Weight loss goals vs. delusions

I am finding myself torn lately about my goals when it comes to my weight. When I originally started this weight loss journey I figured I would be happy if I ever got to the point where I didn't need to shop at Lane Bryant anymore. Once that happened, then I figured if I could get to a normal BMI (136lbs or less) then that would be amazing. I had almost gotten there when I got pregnant. After having Fritz, I was immediately 131 lbs, which was pretty stinking awesome. Now, at 8 1/2 months post partum, I am down to 123 lbs. This is way lighter than I had ever expected to be. This is where I become a bit confused though. I find myself wondering if I shouldn't just take off another 10-15lbs. I have a teeny little frame, I am not meant to be heavy. I am not "big boned" at all! Should I consider myself done with weight loss at 123 or should I push just a little bit more?

When I look at my excess skin, there is, realistically, about 6-10 lbs worth of excess skin that I could have removed. You simply can't lose as much weight as I have (I have lost more than I weigh) and NOT have a good amount of extra skin swinging around. So, maybe I shouldn't lose anything and instead save up for a tummy tuck/lower body lift?

It is hard to think of getting OUT of the weigh loss mode. This must be how those anorexic girls on the after-school specials felt. They could look in a mirror and still see a bit more to come off. Not that I am anorexic.... I am not saying that. It is just that one can always see room for improvement and when does this cross into being a bit delusional? When does it cross into an unhealthy obsession?

I think I need to just get back in the gym and focusing on my work outs. That tends to help as I am not so focused on my weight or weight loss, but instead focused on fitness goals. Now that Fritzy is over 6 months old, he can finally go to the childcare at the YMCA!!!! YAY!!! I should utilize that on days that I don't have to work. This last week I have let my feet carry me more than 13 miles with running/walking and that has been sooooooo nice. Time to step it up a bit more. Time to lift some weights and get some muscles. Time to challenge myself. Time to get re-started with that marathon training business..... that all fell by the wayside while we tried to make this house livable and my arthritis was flaring up big time and life felt hard.

Fitness goals:

• Be able to ride bike to and from the YMCA for workouts (the Y is the next town down the highway), this would be 12.9 miles each way.
• Get back up to running for 60-90 minutes straight.... eventually get that marathon training
• Lift some weights! See some arm muscles
• Be able to swim 1/2 a mile
• Be able to feel fit enough to go for a run with someone else (I run alone because I am SLOW)

Open letter to the mothers who are far better than I am.

You know who you are. You see me as a parent and it brings pity into your heart for my small children.  You can't help but come up to me and let me know the errors of my ways. Last night, you let me know that you felt my baby was dressed inappropriately for the weather. I laughed a little and said that I was just trying to make my baby prepared for when the windchill takes this b*tch to -50 (ok, I didn't say the b-word, but I was struggling not to).

What I really wanted to say:

I am glad for your child that she has a perfect mother. That is simply not my kids' lot in life. They got me. I mess up..... daily. I swear too much, I am sarcastic, I sometimes get snippy with them for no good reason, I don't check the weather report before we leave the house for an hour and so I don't realize that it is going to get chilly, I often don't travel with snacks or an extra blanket, I will forget about my kids needing drinks but will remember to bring my own cup of coffee. At times, I can be extremely selfish. At this very moment, I have put apple juice and water into my baby's sippy cup in hopes of keeping him off the breast for 30 freakin minutes so I can write this post, throw in a load of laundry, and just *maybe* get to put on some make-up before I leave the house for work. I listen to my baby cry each day while I shower because he is terrified of the shower.... I know that I would be a better mom if I showered while everyone was still home so he wouldn't have to be scared, but that would require me waking up at 5am and I am just unwilling to do that. I don't make my kids eat nearly enough vegetables and sometimes they get to drink soda. They eat food colorings, gluten, dairy, sugar, hydrogenated oils, and high fructose corn syrup. My poor kids got this imperfect creature as their mother.

However, they know that I love them fiercely. Your hurt one of my babies and I will run you over with my car without even blinking. I try to be sure they all have clothing, housing, food in their bellies, and plenty of sleep. I try to have good conversations with each of them daily about what is happening in their lives and I don't even roll my eyes (at least not while facing them) when we are talking about Star Wars or Harry Potter..... AGAIN. I laugh at their jokes and delight in the people I can see them becoming. I praise my child who struggles with her emotions when I can see her trying REALLY hard to react appropriately to situations that come up. I point out the awesome and quirky things that I see and I never try to turn them into people they are not. I giggle when one is supposed to be playing football and is instead taking down his teammates with his invisible light saber. I love how that child still lives in his own little world.

So, you caught me. I didn't have a blanket for my baby and clearly I suck in many ways. I think I am just giving my kids some character though :) They will have stories about how imperfect their mom was that will make them laugh some day. Or, maybe I will just have to spend my retirement fund on therapy for the lot of them.

Sorry for the lack of photos.....

We have still been working on this home, but I have no photos to share. You can thank one of my children (the one named "Not Me") for that. Said child took my awesome Canon Rebel in automatic mode and twisted the lens hard and broke my lens. I am thrilled. <sigh> Oh well, they go back to school tomorrow!

This weekend we have managed to get all the smoke detectors hung up! Don't worry, Mom, we had them out of the boxes, but just not up on the walls yet.... we were kinda protected. We also finished changing all the outlets and light switches. We still have one mystery light switch that we cannot figure out what it controls. Joe fixed the downspout above our side deck so that the water won't rot away all his handy work. We have also just been preparing for the school year, cleaning, hanging up pictures, etc. Joe is also preparing to start a new job this week, so that is very exciting!

We have been selling stuff, too. Rather than doing a garage sale, we have just been selling stuff on craigslist as we haven't needed it. This is a smaller home with very little storage space and Joe tells me that we are done making babies (BOO! HISS!), so we are just clearing out as we go. So far, I have sold off some cloth diapers and Joe sold our old electric dryer (love me some gas dryers... so much faster!). I still have a few baby toys listed that Fritz just outgrew, prefolds, a book shelf that is too tall to fit in our short house, and a futon that we have no need for. We might, eventually, get our garage back :)

Just a funny from the other night. A friend was asking our 6 year old if we have had a busy summer (she knows all about this house, work, etc) and Edie said, "Nope!" When pressed on it further she told our friend that we spent all summer just playing on our computers. That child CLEARLY doesn't remember what this house started off looking like :)

kids and pets will be the death of me

We got quite a bit done again today. Joe pulled down the carport thing-a-ma-jig and I painted some places that the lead paint was coming up. I have to say that I was not thrilled to have to repaint this stuff. Due to the kind of loan we have, we have to have an inspection at the end of the work, which also includes re-testing for lead paint. We had to pay someone about $2,000 to encapsulate this lead paint, but it hasn't been holding up, so I am having to repaint it all. Most of it is coming off in huge sheets.... bringing all the lead paint with the encapsulating paint.

Today I painted around the bathroom door. I was quite pleased and went to sit and eat some lunch while it dried. I told everyone not to touch it and not to use the door. I blocked it off with a chair. Our dog is terrified to go close to the chairs or baby gates. Well, she changed her mind on that today. She pushed the chair out of her way and got her paws and face in white paint and then proceeded to walk ALL OVER! IN CIRCLES! Amelia helped me scrub all of that up and prevented me from strangling Ramona.

I moved upstairs, where Owen's door had also been chipping. I got all of it repainted. I came down and talked to him about needing to stay out of his room. He needed to not use his door for at least 2 more hours and even then, he was not to close it. 20 minutes later I went upstairs and found that he had shut his door and locked it (I need to take that damn lock off his door) and had "forgotten" that he wasn't even supposed to go into the room yet. The door fits REALLY tight. So, all the work I had just done along the edge is completely undone and tomorrow I need to rescrape it all and repaint.

This home improvement business would be sooooooo much easier without kids! And pets! Of course, then I wouldn't have anyone to fix this home up for. Also, the push to take care of the lead paint would not be so great. Just be warned.... don't eat the paint chips when you come over.

Girls' room is done... and other weekend projects

Finally, I feel like we can do an official "before and after" shot of a room in the house :) Joe and I and the girls got their room totally finished up today. I would finish up Owen's room, but the kid won't keep legos picked up for long enough to do anything.

Anyhow, here are the befores:
(I wish the smell would come through the blog page... it was rank.... cat urine soaked carpet)

And here are the afters:

We have also been doing many little projects. Yesterday, Joe and I built a compost bin out of pallets, so our compost will be all neat and tidy:

I have been also working on touching up some paint while Joe works on putting together different shelves. I sorted cloth diapers that Fritz outgrew during this moving process and spent a good amount of time searching for the television remote that has been missing since our move..... no luck. Tomorrow will involve painting trim and, if the weather is good, we will be taking down the carport thing that is attached to the garage.

Ta-freakin-da!!

Oh, yeah! This weekend we kicked butt and took names. It helped sooooooo much that the older 3 kiddos went to my parents. They got to have summer fun (swimming, eating fudge, learning about homemade ice cream, watching movies, etc) while Joe and I busted our behinds to make the most of the free time.

We got our stairs done! We got our bathroom door done! We got the front deck done! (no stairs yet) We got the shelves in the bathroom closet done! We got the towel bar hanging done! Weeeeeeee!!!!!

Look at our pretty bathroom door!! It is a cranberry color and covered with a red sparkly paint :) It was the door that was in the house, which was a cool door so we just wanted to rehab it. I posted a "before" photo just for comparison sake.

Here are our bathroom shelves! Now we don't have 3 giant boxes in the bathroom. We were finally able to unpack. I will probably sew some sort of curtain for this closet, but that can be a winter project.

Here are our freshly painted stairs. They are colorful!

 This is what they looked like when we bought the house:

This is what they have looked like for awhile now. We had removed the carpet, the lead paint was encapsulated, and the rail had to be fixed so the spindles were closer together for safety. I am so glad they are finally done!

Joe removed the huge posts and now you can actually see our front door. The deck has been redone and we will do stairs once we get a good base built for them.... which will likely turn into us doing the entire walkway to the street.

What the house looked like before:

 This was the front deck. The wood was just rotten and weak.

We still have LOTS of work to do, but we are getting there :) It is amazing what can happen to a house with a contractor, two handy (and pretty hard working) people, and about $35,000. Yeah, we feel broke right now. Broke, but in a home that is in much better condition than it was 2 1/2 months ago!

Getting TONS done

This weekend my parents were kind enough to take our big kids so we could get some tedious work done here at the house. 4 kids + painting stairs just wasn't going to be any fun. We are now 3 coats in on the stairs and need to put down probably one more coat quickly in the morning and then they should be good. I will save the sharing of any photos until they are done. Same with our bathroom door. I want a big 'ta-da' sort of moment for those :)

Joe also got our garbage disposal hooked up. Each time our dishwasher ran, this is what happened:

Gross, right? Now, this is what happens:

Yay! Much better!

Tomorrow I expect we will be done with the stairs and bathroom door, bathroom shelves, and front door steps :) Our big kids will also come back home :)