Blog silence is a direct result of a traveling husband.
I miss him. A lot.
Especially today when I'm feeling overwhelmed by my emotions on both ends of the spectrum. Confession: I feel left behind. I keep thinking of where I should be right now, what I should be anticipating. And I'm not anymore. It's just hard.
He comes home tomorrow.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tales from the Scale: Week 1
Down 4lbs.
This week was really about being conscious of what I was putting in my mouth. There hasn't been much of that in the past month when I sent Karl out for Sonic Blasts more often than I want to admit and made meals that were much more about comfort than nutrition.
So yeah, this week was a wake up call that I knew I needed. As simple as it sounds, food as fuel is a hard concept for me to stick to. Food as comfort and cure for boredom has been a big part of my life over the last few years.
This week's challenge will be making good choices when there's nobody watching. I'm single parenting this week, which in the past has meant fast food drive thrus or crappy heat and eat stuff. And lots of treats, because at night after the little dude is bed I am tired and hungry and feel like I "deserve" whatever I want. But that thinking is not going to mesh well with points counting, and I worked too hard for those 4 pounds to see a gain at the scale next week.
So here's to a week of quick and easy but still healthy.
This week was really about being conscious of what I was putting in my mouth. There hasn't been much of that in the past month when I sent Karl out for Sonic Blasts more often than I want to admit and made meals that were much more about comfort than nutrition.
So yeah, this week was a wake up call that I knew I needed. As simple as it sounds, food as fuel is a hard concept for me to stick to. Food as comfort and cure for boredom has been a big part of my life over the last few years.
This week's challenge will be making good choices when there's nobody watching. I'm single parenting this week, which in the past has meant fast food drive thrus or crappy heat and eat stuff. And lots of treats, because at night after the little dude is bed I am tired and hungry and feel like I "deserve" whatever I want. But that thinking is not going to mesh well with points counting, and I worked too hard for those 4 pounds to see a gain at the scale next week.
So here's to a week of quick and easy but still healthy.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
One (or two) Little Word(s)
(Alternate title: It's my word and I can change it if I want to.)
I started picking a word to focus on for the year ahead in 2007. The original idea came from Ali Edwards and spread like wildfire among the blogging community and particularly scrapbookers. It seemed like everyone was ditching the idea of resolutions and picking a word instead.
Picking a word, one word to represent your intentions for an *entire year* can seem a little overwhelming. That's a lot of responsibility to put on one little word. Ali has said in the past that you need to let your word find you. And here is where I confess that I kind of thought that was a bunch of crap. No offense to Ali of course, but the idea that a word would just pop into my head and I would say, "Yes! That's it!" just didn't seem possible to me.
Until it happened. It was October of last year, I had just had my first miscarriage 2 weeks earlier, and we were en route to Detroit for a weekend with Karl's family. A song I had never heard came on the radio and I was drawn to the lyrics:
For about half a second I thought to myself, "Courage! That would be a great word for 2011." And before I had time to give it any more thought, I rejected the word. Courage was a scary choice. It's kind of like that saying that when you ask God for patience he gives you trials so you can learn to be patient. Courage was not a word I wanted to mess with.
So, I chickened out. I waited until the last week of December to choose my word and I went safe: Connect. I wanted to connect more with the world around me. I wanted to be a better friend to those near and far. I wanted to make connections through my camera lens with my clients. Connect was my nice warm and fuzzy word. It was perfect for 2011 because I was confident this was going to be my warm and fuzzy year. After all, the last quarter of 2010 royally sucked, so I deserved warm and fuzzy, right?
Fast forward to mid-February when warm and fuzzy kicked me to the curb. Connect was still a good word, I guess. At no other time in my life did I need to connect to my family and friends more than at the time of our second loss. I needed to reach out and talk no matter how much I wanted to curl up and be alone.
While Connect was a good word in theory, it wasn't going to carry me through this year. It's going to take a whole lot more than that. It was going to take Courage.
And that is why, in the middle of March, I decided that given the circumstances I could change my word. So maybe Ali was right. Perhaps a word really can come to you, but you have to be willing to listen.
Here are the lyrics to the song that inspired my word, "Courage" by Orianthi
I started picking a word to focus on for the year ahead in 2007. The original idea came from Ali Edwards and spread like wildfire among the blogging community and particularly scrapbookers. It seemed like everyone was ditching the idea of resolutions and picking a word instead.
Picking a word, one word to represent your intentions for an *entire year* can seem a little overwhelming. That's a lot of responsibility to put on one little word. Ali has said in the past that you need to let your word find you. And here is where I confess that I kind of thought that was a bunch of crap. No offense to Ali of course, but the idea that a word would just pop into my head and I would say, "Yes! That's it!" just didn't seem possible to me.
Until it happened. It was October of last year, I had just had my first miscarriage 2 weeks earlier, and we were en route to Detroit for a weekend with Karl's family. A song I had never heard came on the radio and I was drawn to the lyrics:
Courage is when you're afraid,
But you keep on moving anyway
Courage is when you're in pain,
But you keep on living anyway.
But you keep on moving anyway
Courage is when you're in pain,
But you keep on living anyway.
For about half a second I thought to myself, "Courage! That would be a great word for 2011." And before I had time to give it any more thought, I rejected the word. Courage was a scary choice. It's kind of like that saying that when you ask God for patience he gives you trials so you can learn to be patient. Courage was not a word I wanted to mess with.
So, I chickened out. I waited until the last week of December to choose my word and I went safe: Connect. I wanted to connect more with the world around me. I wanted to be a better friend to those near and far. I wanted to make connections through my camera lens with my clients. Connect was my nice warm and fuzzy word. It was perfect for 2011 because I was confident this was going to be my warm and fuzzy year. After all, the last quarter of 2010 royally sucked, so I deserved warm and fuzzy, right?
Fast forward to mid-February when warm and fuzzy kicked me to the curb. Connect was still a good word, I guess. At no other time in my life did I need to connect to my family and friends more than at the time of our second loss. I needed to reach out and talk no matter how much I wanted to curl up and be alone.
While Connect was a good word in theory, it wasn't going to carry me through this year. It's going to take a whole lot more than that. It was going to take Courage.
And that is why, in the middle of March, I decided that given the circumstances I could change my word. So maybe Ali was right. Perhaps a word really can come to you, but you have to be willing to listen.
Here are the lyrics to the song that inspired my word, "Courage" by Orianthi
Take all my vicious words
And turn them into something good
Take all my preconceptions
And let the truth be understood
Take all my prized possessions
Leave only what I need
Take all my pieces of doubt
And let me be what's underneath
And turn them into something good
Take all my preconceptions
And let the truth be understood
Take all my prized possessions
Leave only what I need
Take all my pieces of doubt
And let me be what's underneath
Courage is when you're afraid,
But you keep on moving anyway
Courage is when you're in pain,
But you keep on living anyway
We all have excuses why
Living in fear something in us dies
Like a bird with broken wings
It's not how high he flies,
But the song he sings
Courage is when you're afraid,
But you keep on moving anyway
Courage is when you're in pain,
But you keep on living anyway
It's not how many times you've been
knocked down
It's how many times you get back up
Courage is when you've lost your way,
But you find your strength anyway
Courage is when you're afraid
Courage is when it all seems grey
Courage is when you make a change,
And you keep on living anyway
You keep on moving anyway
You keep on giving anyway
You keep on loving anyway
But you keep on moving anyway
Courage is when you're in pain,
But you keep on living anyway
We all have excuses why
Living in fear something in us dies
Like a bird with broken wings
It's not how high he flies,
But the song he sings
Courage is when you're afraid,
But you keep on moving anyway
Courage is when you're in pain,
But you keep on living anyway
It's not how many times you've been
knocked down
It's how many times you get back up
Courage is when you've lost your way,
But you find your strength anyway
Courage is when you're afraid
Courage is when it all seems grey
Courage is when you make a change,
And you keep on living anyway
You keep on moving anyway
You keep on giving anyway
You keep on loving anyway
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Recipe Review: Chicken and Cavatelli Soup
I tried a new recipe for dinner last night from one of my favorite Weight Watchers friendly food blogs: Gina's Skinny Recipes. I love that Gina calculates all the points plus values and has also gone back and converted her old recipes to account for the new plan.
I made a few little changes to her recipe for Chicken and Cavatelli Soup, and our whole family (Little Dude included) loved it. In order to make it AJ friendly, I opted to replace the butter for sauteing the onions with our go to vegan buttery spread. I cut the chicken in half because as I was preparing to cut up TEN chicken thighs it just seemed like way too much. Finally, I replaced her pasta suggestions with small shells.
The best part of this recipe for me was that it took a hour from start to finish, perfect for a weeknight meal with a certain little dude attempting to climb my legs while I'm in the kitchen. The chopping of meat and veggies was the most time consuming part, but the soup tasted like it had cooked for hours. This will provide great leftovers/lunches for me and the dude early next week while Karl is out of town.
Oh, and I made an exciting Woodmans discovery! La Brea Bread Company makes "demi baguettes." Each loaf is two servings, which was perfect for Karl and I to split with dinner and not feel the temptation to eat a whole big loaf of crusty bread between us. Sure, I probably paid more for that one loaf than I needed to, but I am all about built in portion control.
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Joy of Grocery Shopping
Ah, the weekend. I remember when weekends used to be for sleeping in, going to breakfast, and (if we were feeling especially lazy) an afternoon of NCIS or Band of Brothers marathons.
Weekends are rather different since the little dude came around. Sleeping in? Well, AJ prefers to get up before 6am regardless of the day of the week. Breakfast out? The little dude is allergic to milk and eggs. That leaves virtually no safe options on the breakfast menu, so we stick close to home where he can enjoy his wheat free/gluten free/dairy free/egg free (translation: taste free) Vans Blueberry Waffles with vegan buttery spread and a side of bananas. And there are no marathons of any sort on the tv unless you count the dvr-ed episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba and Jack's Big Music Show that are pulled out as a last resort.
One of the highlights of my weekend now is a solo trip to the grocery store: just me, my list (organized by row starting from the right side of the store), my green bags, and a gas station coffee roaming the aisles of Woodmans. If I make it there early enough I can normally score front row parking and a minimal line at checkout. Both of these things are miracles when it comes to Woodmans.
It sounds silly to relish a trip to the grocery store, but I do. I occasionally find myself having to run to the store during the week (often to restock our supply of bananas) and those trips are always harried, mainly because a certain little dude is not a fan of sitting in the cart, but has also not mastered the art of walking beside said cart. This translates into me trying to steer the cart with one arm while pinning the aforementioned child into the seat with the other arm. Good times.
So yeah. I love grocery shopping.
Freak flag and all that.
Weekends are rather different since the little dude came around. Sleeping in? Well, AJ prefers to get up before 6am regardless of the day of the week. Breakfast out? The little dude is allergic to milk and eggs. That leaves virtually no safe options on the breakfast menu, so we stick close to home where he can enjoy his wheat free/gluten free/dairy free/egg free (translation: taste free) Vans Blueberry Waffles with vegan buttery spread and a side of bananas. And there are no marathons of any sort on the tv unless you count the dvr-ed episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba and Jack's Big Music Show that are pulled out as a last resort.
One of the highlights of my weekend now is a solo trip to the grocery store: just me, my list (organized by row starting from the right side of the store), my green bags, and a gas station coffee roaming the aisles of Woodmans. If I make it there early enough I can normally score front row parking and a minimal line at checkout. Both of these things are miracles when it comes to Woodmans.
It sounds silly to relish a trip to the grocery store, but I do. I occasionally find myself having to run to the store during the week (often to restock our supply of bananas) and those trips are always harried, mainly because a certain little dude is not a fan of sitting in the cart, but has also not mastered the art of walking beside said cart. This translates into me trying to steer the cart with one arm while pinning the aforementioned child into the seat with the other arm. Good times.
So yeah. I love grocery shopping.
Freak flag and all that.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Thoughts on "Speech Therapy"
While we're only two weeks into AJ's sessions with the speech therapist, I feel like we've been on this road for a lot longer. AJ's pediatrician recommended a call to early intervention for a speech eval at his well baby exam in DECEMBER! Between now and then we've met with a social worker, an early ed teacher, an early ed teacher WITH the speech therapist, the early ed teacher again, and now finally we've begun sessions with the speech therapist.
Which brings me to my first random observation about the process: they don't want us to call it "speech therapy." Why? Well, according to the early ed teacher, therapy has a negative connotation. Um, okay. Except I am willingly going through this process under the assumption that THERAPY is HELPFUL! I was so dumbfounded by the "we don't call it therapy" that I forgot to ask what exactly I should be calling it. After sharing the story with my stepdad who is perhaps one of my very favorite smart*sses in the world, we decided AJ's sessions will henceforth be called...wait for it...speech coaching! If for some reason the word coaching has a negative connotation, please don't tell me. I don't have time to find another name for it.
So, onto the coaching. Our first session was last week. After chatting for a few minutes about the nice weather, etc. we sat down to get to work...er play. Because really, that's all that speech therapy is when you're dealing with a 21 month old. And on that particular day, AJ wasn't in the mood to really sit down and play. So what he did was run circles around the room, stopping briefly to interact with us for about 2 seconds at a time.
Today's session wasn't much different. Except for the part where AJ got really mad and spoke! I wish I had captured it on video, because it was seriously a classic moment. AJ has this thing where he drags people around the house by the finger. It's about the only effective form of communication he has. So he wanted to take Kelly somewhere, but she was sitting on the floor. So he pulls and he pulls and she clearly isn't getting up.
Kelly: "AJ, do you want me to get up?"
AJ: pulls on her finger again and grunts
Kelly: "Do you want me to get up, AJ? Up?"
AJ: starts running circles around the room gesturing wildly and grunting.
Kelly: "AJ, I know you want me to get up but you're going to have to tell me to get up."
AJ: runs across the room, pushes his entire weight into her shoulders and shouts, "UPPPPPPPP!"
So apparently the key to speech coaching my kid is making him really really mad. He didn't say another discernible word for the rest of the time Kelly was here, but the "up" was unmistakeable!
I've heard many, many success stories about the speech "coaching" process. I'm hoping AJ will turn out to be one of those stories, even if it means ticking him off every now and then!
Which brings me to my first random observation about the process: they don't want us to call it "speech therapy." Why? Well, according to the early ed teacher, therapy has a negative connotation. Um, okay. Except I am willingly going through this process under the assumption that THERAPY is HELPFUL! I was so dumbfounded by the "we don't call it therapy" that I forgot to ask what exactly I should be calling it. After sharing the story with my stepdad who is perhaps one of my very favorite smart*sses in the world, we decided AJ's sessions will henceforth be called...wait for it...speech coaching! If for some reason the word coaching has a negative connotation, please don't tell me. I don't have time to find another name for it.
So, onto the coaching. Our first session was last week. After chatting for a few minutes about the nice weather, etc. we sat down to get to work...er play. Because really, that's all that speech therapy is when you're dealing with a 21 month old. And on that particular day, AJ wasn't in the mood to really sit down and play. So what he did was run circles around the room, stopping briefly to interact with us for about 2 seconds at a time.
Today's session wasn't much different. Except for the part where AJ got really mad and spoke! I wish I had captured it on video, because it was seriously a classic moment. AJ has this thing where he drags people around the house by the finger. It's about the only effective form of communication he has. So he wanted to take Kelly somewhere, but she was sitting on the floor. So he pulls and he pulls and she clearly isn't getting up.
Kelly: "AJ, do you want me to get up?"
AJ: pulls on her finger again and grunts
Kelly: "Do you want me to get up, AJ? Up?"
AJ: starts running circles around the room gesturing wildly and grunting.
Kelly: "AJ, I know you want me to get up but you're going to have to tell me to get up."
AJ: runs across the room, pushes his entire weight into her shoulders and shouts, "UPPPPPPPP!"
So apparently the key to speech coaching my kid is making him really really mad. He didn't say another discernible word for the rest of the time Kelly was here, but the "up" was unmistakeable!
I've heard many, many success stories about the speech "coaching" process. I'm hoping AJ will turn out to be one of those stories, even if it means ticking him off every now and then!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
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