ar2

I guess I’m just having one of those days.  I think I’m over tired, didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night.  Work kind of annoyed me, nothing bad but I asked to get out early, my boss said okay, and I ended up leaving early…by a whole 8 minutes.  Thanks for the generosity!  Of course, he leaves several hours early, and he doesn’t have to work tomorrow, but I got my 8 minutes so I should be happy.

I got home from work and had about 5 minutes to catch up with my husband before he went to work.  I asked him the basics, like how was the little dude today, when did he last eat, did anyone call.  Standard responses, he was good today, ate like an hour ago, no one called.  Okay, he leaves, I get something quick to eat, and then try to put the little dude down for a nap and take one myself.  I REALLY needed it.  Well, he wanted nothing to do with a nap.  At this point, I’m so tired I can barely function.  I would fall asleep for about 5 minutes and then the little man would wake me up or the phone would start ringing…I kind of lost it and got really upset for a little bit.  I got up and the phone calls were all bill collectors, so I get pissed because the husband won’t get a real job where we can afford to pay all of our bills.  If he would get a real job, then we could actually afford daycare and maybe work normal hours and be home together and then we could get the little guy on a normal sleep schedule and I wouldn’t be so tired…I was not in a happy place.  To top it all off, I looked farther back in the caller ID, and two of the “no ones” that called this morning while I was at work were my aunt and my best friend.  Yeah, that’s no one.

Anyway, I get upset and of course, short tempered.  Then I feel like my little man suffers, especially after spending all day with dad, who I think just plants him in front of the TV most of the morning so he can do his own thing.  When I get home, he just wants attention but I need time to cool down and unwind.  I wish I could figure out a way to just switch off all the crap from the day and be a good mom, I don’t want my son to suffer or be unhappy because I have frustrations.  Everyone has frustrations, I have to learn to deal with mine.

I know I make my husband out to seem like a horrible person too, which he really isn’t.  I just want more from him, but I want him to want to do more, be more, and I’m afraid he’ll never get there!  I get frustrated with the little stuff because it’s the same little stuff I’ve been dealing with for years, and it never changes.  Why can’t life just be perfect?

Well, enough time sitting on my butt feeling sorry for myself.  I’m going to workout, make dinner, bathe the little man, find all of us clothes for Thanksgiving, and then I have to get some sleep before work in the morning.  Thanks for reading this, I’m not looking for any magical answers, just some friendly ears (well, eyes I guess).  Hope you all have a great night.

I’m just annoyed, so I thought I would blog it out.  We live in a building with 3 apartments and there is a shared, coin-operated washer and dryer in the basement.  When we first moved in, we had different neighbors upstairs.  There was also a laundry schedule posted in the basement:  one apartment had Monday/Tuesday to do laundry, one had Wednesday/Thursday, one had Friday/Saturday and Sunday was free.  After a while, that schedule came down (it was really inconvenient seeing as how my husband and I both worked on our scheduled laundry days), but there weren’t really any issues with the laundry.  Sometimes the lady downstairs would leave her stuff in the washer for days on end, but someone always put it in a basket so everyone else could use the machines.  Our old upstairs neighbors moved out (THANK GOD!) and we have new neighbors now (these guys lived in our apartment before we moved in).  Now, there is always laundry sitting in the washer or dryer when we go to use it.  My husband and I both wear uniforms for work, we only have 2 each, so we have to do laundry every couple of days.  I actually rarely do laundry anymore (I let my husband do it) because I don’t feel right about touching other people’s stuff to take it out of the washer so that I can use it.  I write this now because that’s exactly what I had to do so I could wash my clothes for work tonight.  I just think that when you have shared facilities like that, you should be considerate of others and take care of your stuff in a timely manner.   Our stuff never sits for more than an hour, and definitely not overnight or even for days!  I’m not going to post a schedule because I don’t like the way that works, and I don’t want to bring it up to the neighbors because I’m sure they have issues with things we do (loud toddler with a weird sleep schedule).  In the long run, it’s not overly important, I’ll live if nothing ever changes with it, I just wonder why people can’t be naturally considerate of others.  Anyway, that’s my little rant.

Hi all!  I just started a new challenge in the weight loss forum.  It’s called “Who can stay strongest the longest”.  Stop by and check it out!

I’m taking the night off.  I was planning on taking either Sunday or Tuesday off, but it’s going to be today.  I worked this morning on too little sleep, came home hoping to take a nice nap but instead had to deal with a toddler meltdown of epic proportions, and now the night is slipping away quickly.  We still need to eat dinner, a certain little man needs a bath, husband still has to be picked up at work.  Not to mention the fact that I just feel exhausted.  I don’t know why I feel the need to justify taking the day off.  I guess that’s a good thing, otherwise I would probably take a lot more!  I probably wouldn’t even take the day off if it wasn’t for the fact that I have to work early tomorrow, so I can’t work out as late.  Sometimes it sucks being a night person with a mostly day job.  Anyway, that’s what I wanted to say.  I’m taking the day off today. 

Would anyone be interested in participating in a kind of personal goal duration challenge?  My basic idea is to set a goal, something you’re having a tough time sticking to, and competing against others to see who can stick to their goal for the longest without cheating.  It wouldn’t be anything real time consuming, just check in periodically to say if you’re still in, see how people are doing, maybe talk about your struggles and ways you’re dealing with sticking to that particular goal.  I know that the competition factor and extra accountability of the challenges really helps me out, and I thought this might be helpful to some of you out there (and me!).  I’ll start it up if there’s enough interest, so just let me know what you think.  Oh, and it’s kind of a rough idea still, so I’d be open to suggestions from those who are interested!

Every now and again (increasingly more often though) I like to get some of my smaller clothes out and try them on to see how they fit.  Three and a half months ago, I couldn’t button or zip any of this stuff.  Some of it wouldn’t even fit over the body parts it was supposed to!  So today, I pulled it all out again and just checked to see how it fit.

First up was a nice black dress I bought years ago but never wore.  When I first got it, it fit perfectly.  Last time I tried it on (just a few months ago) I couldn’t even get it zipped all the way.  The parts I could zip it over looked like they were stuffed into a black sausage casing.  Not real pretty.  Today, it zipped all the way, and looked so much better than a few months ago.  I still wouldn’t wear it in public, but there were so many less tight spots, and they weren’t nearly as tight as last time!

Next up were my Christmas pants.  I call them that because I would like to wear them for Christmas and have them look good.  They wouldn’t button or zip when I first started out here, and now not only do they button and zip, but I would actually consider wearing them out in public in a pinch.  They’re still a little more snug around the thighs than I’m comfortable with, but they’re just hugging my thighs rather than being stretched taut around them!

Last up was a pair of jeans that I’ve put on a few times but always figured they were too tight to wear in public.  They’re looking so much better that I’m going to stop wearing my old jeans (which are practically falling off) and start wearing these.  They’re still a tad tight, but I figure that will keep me motivated.  Once these get loose, I will actually have to buy new jeans!

When I started out here in the end of July, I never dreamed that I would lose all this weight.  I was wearing a size 20plus (so about a 22) and those were very tight on me.  Everything that I tried on today was a size 18, and that’s what I’m going to stick with from now on.  The bigger pants are getting put away (maybe thrown out if I can bring myself to do it) and I’m not going back to them again.  Woohoo!

Hi all.  I just realized that it is totally within my power to be under 200 lbs by my birthday in February.  Why this hasn’t dawned on me before, I don’t know, but basically I have 3 months and 2 days to lose 22 lbs.  Totally doable since I lost 29 lbs in the last 3 and a half months.  Wouldn’t that be an awesome 30th birthday present to myself?  I’m so excited now! 

Okay, I’ve decided to issue a challenge to myself.  I think that I spend way too much time sitting in my everyday life, so I’m giving myself a “Get off your butt” challenge.  I am going to give myself 1 hour of sitting time a day outside of meals.  This will be from the time I wake up until 11 pm.  Other than that 1 hour and meals, I need to be moving.  I’m not going to put any other crazy stipulations on it, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while.  I think sometimes I make excuses about how I didn’t have time to do something, but maybe I was really just vegging out, so I’d like to see where this goes.  I don’t sit at work and I don’t really drive that much, so those won’t be issues for me.  I’m going to try this for one week, and I think it will be a real eye opener for me.  This starts tomorrow and will go til next Thursday.  Wish me luck!

Hi all.  I don’t know what came over me today but I was having some severe chocoholic cravings, so I ate not one, but 2…yes 2… candy bars on my way home from work!  I don’t know why I feel the need to put that stuff in my body when there’s stuff that’s so much better for me.  I was thinking “Maybe I was just too hungry.”  But how much can a candy bar really fill me up?  It’s just a couple of ounces, nothing substantial at all.  So just for grins and giggles, I looked up some stuff that I could have eaten that would have gotten me the same amount of calories as just one of those candy bars.  I searched for stuff under 200 calories, because most candy bars are at least that.  Here’s what I could have eaten instead and would still be UNDER 200 calories:

Almost 2 whole bananas

2 medium pears

2 1/2 medium apples

3 medium peaches

3 1/2 cups of chopped broccoli

10 oz package of mixed veggies

15 oz baby carrots

7 cups cauliflower

8 medium cucumbers

So obviously “I was hungry,” is not a good excuse, since any of this stuff would have been much more filling than a stupid candy bar.  And remember, I ate 2 of them!   Maybe I can keep this in mind next time I reach for a Twix or Caramello…or both. 

Well, I’m taking a break from cleaning to write this.  I don’t know if anyone can help me, this has nothing to do with weight loss.  Well, maybe it does, in a roundabout way, but not directly.  Anyway, here is my dilemma.  My husband and I both work full time and we have a not quite 2 year old son.  As you can imagine, an active toddler can make a pretty decent mess.  I don’t expect my son to clean up after himself (at least not all on his own) because of his age.  I try to make him help me clean up his toys and I teach him to put stuff in the garbage like wrappers or banana peels or whatever.  I really don’t mind cleaning up his mess though because he is just a little one, he really doesn’t know any better yet.  My husband is another story though.

For as long as I have known him, he has been a slob.  This never really bothered me before we had kids, because frankly, I was a slob too.  Granted, I was not as bad as him, but not real neat either.  Now, since our son has been around, it really bothers me.  I don’t want him growing up in filth.  I try to get my husband to help, but he just doesn’t.  I wouldn’t care if it was just the fact that he didn’t want to do the sweeping or the mopping, but he does not clean up after himself AT ALL.  He leaves cups, bottles, wrappers, even food just laying around anywhere.  He leaves clothes laying everywhere, half full cups, open bags of chips or candy, everything.  He has DVDs and video games laying around all over, and I can’t even think of what else.  I have told him time and again how much this bothers me, how I don’t want our son around this, how it’s disgusting, bad for everyone’s health, etc, but he doesn’t change.  I even told him I would leave him over this, and he doesn’t change.  Maybe he’s better for like a day, but it’s back to old habits after that.  I’ve even gone on cleaning strikes so he knows how much I do, and what happens when I don’t do it, and it doesn’t bother him.  I’m at my wits end!

Now, he does do some stuff.  He does the laundry almost all the time, but nothing other than what we need for the next day or two, and he takes the garbage out, but only when there’s like 3 bags piled up and I bitch at him about it.  Oh, and he cooks sometimes, but then I’m the one cleaning up, and he makes a BIG mess when he cooks.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me?  Anyone ever been through this?  I wouldn’t even mind doing all the cleaning if I didn’t have a job, or even if he had some difficult job or was the main breadwinner, but we work the same amount of hours, his job is super easy, and I actually make more money, plus I have the job with benefits.  I’m so frustrated, and tired of waiting for him to grow up or feel some responsibility for taking care of us.  Anyway, that’s my embarrasing blog.  I’m married to a lazy slob (but I still love him) and I need help.  Thanks all!