is not negotiable. I am determined not to be my own worst enemy in this attempt at weight loss. Another reason I am probably so peppy about all of this right now is not only do I have a good friend to encourage me, but I am starting to finally see light at the end of the tax season tunnel. Tomorrow is the last day of March and that thrills me to no end. I think that seeing the end in sight is giving me a second wind. I am more motivated to get as much work done as I can at the office and around the house so that April 16 will be that much sweeter!! Not that it needs much help. It is customary for our office to be closed the first Friday following April 15. Since the 15th is on a Thursday we will be closed the 16th. Me and the girls are headed to Orange Beach for the weekend with another friend of mine. Although I have lived on the gulf coast for almost seven years now I haven't been to the beach since college. The girls have never been to the beach. Suffice it to say I CAN'T WAIT!! All I can say is, "Please, please, PLEASE, let us have nice weather!"

When it Rains It Pours

Last weekend has to be one of the craziest weekends I have had in quite a while. Let me give you the recap. Midnight Friday night. Emme wakes up. Emme refuses to go back to sleep. I feed her. She still refuses to go back to sleep. She spends the next three and a half hours alternating between screaming and playing in my living room floor while I watch Sahara on TV. I feed her again. She finally goes to sleep around 3:30 or 4. Saturday morning at 6. I get up and get dressed because Emme's 9 month portraits are at 8. I get Emme up. One of her eyes is red and puffy. I figure this is from lack of sleep and lots of crying. We go to the photography studio and take pictures. She does remarkably well given the circumstances. We go back home. I eat breakfast and leave for work. Work till 4:30. Get home to see Emme's eye is still red and the other one is looking bad, too. Gonna have to make a trip to the doctor. Conclude that continued crying is due to teething. At least I can give her Tylenol for that. Put kids to bed at 8, thankfully no one wakes up!!! Sunday morning. Arrive at Urgent Care at 8:05. Emme has pink eye. Leave Urgent Care at 9:45. Go get prescription filled. Get home after 11. Learn that while Brent was trying to be a good husband and clean the oven, sparks flew when he lifted the lower heating element to get up underneath it and the whole thing went dead. Spend the next hour trying to find someone who will come and fix my stove on a Sunday. Thank you Donald's Electric Appliances. Things slowly begin to return to normal. Then Brent's allergies kick in and all of a sudden he is sick. Then at 11:45 p.m. just when we have gotten to bed, Emme wakes up. She finally goes back to sleep at 2:30. Fast forward to 5:30 am this morning. I hit the snooze twice. Finally I crawl out of bed at 6:00. Rush to get ready and out the door. Halfway to school realize Haley's napper was left in the dryer. Get Brent to deliver napper to school where he sees she is the only one there who doesn't have a coat to put on to go outside, where it is STILL COLD. Surely at this point things can only get better. I am not working late tonight. I am leaving in time to pick up Emme from her Grammie's before 5:30. As soon as the girls to go bed tonight I am going to bed. I do not care about taxes or the pile of laundry that hasn't left my bedroom floor in a month. I am tired. I need sleep. But for now I am trying not to think about it any more. Back to work I go.

Almost 10 Months Later and I Still Weigh WHAT?????

I have always adopted an ignorance is bliss policy when it comes to my weight. I figure if I am happy with what my clothing size is then I am good. Or am I? The answer is no. I was confronted with the awful truth of how much I weigh at the doctor's office today and it quite frankly freaked me out. I knew going in that I still have some baby weight to lose. I just had no idea how much. So starting now I will no longer be content to be a certain size, because obvioulsy whoever put that certain size label in my clothes wasn't paying attention to what they were doing that day.

The good news is that I already have a weight loss plan in place. My friend Meagan started following these dieting "rules" several weeks ago and has lost 20 pounds. Its been a couple of weeks since we last talked so its possible she's lost more. These rules are pretty hard core. When I first read them I wanted to jump right in, but then reality hit. For instance, there's just no way I can expect myself to completely cut out caffeine and get 8 hours of sleep every night. Not right now anyway. So I was going to postpone this endeavor until the beginning of May, when my life will hopefully be back to normal. But after my appointment yesterday I really got to thinking and I've come to the conclusion that there's never a good time for these things. If you want to do something bad enough you just have to do it. I may not be able to stick to all of the rules, but I can start following the ones I can. Here are my goals to start out: No eating after 9 pm, Drink as much water as possible, No white bread, and the hardest one of all.......cut out as much coffee, tea, and Coke as possible!!! It may not sound like much but its a start. At the end of tax season I will go at it full force. But for now a little is better than nothing at all. Wish me luck!!!

The Letter "H"

Today Haley had to give a presentation at school on the letter H. The assignment was to find things around your house that begin with the first letter of your name and bring them to school. It was sort of like a show and tell. We gathered up a Hairdryer, a Hanger, a Hat, Halloween movies, a toy Hot Dog, and the Helper Hand out of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I also thought it would be fun to bring the kids Hamburgers for lunch so I took a welcome break from work about midday and ran to McDonalds. Haley's teacher knew I would be doing that so she had Haley wait to present her other stuff until I got there. So I got to see her presentation! She was such a big girl up there in front of her classmates and I was so proud. I love that she is in a school where its okay and even encouraged for parents to be part of those types of things. I know I say it all the time but she is growing up so fast and I hope the day that she doesn't want me there for her presentations, class parties, etc. stays far far away!!!

My Big Girl

A milestone was reached in the Blake family this morning, and even though in the grand scheme of things it may not be that significant it hit me like a ton of bricks. So much that I feel the need to forever document its occurance via this blog. The past two days Haley has been super grumpy upon arrival at her school, which is totally unlike her. Until this morning I had been unsuccessful at determining the cause of this grumpiness. She had gotten to bed late the past couple nights so naturally I assumed she was just tired. But this morning she told her dad a different story. Haley said she was upset when she got to school because Mommy didn't drop her off. From the first day of school back in August I have walked Haley to her classroom, watched her put away her coat and schoolbag and sit down in her chair to color. I have exchanged hellos with other parents and her teacher and been able to observe her work hanging in the classroom and the hallway. But today for the first time, I drove her up to the red double doors out front, watched her climb out of the car with help from one of the teachers, told her I was proud of her, and drove to work. I must admit I did get a little teary as I tried to tell myself all of the positive things associated with this change. First of all I'd be lying if I said it didn't make the morning routine easier for me. Oh yeah, and on those mornings when its flooding outside this will make so much more sense. Wait a minute, who am I kidding? The bottom line is my little girl is slowly turning into a big girl and the truth is it makes me sad. I guess I better get ready for more days like these. Because ready or not here they come.