i feel like there’s so much to catch up on when I don’t post for a while. and i have to have scads and scads of time in order to post “properly”. and then i get into a huge downward cycle because I don’t really have scads of time, and if i don’t detail how i spent each of my days in blissful ignorance of the internet and this website and blah blah blah then i’m a bad blogger person and who needs that kind of pressure?

So i’m taking this few seconds of time, and posting anyway! (the moral of this story is i need to post regularly!)

1. Ethan said on the way home today, “Do you realize that I can …” I don’t remember the rest of the sentence. I was boggling that he used “realize” correctly. The boy is four. Do you realize the boy is four? The mind boggles.

2. Jocelyn says “poop” for both peeing and pooping. She was sitting at the table eating dinner last night and announced that she was going poop. I doubted it, but thought the poop must be on it’s way. I finally convinced her to try sitting on the potty when I realized that she had probably peed while sitting at the table. We obviously need to work on differentiating between #1 and #2. It’s kind of funny because we’ve had no success in peeing on the potty whatsoever, but she’s managed to poop a couple of times. This is the exact opposite of how it worked for Ethan, who was in underwear and peeing in the potty with ease, but would not poop anywhere except in his diaper, at naptime or in the morning before the nighttime diaper came off.

3. Because Jocelyn was sitting on the potty, all of a sudden Ethan realized that HE needed to go, and I told him he’d have to go upstairs. So off he went, and after I gave up on Jocelyn, I went up to check on him (I was feeling pretty frazzled and spoke curtly to him, so I wanted to make sure he was doing all right). He was sitting on the toilet and he asked me to stay with him so I sat on the edge of the tub while he pooped.

“Sometimes the poop comes right out Mommy. Sometimes it doesn’t though. If it doesn’t come out, even after you wait a bit, then you have to poop hard. I can poop REALLY hard, mommy. I’m a great hard pooper.”

Sometimes you just hear yourself say things like, “You sure are, you are a fantastic pooper.” before you even realize it. And then you sort of float up above yourself and look down and laugh.

4. After the non-pooping on the potty last night, when we got Jocelyn up this morning, she was poopy. She had pooped in her diaper sometime during the night. ARGH.

5. I was sick over the weekend. I’m doing much better now, but Friday night I went to bed with that feeling that I was not going to be healthy the next day. And sure enough, I was not. It was just a cold, but it was a cold from hell. I spent the morning on the couch, but then moved back upstairs to bed and dozed off and on the rest of the day with about 50 lbs of blankies on me. Poor James had to entertain the kids, direct the carpet cleaners, entertain the kids some more, and get them all into bed, because I was pretty much out of it. Sunday there was much less fever, but a pounding headache still most of the day along with the sore throat and weird high stuffed up sinuses (the nose was clear, it was higher up. I know that sounds weird. I can’t explain it any better except think behind the eyeballs/cheekbones.)

5.5 Getting our carpets cleaned was the best $100 bucks we’ve ever spent. We are so doing this every 6 months. I am kicking myself for not doing it sooner. James wanted to. I held back. I have no idea why. Because I am INSANE. James, you were right. So, so right. I was so very very wrong. Hold this over me at your leisure, for years and years to come. OH JOYOUS CLEAN CARPETS!

6. The only good thing about being sick is not worrying about WW points. in fact, on saturday i was afraid from time to time i was going to lose the small bits of food i did eat. Monday’s weigh in showed a loss of 3.5 lbs, for a TOTAL loss of 10.5 lbs. While it is cool to have hit that 10 lb milestone, I know it’s because of the near fast for Saturday and Sunday.. and that means that I probably just lost muscle, which is never good. I’m not sure what this will mean for this week. Does the body try to compensate? Will it go into starvation mode and save every little thing I eat? I guess we’ll see. I will be happy if I merely maintain this week, though of course, having a loss will be nice too. So… I guess I am cautiously enthusiastic. I am out of the 260s! That is cause for celebration! I want to STAY out!

7. work is very busy. I am so behind on blog reading lately. I *think* i’m caught up on people I actually know (have actually met in real life) but the rest of my blogroll is woefully neglected. maybe tomorrow night I can read through it. I love reading blogs, so it will be nice to settle in for some reading.

8. Craftiness has turned to crocheting. I bought the sweetest little crochet dress pattern, and am crocheting it for the little lady expected in this household sometime in February. I thought when I bought it, that it would take a while, but it is going surprisingly fast. I think I’ll be done this next weekend. I would like to learn how to knit. I went to a knitting group tonight, taking my crochet project with me, and I must say, the knitting talk was fairly intimidating. I can’t wrap my head around how knitting actually WORKS. Crocheting is very easy to understand (at least in my mind) but knitting is a complete mystery. Guess we’ll see, after this crochet project. The ladies at the group were great. It’s too bad they meet on days when James is usually in class. Today he had off, I think because of Columbus day. maybe next semester he’ll have Tuesdays off and I can go regularly. I need one closer to home though. Time to look around. Maybe start my own?

9. Monday I had off, and I met James and Kurt for lunch. where I realized, that the dull throbbing headache I had ( and had the day before, and the day before ) was probably NOT a result of the illness invading my body. It was actually caffeine withdrawal. Last week I realized the diet coke situation was getting out of hand (i’m ashamed to say how much I was consuming) and cut down drastically. Monday, I sat in the restaurant looking at James and Kurt’s caffeinated beverages and it struck me like a 24 case of Diet Coke, that gee, maybe this headache was from the no caffeine! When my body is used to getting it! Daily! I mused on whether Day 3 of no caffeine would be near the end of the withdrawal symptoms, or maybe only halfway through, and maybe I should push through the withdrawal symptoms, but after deliberating on it through the rest of the meal, I decided I didn’t care because I don’t actually want to give it up, just cut it down to a normal amount. So, I got a diet coke right as we were finishing up. It had a lot of ice, and it was a normal sized glass, so probably about 8 oz of DC in there.

And by the time I got home, my headache was gone.

10. I’m totally swimming around in the gloriousness of NewsRadio on DVD from Netflix. The cast was so good. the writers were so good. the show was SO FUNNY! I love every character on that show. It’s so rare to find an actual FUNNY ensemble cast. usually it’s got a few stars, and then supporting cast members. I keep thinking of WKRP, which my mother loved when I was little, and as a result, I’ve seen every episode (multiple times!) – that was another great ensemble cast. Another one – Coupling on the BBC. Definitely check that one out. I still hold that it is the funniest thing that is/has been on TV. EVER!! but yeah, love me some NewsRadio. And the commentaries are pretty insightful as well.

OK. I’m done. That was much longer than a few seconds. And I think I even got out all that has been on my mind. It feels so good to just have a good mind vomit!

-amy just lets the wookie win.

I was born in Mountain View, CA, but my family moved when I was about 6 weeks old to Loveland, Colorado where we lived until I was eight years old. My dad was then transfered to Washington state, so we moved to the nice town of Marysville, Washington. We moved to a 5 bedroom house with a basement I can’t clearly remember (was it finished? did i rollerskate on the concrete down there? Or was that in Colorado?), a “pickleball” court (how this is at all different from a tennis court I can’t tell you), a pool, and a beautiful woods with a stream beyond our back fence. With 6 children, it was a small house, but offered so much (hello! did you hear me say pool?!) that my parents took it. My younger sister Susan and I doubled up, and my brothers James and Joe did also. The two eldest siblings got their own room, Larry and Ellen. When Ellen went off to college, Susan and I moved up to her room, and our old room became my Dad’s office.

I remember when we first arrived at the house. Hewlett Packard was moving us, so we stayed in the Everett Pacific Hotel until the moving van arrived, which I remember as taking forever, for some reason. We kids had not seen the house, so my folks took us to at least go see the house (we didn’t have the key yet). We were wandering all over the yard, and I was fascinated by the pool. It was uncovered, and I remember dipping my toes to feel the temperature, and then without warning, I was in the pool, water up to my chest. Fully clothed. I have no idea what happened, but my mother is still convinced that I did it on purpose. Because everyone I know LOVES TO PAD AROUND IN SOGGY CLOTHES AND SHOES. FOR AN HOUR. I think the story that I did it on purpose was solidified because in the summertime, I lived in the pool and became quite the brown little fish-girl.

I was super lucky that next door housed a girl my age, and Heidi and I became best friends. We were inseparable, and played together all the time. I wish I could remember the elaborate stories our active imaginations conjured up, because they were something. Strawberry shortcake, Barbie, playing in the woods, playing in the pool, climbing into and eating ourselves sick in Heidi’s cherry tree were all pleasant ways we passed the time.

When I was twelve, we moved again, though this time I’m not exactly sure of the reason. The new house was much bigger, and had a good bit of land. My mom would have room for a proper music studio, and my dad had not only an office, but a dark room for his photography. My younger sister and I would FINALLY get our own rooms, so we were excited for the move, plus it wasn’t far. We moved to Snohomish (sno-HOME-ish) Washington, about 25 minutes away, where I remember being very distraught over having to go “BACK” to elementary school, whereas in Marysville, 6th graders were in middle school. I was ever so slighted to not have a locker and only having 1 teacher, 1 classroom, etc.

Heidi and I still stayed in contact, but we didn’t see each other often. I remember one time that first year, she invited me to sleep over, and I was so excited. Oh the games we would play! Oh the fun we would have! I arrived, all set to play, but all Heidi wanted to do was put on makeup, paint finger- and toenails, and gab about boys. I was so disappointed- no, not even disappointed, more like SHOCKED, and for the first time, I realized that I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I hadn’t really understood any of the girls in my new school, and it was because even though they were “still” in elementary school, they had crossed that bridge from girlhood to teenager-hood, whereas I still did not care about boys, still played with my Barbie dolls, and loved a good romp through the woods in search of unicorns. Hell, I still want to go romping through the woods looking for unicorns.

I think it wasn’t for a year or two that I actually felt like I wasn’t a little girl anymore, and I always felt like I had to “act” around other girls. I remember just sort of wandering through the motions at this point in my young life. I don’t know if that is normal for that age, or if it was just me, but I readily adopted gestures, speech patterns, sayings, etc. of my friends around me, because I really wasn’t sure who I was, or how to behave, what to do, what I liked, what I was ALLOWED to like, or would be deemed too babyish. This teenager gig was tough. It was a complete mystery to me that one day, these girls just decided they weren’t going to “play” anymore, when the truth was, it was probably a gradual process for them. It just wasn’t for me. It wasn’t until I went to a summer campish event, BYU’s Theatre Workshop (where I met the lovely Linda for the first time) that I actually felt like I came alive, and started LIVING, started BEING myself, instead of just wandering around, just being.

But that is a post for another day.

-amy peeks in the closet for any hiding pegasus-unicorns

THE WEEKEND

was wonderful. The lovely Linda came down for the weekend and much was discussed. I held her hostage, forced her to cut halloween decorations and trace dollie patterns, working her like a slave with only gruel & water butternut squash risotto and beer in exchange. And then I FORCED her to sit out in the sun on our deck and read the paper. The news of our executive branch of government alone could have killed her. I AM BRUTAL!

THE KIDS

are cute as punch. I can’t think of any stories now, except perhaps when Ethan asked Daddy to color something in on the kid’s menu at Bertucci’s. When Daddy declined, Ethan heaved a sigh as if to say, “Oh bother, why can’t ANYONE DO WHAT I ASK THEM?!!! OH THE HORROR!” ok so i did think of a cute story.

THE WEIGH IN

was a success with another 1.5 lbs gone. I am scared. I know I thought that it was hard getting back into this, but if you’ve been reading this blog, or the archives at all, you will have seen a trend. A trend of me being ALL GUNG HO! I CAN DO IT! YAY ME! and then petering out around, hmm… when was it?? OH RIGHT, RIGHT ABOUT THIS POINT IN THE JOURNEY. I don’t wnat that to happen. I AM NOT GOING TO LET THAT HAPPEN. I *think* that I’ve had a couple hard weeks in the last month, but I know I’m heading striaght into the place in my head where I am really going to want to just toss in the towel. I need to keep my game face on. I HAVE to keep my head in the game. NO COMPLACENCY. Just because I made it this far (gee, a whole 7 lbs) doesn’t mean that I can relax, because apparently, whenever I relax, I lose my willpower.

I have not yet begun to fight!! BRING IT ON!

Um….

But not too much. K?

THE WORK STUFF

I am coming up on my 1 year anniversary at work, and was idly wondering about the usual evaluation/review stuff that goes on. So I looked it up on the HR site and found out I was supposed to have one halfway into my 6 month probation period (never happened). And that they don’t do them on the employee’s anniversary date, but in jan or july, depending on that anniversary date. Soooooo… to make a long story short, I was supposed to be reviewed in July, and so I’ll probably be reviewed sometime this month to make up for it, and if I get a raise it will be retroactive to July.

I’ve already spent it in my head on booze and hos.

THE TV STUFF (no spoilers, just for you Hilly! Even though you’re probably caught up by now)

I JUST NOW watched last week’s project runway. I was DYING with anticipation. OMG I love that show. I can’t wait to see the reunion show this week. We also watched the 2 new episodes of The Office. Excellent. Love love love that show. Still need to watch Gilmore Girls, which I just can’t bring myself to watch because I know it will make me so sad – I may build up a few shows so that I can watch them all in a row and hopefully end on a happy note. Also need to watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Love Aaron Sorkin. Own the Sports Night (GO PUT IT ON YOUR NETFLIX LIST!) DVDs. West Wing was awesome until Sorkin left. this is probably our most anticipated show this season.

And that’s really it as far as our/my tv watching goes.

Um. this was supposed to be quick and short. I’m off to bed.

-amy tosses salt over her shoulder.

… featuring Andrew taking a picture in the american indian museum in DC.

Check out all the past banners.

Linda is down for the weekend. she is squished in the back trying to convince ethan her head is held on by bolts. he looked closely to see. jocelyn wasnt buying it.

Something Ethan made at school.
It is titled, “Me and My Sister”.

so. hi there. project skinny! thought i fell off the wagon, didn’t you? well, you’re right, and you’re wrong. i have been meaning to post since monday, but it’s been a busy week and i had other stuff i wanted to say (puzzles?! puzzles were SO important?? You just HAD to share your precious handmade totoros??) (Oh shoosh, inner self.)

So I did not post anything for week 3, and am terribly late here posting about week 4. But I have NOT fallen off the wagon, though I have been a bit discouraged. Last weekend was a Not Good Points weekend. I had Bunko friday night, and it was filled with booze and taquiros and booze and chips and booze and trail mix with m&ms and more booze. And then some more booze. Saturday night we actually had a SITTER for the first time in months, and had fried bar food before the movie and then mexican after the movie and why is it I always seem to think mexican will be ok? Because the big bowl of (fried) chips and the yummy food with cheese and sour cream and quacamole and all sorts of yumminess, well, that can’t be good, and I can never guesstimate what the points would be but I know that they’re probably high (even without the guac. and the sour cream, which I did NOT have). I actually think I did ok at the mexican place, compared with bunko and the fried bar food. But it all added up for a very disappointing weekend, and a gain at monday’s weigh in.

So I did not count it! I told James I was just going to NOT weigh in, and just weigh in the next week (this week). He claimed that was cheating. Which may be. But I don’t care if it’s cheating if it means that I don’t get SO frustrated that I just throw in the towel. Mind games. It’s what’s for dinner! How Can We Trick Your Mind Today! Now, with Lemon Fresh Scent!

So anyway, I did not “officially” weigh in last Monday, but I pretty much step on the scale every morning so I knew what the damage was, and it wasn’t pretty. However, by this last monday (which was week 4 weigh in) I was back on track with a 1/2 lb. loss from week 3. (Which means that even though I gained week 3, i lost it all as well as 1/2 a lb in week 4. yay me.)

I have to say, it has been a hard couple weeks. week 4 after my set back was especially hard. It was a lot like week 1, where you SEE ALL the stuff that you want and shouldn’t have but still WANT WANT WANT. Week 2 it was like, “I see you! But I don’t need you no sirree bob! I’m just fine! Ha-HA!” Well, week 3’s weekend kicked my ass to the curb and when I saw all that stuff, it was like pressing my face to the window staring and not being able to look away and wanting to lick the glass — that’s how hard it was. But I managed it. I didn’t succumb to unplanned stuff, but did plan many many things that made it easier. there were much brownie snacking (3 pt brownie bites from costco, i love you) and even planned peanut m&ms (6 pts never tasted so good) and so it made it easier to steel myself against the BOX OF DOUGHNUTS IN THE KITCHEN AT WORK. HOW DARE THEY. Ahem.

So this week has been a lot easier, in fact, I think there have been a few days I’ve been under points, which isn’t too good because your body can trigger into starvation mode, and then it’s REALLY a hard to shed pounds. but still. Under points? Me? WHO IS THIS AND WHERE DID YOU PUT AMY??! It really is kind of shocking.

So the moral to the story? I need to persevere with the points counting even on the weekends, because that is where I get into trouble. At work, it’s easy to keep track and not really stray off the planned eating, but at home, the kitchen is ALWAYS right over there! Waving to me! Hi Amy! Come have some chips! Come rummage around in me! I’m full of food! And what with the onset of cooler weather, I have been getting all these nesting crafty sewing BAKING urges. We had some bananas that were on the brink of super-bad, but just at that stage where they make wonderful banana bread, so of course I did. and then I ate about 6 of them over the weekend. However, I realized what I was doing, COUNTED THEM, and took the remaining muffins (i made them into muffins instead of loaves for easier points figuring out) over to my neighbor Selena so she and her husband could enjoy them and they would be OUT of my house.

So that’s the Project Skinny update. I remember thinking how nice it would be to be in the 250s instead of 260s by the end of the month. I don’t think that is going to happen, but I think I will be pretty close 🙂