Traffic was awful on the way home. Truly horrific. I haven’t decided whether or not I like this day light savings thing. I mean, you’d think I’d have developed an opinion on it by now, I’m 31 years old for the love of mike (oh mike, how I love you). This morning, it was LIGHT when I arose at 6am. I don’t know how I like that, but it will not be handy for telling ethan that it is the weekend, and that means that we don’t get up until it’s light. That ain’t gonna fly if it gets light at freaking 6am! Plus, I think everyone and their brother decided to get up earlier than they usually do, because the traffic on my way to work was horrific. Nothing like it usually is. I drive along I66 looking over to the left hand HOV lane, and dream what it would be like to zoom along in it. Oh for a slug to ride with me! Oh, for a hybrid that would not only allow me to zip to work quicker, but would lower my gas bill and help me to walk the walk with all the green earth philosophies! Plus, while I love my (gas-guzzling) 4Runner, it is a standard, and while it was cute and butch the first 4 years, well, it REALLY REALLY SUCKS when you’re in stop and go traffic for an hour and a half every day. Seriously. My foot hurts most of the time from all the shifting. I even went looking at the Toyota Highlander Hybrid (just online, nothing major) because I’m a Toyota girl through and through, and my mom has basically the same car only in the Lexus RX400 form (more posh) and damn that is one nice car. While it would be nice, I don’t think we’ll be buying either of us a new car for some time, because honestly, they’re both paid for now and who wants car payments? Drive it into the ground, I think that’s our philosophy. HOWEVER!!! My ‘Check Engine’ light just came on. As soon as it did, visions of hybrids danced in my head. As if I need to replace a car just because the engine light popped on. I was pretty torqued about the coincidence of the light coming on JUST when we get paid. It’s like the car knew there was money in the bank, and she was like, “Let’s fix THEIR boat!” It better not be anything major or I will have to retaliate. Like start refering to the truck as a him, instead of a her.

So while Ethan had a BLAST trick or treating, it was Jocelyn that was just all about the candy. I mean, seriously. We went up to one house and I glanced at her in the light of the porch and saw that she was chewing away at something. The girl is not even two yet, and I hadn’t given her anything. I reached in and FISHED OUT THE TIN FOIL OF THE PEANUT BUTTER CUP SHE HAD EATEN WITH THE WRAPPER ON.

Maybe I should take her on the circuit. Just like being able to tie cherry stems in a knot with just your tongue, she can eat candy and spit out (or have it fished out) the wrapper. Yeah, I’m thinking she’s probably got some tin foil in her tummy. That’s not toxic, is it?

So when we came home, she wanted that candy. INSISTENT. arm outstretched, HAND GRABBING, “UH UH UH UH UH!” noise ongoing. It would have been cute if it hadn’t been CONSTANT.

My battery is about to run dead on my laptop which means it’s time to go to bed lest I not get the precious 8 hours of sleep. But more and probably pictures tomorrow.

electric-gasoline-candy-powered raine

First off, I’d like to say that I think the title should be asked for at the bottom of the post, and not the top. Not that this is in any of your hands, but when I go to post, there’s the title field, right there front and center. Well, I’m not ready for a title yet, because my mind has a zillion things of which it hasn’t selected one of, to write on.

Yes, I ended with a preposition. Bite me.

This weekend was kind of shitty. But the more depressing question that has been pressing itself on my mind, is WHY? I honestly have not been able to figure it out. There have been little shitty things and events that have happened, but I don’t think it was any of these specifically, just that my mind has not been able to wrap itself around any of them in a way that makes me a happy person, instead, I have dealt and dwelled on them until I am an unhappy person. If I could just figure out that different way of wrapping my mind around them all, I think I could change the outcome of the shitty weekend. I know I can do this, I’ve done it before, but driving in to work this morning all I could think about was just how shitty I feel and now I have a whole shitty week in front of me and I think I’ll go eat worms.

So, the weekend. I’m going to take a page out of mimi smartypants’ book and go with a numbered list as opposed to narrative. Don’t go to that link until you’ve finished reading my post, because once you do, unless you already know of mimi (which I’m sure you have, because blogging has been around forever and she’s awesome and with me just starting to blog now i am being such a poser and don’t i know all the GOOD bloggers started five years ago already?)

1. Weigh-in Saturday am was good – down 5.2 lbs. Yee ha! I celebrated with a Whopper at lunch, and then also had some Wendys for a very late dinner, with fries, but I feel perfectly vindicated in this because of the circumstances which I’m sure will be discussed further down the list. So. Anyway. Yay me.

2. Went to get a new pocket calendar for my purse because I keep needing to refer to January in my current one and hello! January is after year’s end and mine only goes to December. I’ve been needing a new one for a while now, so I finally went to GET it, taking Jocelyn with me, and when I got there and managed to look at the ones the store had, and had picked one out (not an easy task with Jocelyn “helping”), it turns out I had left my wallet at home. The reasons of which also will be discussed further down on this list, which I think will be number….

3. Ethan went down for his nap with such enthusiasm that James and I looked at each other in awe. Was this our child? In his bed? SLEEPING???? It turns out, it wasn’t our normal happy child. It was our poor, sick child, as we learned after he woke up. I was down in the kitchen making pineapple fluff when I heard his door open and close. I called to him to come down, but no answer. So I walked up and there he was, sitting on the top step all forlorn and sick. He was burning up when I led him back to bed and laid him down to rest while I fetched drink of water, thermometer, children’s motrin. Turns out the fever was up to 104.5, which is in the danger zone they always tell you about — they don’t want to see the kid RIGHT AWAY if it’s not over 102. So I fetched my wallet (thus it not being in the right place for later use), got out his health insurance card and called them up and procured an appt for 7pm. Which sucked, because when you go to urgent care, you are always there for hours and hours, so likely we wouldn’t be home until late, and yes, we weren’t home until 11:30pm.

The doctor covered his bases (one good thing about urgent care) and ordered a throat culture, blood test, urine analysis and xray. He couldn’t manage peeing in a cup, but everything else was done, and I must say that little boy is a trooper. When we finally saw the doctor again with the results all in, he basically said it was probably just a cold but they were going to put him on antibiotics anyway. So then we got to wait another 40 minutes for the prescription to be filled before we piled back in the car and headed home. I was starving at this point, which is where Wendy’s comes in.
The night went all right, I’d set my alarm for 6 hours after he’d been given the last dose of motrin, and James went in to deliver some more. Unfortunately, he’d thrown up in his bed. This was due I’m sure to me giving him a dose of his prescription right away, which can cause an upset stomach if taken on an empty stomach. To my credit, I had gotten him some chicken at Wendy’s too, but that exchange went something like this:

me: Are you eating your chicken, Ethan?
him: No, I’m going to wait until we get home.
me: Honey, when we get home we’re going straight to bed. Have some chicken now. Have some bites.
him: I’m going to wait until it cools down.

Of course, he was asleep about 30 seconds after this, thus no food. So anyway, James popped him into our bed with me while he changed the sheets and remade the bed and then popped him back into his bed, medicated again. The next went all right except that his cough had changed from a wet, congested, bringing-up-snotty-mucus sort of cough to a dry, rattling and somewhat barky cough. Uh oh. This is the first warning sign of croup. Other than that, he was really doing very well, so we decided to go get James new shoes. We are going to the ballet next weekend and I sold James dress shoes on Ebay last spring (he hated them, they pinched his shoes, I wasn’t just randomly looking around for things to sell) so we had to get him something he could wear instead of his sandals. Just as we were finishing up, Ethan took a turn for the worse and it seemed like he coudln’t talk at all, so we high-tailed it on home. I got back on the phone with the Kaiser people and made him an appointment for monday morning. James and I discussed it, and determined that I should stay home with him today because James had stayed home the last two days that someone was sick and couldn’t go to school/daycare. Then I realized that I couldn’t stay home. I am getting fingerprinted today. Doh. So James is home with Ethan.

Look, I got all narrative on you.

I have to go get fingerprinted now. More later.

Well I’m back, and it’s this afternoon now. I just have to say that I’m feeling much better. I hope that Ethan is also feeling better, because when I talked to him on the phone (James called me so that Ethan could ask me where his “Trains” book is, how cute is that) he sounded like an 80-year-old man with a cigarette habit. Just imagine that.

I’m beginning to think (not for the first time) that my mental problems all stem from a lack of sleep. When I get all depressed and tripped out, I usually look first at how much sleep I’ve gotten the night before. Seriously. I gotta have teh 8 hours. And me not so much with the 8 hours lately. Thursday I stayed up way too late and in the morning, I decided sleep was much more important that a shower. That of course was the day the boss decideded to take me and another new coworker out to lunch. Look at that up there. I typed in “decideded”. It’s like my fingers just didn’t want to stop. decidededededed.

Anyway, I just wanted to post this so that the whole 3 of you who were reading didn’t get all bummed out because I was bummed out. I still think worms might be tasty, but not as much as this morning and last weekend. I promise I won’t veer into oncoming traffic on my way home tonight.

Tonight! Halloween! Kind of sucks because James has class, but we figured we will get the kids ready and go trick or treating with them at like 5:45 (yes, we will be THOSE PARENTS who go out with their kids incredibly early and you think, “gee, it can’t be trick or treaters ALREADY?! Yes it can, and here we are. Ding Dong!) and then we’ll come home and they’ll stay in their costumes til bed and we’ll answer our own door and hand out candy til bedtime. I’m sure I’ll post pictures soon. I’ll have to figure out how to do that.

Have you ever really looked at the lines on your hands and fingers? It’s really very cool. Most of my fingerprints have a swirl that goes up and then back down but never connects into an actual circular pattern. Like looking at a tongue sticking out and upward, only in profile. But then I do have like, 2 fingers that DO connect and have little circles in the very middle. It’s weird how I have both, at least, I think it is. I wonder if most people only have one or the other, or if I’m normal in this regard. It reminds me of Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinati, sacked out under his desk, staring at his hand and saying, “Duuuuude… your hand is like a little tiny.. freeway.. The thumb is the off ramp..” and continuing on while the laugh track grows in quantity. It’s funny how I never got when I was a kid that he was either always stoned or drunk or perhaps both. I love(d) that show. My mom did too, thus, how I have seen every episode ever made.

Off to work some more.

1. Leaving every light on on the floor you’re not on. I don’t care that you didn’t turn them on. You left the room with the light on, and eventually the floor, and don’t you think our $350 electric bill is HIGH ENOUGH?2. Saying you’re “On it.” when I’m nudge you to go get the girlie in her crib at 8:00 7:00 am and is so bored and has been awake for so long that she’s kicking the wall through the bars of her enclosure, but not budging for another 20 minutes except to say (again without budging) as I get up and throw on some clothes, “Oh, I’ll get her.”

3. ….. The fact that that fucking game gets more face time than I do. Netflix, I will now be embracing you.

2 cups fat free vanilla yogurt
1 container fat free cool whip
20 oz can crushed pineapple (with juice)
medium can mandarin oranges (drained)
2 boxes fat free sugar free white chocolate pudding mix

mix everything together except pudding, then add and mix again.
Refrigerate a couple of hours before serving.
1 pt per cup
CORE
note: substitute different flavor pudding as wanted.

*Name the movie.

Well, here I am, sitting at my desk at home at the ungodly hour of 7am. OK, maybe it’s not that ungodly, but tomorrow when we turn the clocks back and it will be SIX AM ON A SUNDAY, then it will really be ungodly. That’s right. God did not reach her big finger down and touch this hour and thus make it suitable for sainthood, she turned her back and sniffed. Thus, it is ungodly.

But why are you up at 7am? You cry as you read, probably in the daylight hours. How I envy you.

Because ever since Ethan started full time pre-school, he now has to get up at ungodly hours of the morning, and even though I told him and told him last night that tomorrow is the WEEKEND, and the WEEKEND means that (“Syrup!!!” “Well, that too.”) we sleep until IT GETS LIGHT OUTSIDE. (Thank god for winter, when it doesn’t get light until 8 or 8:30.)

It could be worse. In fact, it was worse. A few weeks ago, Ethan started presenting himself at my bedside at 4:45am, fully dressed and ready to go to school. We went through a series of talks about how we could get him to sleep/stay in bed longer. I drew a little EXPO pen line on his (analog) clock pointing at six, so that he could look at that and tell whether or not it was “awake time” by comparing the little hand to the line. No good. I don’t think he ever looks at that clock. We also finally broke him of the need to sleep with his overhead light on. I took out all the lightbulbs but one, but that sucker was still just WAY too bright for anyone to sleep comfortably. We would always come in and turn it off after he was asleep, but when he wakes up at 4:30, goes over and turns on his light, it’s like noon in there and I wouldn’t go back to sleep either. (Who am I kiding. Yes I would.)

Anyway, so we spent a week of dealing with crisises of tears at bedtime everytime we turned off the light (the closet light stays on, and he has a nightlight. We even gave him a flashlight a while ago, but it broke). We had to leave his bedroom door open, but I’m happy to say as of last night, the tears had stopped, and I even closed his door when I left.

So really, I guess I should be grateful. At least now he’s getting up at the same time as when we get up for school. 6am is a hell of a lot better than 4:30.

Still.

I WANTED TO SLEEP IN THIS MORNING.

James is SO getting up with him tomorrow.

Actually, I didn’t need to get up, per se. Ethan flicked on the 1000 watt hall light (he must have every light on in whatever room he passes through) on his way downstairs. I was awake enough to realize it and got up to investigate in time to see him heading his way downstairs. If I had just gone to bed, he probably would have played down there happily until it was light outside, at which time he would have come and informed us. But NOOOOOOOOOO, I had to call him back up, tell him it was still sleeping time, and then lay down with him in his bed. The next half hour was me knowing I wasn’t going to sleep while he laid there wiggling, coughing every now and then, and picking his nose and eating it. After it hit 7 and I knew it was fruitless for both of us, I told him he could go downstairs and play, put some socks on him, instructed him to wash his hands, WITH SOAP, and off he went. I went back to bed, but I knew it was still fruitless for me.

What can I do at 7am in the morning without waking anyone up?

My house is always a disaster given the fact that we both work. LIke that’s the reason. It was always a disaster when I stayed home too. But I couldn’t launch into cleaning because a) i didn’t feel like it, and b) it might wake up James or Jocelyn and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So there you go. 7am Saturday nonsense blogging. I should have gone downstairs and introduced Ethan to the glory of Saturday morning cartoons.

Oh well. There’s always tomorrow.

So I ended my marathon of saved up Gilmore Girls the other day, and I have to say, that Alexis Bledel is just stunning, especially with the new ‘do. When she has her hair a certain way, she very reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn. James came into the room, and I had to comment.

me: “Isn’t she beautiful? She sure has grown up.
him: “I wouldn’t toss her out of bed.”
me: “ME NEITHER!”
him: I’M BLOGGING THIS!”

dan: You once took a vacation in Napa and visited a small vineyard there. You said you tried some wine that you loved and you’ve never been able to find it anywhere. I thought I remembered the name but I wasn’t sure. Is this it?
dana: Yes.
dan: Good. I always like wine and cheese.
dana: I know.
dan: I wanted to get you some cheese. There’s a great cheese place over on Second Avenue. I went over there after I got the wine, but it’s gone. There’s a hardware store there now.
dana: That’s okay.
dan: So, I got you some spackle!

I never was one for school. I mean, I did well in high school, until I kind of figured that a B is nearly as good as an A and I wouldn’t have to work nearly as hard, and then in the classes I liked the A was easy. College was nice for a while, but I lost interest and quit after a couple of years to go be a web developer in Atlanta. James is working full time, and taking 3 classes a semester towards his Computer Science degree. Most of the time, I think of this in terms of how it affect ME! Because you know, I’m the center of the universe! Well, maybe not really, but I need to be sure to leave early enough to pick up both kids on Thursdays because James leaves at 3:30 to go to his two Thursday classes. Mondays he has one class in the evening, so I put both kids to bed myself, and he doesn’t get home until late, often after I’m in bed, if not asleep.

I seriously don’t think I could do what he does. I’m just not that dedicated. To some things, yes, I’m dedicated. I’m dedicated to watching Gilmore Girls, and when our Tivo was out the second week of the new season I made such a stink and woe-is-me faces, that James managed to hunt up a copy for me. I’m very dedicated to my woe-is-me face(s). I’m very dedicated to my sheets. I love nice clean sheets, and when I slip into fresh sheets at night I am just in heaven. When our cats manage to sleep on the sheets instead of on the bedspread, sometimes they track little microscopic pieces of litter in with them and then out comes my woe-is-me face again. James went to a local community college and got his associates degree before transferring to the university. I admire the ability to see what he wants for himself, and get to it. Too much of the time it’s easier to stay in your rut of day in day out and not bother to upset it, especially if it means others have to sacrifice for your sake. I find that my problem a lot. My excuses for not working out usually have to do with not wanting to stick James with the kids alone during that time, as well as wanting to see them myself. Making yourself a priority is always hard, but James saw the value in what he wanted and he’s going after it.

And now, he deals with full time work, part-time classes with which comes lack of sleep, homework EVERY NIGHT, when I know he’d rather be watching Gilmore Girls with ME. OK, maybe not Gilmore Girls, but I’m sure he’d much rather veg out watching tv and playing World of Warcraft.

So now, our life was inconvenienced, but eventually it turned into the new norm. Me picking up the kids when I needed to, us making sure our time together does count, staying up late to talk about what Ethan made at school, or how Jocelyn likes to hide behind the chair in her room, him going to work and then leaving for class EVERY WEEK even though if it were me, I’d leave work like I was GOING to go to class and then come home and watch Gilmore Girls or maybe sleep in the nice clean sheets, or just generally sluff off class because I would just be too tired/fed up/(enter reason here)… And if he keeps at it, it seems like it’s forever now, but he will get there, and have his bachelor’s degree and all the hard work will be worth it.

What I really don’t get, is how he does all this without making the woe-is-me face. Granted, his isn’t nearly as good as mine, but he never gives it a workout like I do. He is patient, hard-working, a good daddy, and a wonderful husband. Sometimes I can’t beleive that I was lucky enough to be attracted to him, and then lucky enough to marry him. Little did I know what a great deal I was getting. He even remembers to make the bed most of the time so he doesnt’ have to see the woe-is-me-there’s-bits-of-gross-litter-on-my-sheets face.

My husband amazes me.

Up 2.6 lbs.

Well shucks. Eh.

A part of me is taking this way too laissez-faire. I play Bunko every month with friends in my neighborhood, and there’s always booze and yummy snacks. This month’s Bunko night was Friday night, and I didn’t bother restricting myself. I ate what I wanted, and had a few drinks, and I was up until 1:30 (too wired to go to sleep when I got home at midnight). My meeting is at 8:30am Saturday morning. So a part of me says, “Well, I bet I’m down overall and just because I weighed in right after my Bunko night, no sleep, lots of (bad) (yummy) food, not enough water and it’s showing up on the scale. I bet I have a big loss next week.” I guess it’s good that I don’t beat myself up over it, but really I SHOULD be beating myself up. At least a leetle bit. Nah!!!

So the plan for the week – back to the CORE plan, which means good, whole, unprocessed foods and I have to actually COOK. Can’t do core eating out, well, at least *I* can’t. It also means that I don’t have to do as much measuring and counting points, etc. because if you stay within the CORE foods, then you’re OK. The key is to eat until you feel full, but not overly full. You’re also supposed to start eating when you BEGIN to feel hungry. I have problems stopping when I’m full, even when it is brown rice and chicken. (BTW, have you HAD brown rice? IT IS SO GOOD! Go get some.)

So I’m sure one of the problems is at work I’m sitting around on my ass all day. I was at a temporary job before this full time gig, and at least I was moving somewhat. The job was downtown, and so I rode the train into the city, and then took the metro closer to my building, and THEN walked about 5-6 blocks to my office. It was fun and I liked the people, but at 1.5 hours, the commute sucked, and it was temporary. Full time with benefits has gotta win out every time.

So here I am at my new job, sitting on my butt, and now not even leaving my office for lunch because I bring it with me. I joined a women’s gym at the beginning of the summer and was doing pretty well, but rejoining the work force kind of sent that down the toilet. So, my goal for this week is to get my butt moving again. Yesterday (Monday) I left work early enough to go work out at the gym that just opened on my way home. I get past all the nasty traffic, go work out, and then sail over to Ethan’s school to pick him up. My plan is to do this Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I have to admit, when I got home yesterday, I felt a zillion times better. I didn’t have that, “omg i’m so tired i want to just sit on the couch and veg out” feeling I get when I get home from work.

SO! To sum up: up 2.6 lbs (why must they do partial lbs? the good thing about WW online was that my scale only registered half lb increments, and so that’s what I got. I liked that better, methinks)

BUT… still down 1.6 lbs overall.

GOALS for the week: work-out 3x, and drink plenty of water

Long term goal: 20 lbs by New Years Day
If I lose 2 lbs a week, this is more than doable.

I feel kind of weird writing about this. I don’t want this blog to turn into a losing weight blog, but at this point in my life, it’s something I have to face and probably continue to face forever. I obviously haven’t dealt with it well in the past or I wouldn’t be here, and so, just putting it out there for my whole two person audience to read is, while a little uncomfortable, it’s still a part of what I’m going through right now. So I’m trying to work/write through the weirdness, and at least post weekly on my progress.