Working on Weight

My scale is currently fussing about some low battery problems. Thinks that it needs electricity to run or something. So I have no idea what my weight is today. Which is probably just as well, as I haven't been doing very well the past several weeks. But I've begun to harbor the suspicion that my weight is interfering with my fertility. It's gotta go. That and we realized that the new shoes that I got a couple months ago were hurting my feet. And my knees. So Andy took me out and we got another pair of shoes and these schnazzy insert thingys. Those suckers practically run themselves; I just have to come along for the ride. It's amazing! So there's a 5k that the ladies from church are running. They're actually also doing a 2k, but I'll be out of town, so I'll be missing that. But the plan is to do the 5k. I signed up for the Runner's World training journal. It's pretty cool. Tracks how far & how long you run each week, month, year, and also tells you how many miles you've run since you started the journal. I'm starting pretty small: I went just over 1/2 mile yesterday afternoon. But I started. I got out there with my schnazzy shoes and my jogging stroller. And the Boy enjoyed it too: he wouldn't get out of the stroller for about 1/2 hour after we got home.

Weightloss Check-in

So, here it is, my check-in for Tales From the Scales. And the verdict is, I'm up one pound. But I figured early in the week that it wasn't going to be a loosing week. First of all, I can tell that I'm getting stronger because I can do more yoga, and I can do it better. My stick pose arms are actually sorta bent (it's supposed to look like the bottom of a push-up) and I am also doing more poses. So there's definitely more of that muscle stuff there. It feels weird, actually. I'm developing upper body strength (in a very small way still) which I've never ever had before. So I knew that in order to loose on the scales this week,I'd have to loose quite a bit. I'm also still struggling with my water. I just can't seem to get back into my routine with that. Still, this week was better than last week, so I'm making progress.

Sunday was my birthday. We went out for Mongolian Barbecue, and it was wonderful. But I'm sure that it wasn't exactly a lite dinner. Then we had cake. Now, I did tell Andy to get a small cake, which he did. It was delicious, and it was gone in only two days, so no lingering badness there. And we skipped the ice cream. So I didn't do too badly. But it's not a loosing week.

Last week: 189
This week: 190

Weight-Loss Check In

I'm at 189, down 1 pound. Not too terrible, but it could have been 2 pounds if I hadn't been so busy sabotaging myself. Too much sweets, too little water, and it cost me. But I did do very well with my exercise this week, and that I'm happy about.

Weight Loss Progress

I'm down one pound since last week's weigh-in: 190. I did very well with my exercise this week, and did yoga 4 or 5 times (I'd have to look on my chart to see exactly how many). While I was mindful of my food, I didn't count calories this week much at all, which is perhaps why it's only 1 pound rather than 2. But 1 pound is progress and I like that!

Weight Loss Progress

Well, I'm back to loosing weight again. There for a while there was some question about a possible pregnancy, but I'm not pregnant yet, so we'll get to working on the whole weight loss thing. In learning that I'm not pregnant, I'm forced to admit that there are quite a few of those tasty Christmas cookies still keeping me company in the form of a larger belly. Oh. Boy. So as of Monday, I'm officially working out and getting into the whole weight loss thing again. And it's working. I've lost the bloat that came from not drinking enough water. And I've lost a pound as well. In spite of the sad sad peanut butter chocolate cupcakes that I made yesterday. (Sorry to any Tales from the Scales folks that came & saw temptation rather than an update: my Monkey has the stomach flu and I didn't get my updating done yesterday, just a check-in on the TFTS blog.) So, as of this morning, I'm at 191. I was at 184 just before Christmas, so I've definitely lost some ground, but not tons, and I think that I'll be able to get it back in relatively short order.

I was playing around with a BMI calculator yesterday, and I was amazed at how little they said I could (theoretically) weigh and still be considered "normal." I'm 5 foot 8 inches, and at 191 I'm "overweight," though not "obese" anymore. 175 - my short term goal - is actually still "overweight." 150 and 125 are both listed as "normal" weights for my height. It'll be interesting to see where I actually end up when I get down to that range. I plan to use a mirror to decide where I want to be, when the time comes. Ultimately I'd like to have an athletic body. I'm back on track to get it with daily yoga and regular calorie tracking with BabyFit's tools, which are wonderful.

Good News on the Scale

Well, yesterday was "official" weigh-in day at Tales from the Scales, but I didn't get it done yesterday. However, TODAY, I am down 1 pound from last week! Yay me!

Goal Check

Well, my weight is back to 187. No loss, no gain, in relation to my official "starting" spot. But since I was up last time, I'll take it.

As far as the writing goes... can I have a second month? I haven't written a single solitary word yet. I barely even posted to the blog this month. I did spend more time thinking about my book than I have in a long time, but thinking doesn't really get me very far! At this point, I just need to get something done on the book. Anyone wanna come do everything else that's gotta be done for an hour or two??

Busy Busy Busy

OK. So, I've been trying to get a post done since Wednesday. It's not working very well because this week is a zoo. But here's what's going on.

Progress report for Tales from the Scales: I lost ground this week. I kinda think it may be bloating as I suddenly went from 187 to 191, in just a day or two. But I'm not doing very well on my water, so I'm stuck with it until I get that going on. Of course, I'm also late, so if it turns out that the negative pregnancy test was wrong then it's all moot anyway. The whole mess is sorta stuck in limbo.

Progress report for my book: yeah. That's going nowhere fast. I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about it, but what little time I've been home I've been cleaning up puke rather than typing anything.

Preschool: I'm badly in need of some planning. But we've actually had enough energy to read a few stories again, and get some coloring done. This boy REALLY likes to color. It's fun. And he's getting pretty good at it, in a scribbly sort of way. I'll have to scan & post some of his art one of these days. We sent some of his art to his Uncle and Great-Aunt who are serving missions. They always enjoy that sort of mail.

One of the things that has been keeping us so busy is a diaper study, which, mercifully, just ended. Mostly it was a lot of fun, but I had my first run-in with another Mom who was convinced that I was doing terrible social damage to my child by homeschooling him. Grrrr. I came home and gave my husband an earful when that was done. Fortunately, she's not someone I have to see very often, maybe never again. That would be OK.

Because I just walked away from the situation, I was left with all these Thoughts running around in my head about how wrong she is. After all, the poor socialization is one of the reasons that we decided to homeschool in the first place! Andy and I were both on the receiving end of more than a little bullying at school. When I thought about it, I decided that the majority of socializing at school happened in terms of bullying: You were either the bully or the target. So much of the "socialization" that went on in my schools was either avoiding bullies or trying to figure out how to avoid bullying the kids who were low in the pecking order without drawing more cruelty myself. I've never run across that sort of nastiness at any job I had, so I have a hard time believing that it's preparation for "real life." I want better for my son. And I want him to learn to BE better than that!

And speaking of "real life," since when do adults spend their days in groups composed of only the same age adults? It just doesn't happen. In fact, the further you get from high school graduation, the less that age seems to matter. So how does spending all day with only other 6 year olds or 18 year olds prepare someone for the reality that they're going to be living in?

They told us in school that the reason that they tortured us with those group projects was to prepare us for project and group oriented work in "real life." I have a hard time with that type of "socialization" too. I mean, whenever we did group work, inevitably there was someone in the group who didn't pull their weight. So the rest of the group had to either pick up the slack or let their grades suffer. And you knew going into the ordeal who it was going to be. That sort of nonsense would never fly for very long in the workplace. Bosses just don't like to have employees who don't do their job. And if they did, for some unknown reason, allow it, in the workplace I have the option of getting a new job. Not so much in the classroom. It's just not realistic.

There are just so many reasons why socialization is not only not a good reason to stay in public school, but a great reason to consider homeschooling! It just irritated the living daylights out of me.

OK. I'm done ranting now. I think I'll go do something productive again. Maybe sleep. That's sounding really good right about now.

A Whole Lotta NUTHIN

I have been thoroughly sick for more than a week now, and I've gotten a whole lot of NUTHIN done around here. Kinda stinky. But the good news is that my doctor prescribed me some nice amox, and I'm on the mend. Slowly. But getting better. It's a good thing!

So, several days ago, I decided to do that Tales From the Scales thingy. They have a cute "Happy Friday" post up today. Anyway. TFtS suggests taking a before picture, so I looked through the recent pictures of me, well the onces that are still left after I went on a delete-fest (surely a sign of trouble: I've never minded how I looked in pictures before!), and this is now my official "before" picture.



As far as the novel goes, between being FLAT from this cold and my husband being out of town for a good chunk of the week, I haven't so much as opened the file, I'm sad to say. As busy as next week is, I'm still hoping to get at least a little bit done, which will be a vast improvement over NUTHIN.

Fortunately, there are a few productive things that require nearly NUTHIN in terms of brain power, so I did get a little accomplished this week. I made a bunch of lower case letters to go with the capitals I made a while back when the Monkey started noticing letters on sweatshirts and things. I did the consonants in yellow and the vowels in orange, and the plan is for there to be enough letters to do some words in a while when Monkey starts figuring out that stuff. Right now though, when I'm crazy enough to get them out the game goes like this: I put letters on the flannel board, naming each one. The Monkey knocks them off almost as fast as I get them up. Then he helps me put them back into the bucket. Then we start over and repeat as needed until one of us gets bored with the game. That and a few stories more or less sums up what we did for school this week. But I'm starting to feel somewhat human again, so I hope to do better next week.

Two New Toys

I added 2 things to the sidebar today (and played musical chairs with a bunch of the others) because I have 2 new games to play.

The first one is the "Tales From the Scales" weight-loss thing. I want their 10 pounds icon. OK. I want their 50 pounds icon. (Can we have a 40? I'm not sure I need a whole 50 pounds gone.) But lets start small here. 10 pounds by the new year. Sounds good to me!


The second new thing is actually a bit more, ah, intimidating. Yeah. Intimidating's the word. I think I'm gonna do the NaNoWriMo thing. Maybe not all 50,000 words. After all, my novel is already partly written. And I do have a 13 month old that expects to get some all of my time. Fortunately, he sleeps from time to time & is better at entertaining himself than he thinks he is. Of course, with the joys of climbing recently discovered, that could be interesting. Anyway. I don't think a whole novel in a month is terribly realistic for us. But I do think I could get some more done on the one I've got! And I was just thinking I should send in some more queries on my picture book. Not that I've heard back from any of the first batch. I hope they at least send me my rejection slip. I want at least as many as Dr. Seuss.