Staying Afloat

Last night’s dinner was really good.  I was a little unsure of it.  I made baked meatballs and cauliflower.  The meatballs were a combo of pork and beef.  The recipe called for veal, but I just can’t justify it.  The cauliflower was a lot better than I thought it would be too.  I boiled it for about 5-6 minutes just until it softened but not mushy.  Roasted red peppers were added.  The recipe called for olives, but since I’m not that big on them and neither is Robert I left them out.  Toss with salt, pepper, and olive oil.  There is the side dish.  Lunch yesterday was a vegetable soup.  That turned out well too.  Lunch today may be the egg salad wraps or leftovers.  I need to adjust my menus next week for leftovers.  Otherwise the fridge will be overflowing with the fresh produce and tons of leftovers.

Yesterday I went to Wal-Mart to get some shakes and granola bars.  I need some easy snacks.  This morning I tried one of the chocolate shakes.  TOTALLY hit the spot.  I was really craving something sweet and this did the trick.  It was also very thick and filling, so I’m not wanting to eat more right now.  The best part is the shake was only 2 carbs!  It will be nice to have these on hand for quick breakfasts or snacks for at work.

Sunday is my party for 10 years of remission.  We’ll just be at the house and play some games/chat.  Today I am hoping to get the bathroom cleaned.  It will be one less thing to clean on Saturday before people get here Sunday.  Saturday will also be making/prepping the food for Sunday.  Laura’s room is all clean and ready for her new bed on Sunday.  We even went and picked out a new set of sheets for her.  I know we need to get her another set yet, but at least she has one to start with.

On the potty training front, Laura is still making progress.  She still doesn’t like going poop in the potty.  She has no problem peeing though.  As a bribe/reward for going poop, we have made a sticker chart.  Every time she goes, she gets a sticker to put on the chart.  Once she fills a row (6 stickers) she will get a small toy.  She just filled a row on Tuesday.  She picked out a small Sleeping Beauty doll that has 2 different dresses.  She is loving it.  I never knew Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty spent so much time together. 

I am halfway through day 3 of Atkins.  So far I am loving it.  I am not missing the carbs much (well, minus the dream about a homemade cherry pie last night and other sweets).  I am really loving the veggies and new recipes.  The recipes I’ve been trying have been right up my alley.  For lunch today I made a veggie soup that included zucchini in it.  Before, I’d have been afraid and unsure of how to make it.  Now I’m gaining confidence.  Last night was tomato and feta burgers.  I ate mine without bread/bun.  There were such great flavors that it didn’t need any condiments.  To go with the burgers, we had a cucumber salad.  It really surprised me at how good it was.  I will probably eat some for a snack today.  I need to figure out dinner tonight first so I make sure I don’t go over my carb limit for the day.  This afternoon while shopping I’ll see if I can find some shakes and granola bars.  They will make quick and easy snacks.  The shake could even be a breakfast for me on days I work.  This morning I ended up eating some leftovers because I didn’t feel like eggs again.  I’m sure that I’ll get used to this.

I have really taken the doctor’s suggestions to heart.  I am doing the best that I can.  I know that I’m not at 100% in following the suggestions yet, but I’m doing the best I can.  I’m not getting down on myself.  Here’s a run down of the changes and how I’ve been doing.

1. Starting citalopram (Celexa) again.  This seems to be helping.  I have noticed myself more stable and happy overall.
2. Starting regular exercise I have started walking.  I wasn’t so good about it over the weekend, but plan on getting out there again today.  I didn’t make it yesterday either.  This is something that I’m not 100% with yet, but I’m trying.  I won’t get down on myself about it.
   1. Start with regular walking
   2. Once I can go 2-3 miles, start a DVD workout.
   3. Exercise only 30 minutes a day to start with
3. Change eating habits I have started the Atkins diet.  From what I saw, this had the most help and options for me.  I’m excited to see where I can go with it.  Yesterday was just day 1 of it.  I have the full menu planned for the week for myself.  Robert may or may not eat the same things with me.  I’m leaving that up to him.  He may also eat some of what I prepare and add in a side dish of his own.  We are still working the details out on that part.  I am looking forward to getting healthier.  I really looked at our diet and I realized just how carb heavy it is/was.  Most of my grocery cart on Sunday was fresh produce.  This is a definite difference!
   1. Cut way back on carbs (I love my carbs!)
   2. I will need to do some investigating for menu options for me
   3. Eat more healthy fats (peanuts/nuts, fruits, veggies, no popcorn)
   4. Cut back caffeine  I am having one coffee in the mornings.  I am not missing my Coke yet.  We’ll see how that is in a few days.  I didn’t drink it regularly, but it was nice to have once in a while.
      1. I think I can handle the Coke, especially if I can have CF Pepsi or something similar
      2. Not sure about the morning coffee that I need occasionally though
         1. Going to bed earlier may fix this

So that is my update on my changes.  I’ll be updating here occasionally about my progress.

Yesterday we took the kids into the doctor.  They’ve been fighting these colds for 3 weeks now.  They have each been on antibiotics once for ear issues.  Things just weren’t getting better.  Laura’s ears are fine.  Warren on the other hand does have an infection in one ear.  He is on augmentin now.  He just hates the stuff, even though it is flavored.  Right now it is taking two of us to get just some of it in him.  It is going to be a long 10 days.

Time for me to eat some breakfast and get laundry going.

I am seeing big changes ahead for me.  I had my annual physical this morning.  My mood swings have gotten really bad lately.  So now I have several things that I am to work on.

1. Starting citalopram (Celexa) again.
2. Starting regular exercise
   1. Start with regular walking
   2. Once I can go 2-3 miles, start a DVD workout.
   3. Exercise only 30 minutes a day to start with
3. Change eating habits
   1. Cut way back on carbs (I love my carbs!)
   2. I will need to do some investigating for menu options for me
   3. Eat more healthy fats (peanuts/nuts, fruits, veggies, no popcorn)
   4. Cut back caffeine
      1. I think I can handle the Coke, especially if I can have CF Pepsi or something similar
      2. Not sure about the morning coffee that I need occasionally though
         1. Going to bed earlier may fix this

All of this is a lot to take in.  I know that I need to do it for my mental health as well as physical health.  I know that high cholesterol runs in my family.  I need to start changing habits now.  I don’t like how I look or feel about myself as I currently am.  I am really hoping that doing the above changes will help me shed some pounds as well.  I know that will help me feel better about myself.

One of the questions I was asked was what stressors I had in my life.  At first I didn’t think I had that many, but then I started thinking about it.  I really do have a lot.  The biggest problem is that I don’t know what to do about all of them.  I guess I just have to take things one day at a time.

I’m going to attempt to upload some pictures that I took of Laura’s artwork.  I’m hoping that I did it right!

I spent most of this afternoon going through the pictures that are on my computer.  I needed to figure out what is on the server, what needs to be edited, and what needs to be uploaded to Gallery.  Well, the last part didn’t happen today.  I’m hoping to find time tomorrow to do that.  As of now, I have all the pictures that have been dumped off the camera onto the server.  Some I am not even going to bother to edit right now.  I figure I can do that when I order prints for scrapbooks.  I am also realizing once again how much I have been slacking on taking pictures of the kids.  I don’t know how many I’ll have for September, unless it was an outing to the MN Zoo.

I am currently trying to find a photo editing program that I like and want to buy.  I have tried out Photoshop Elements and wasn’t in love with it.  If I really want to use PS, I can go downstairs to use it.  I also tried LightRoom by Adobe.  I really liked that one.  I was able to easily figure out what I needed to do and how to move around it in.  I’m sure I didn’t use it to its full potential in the 30 day trial I had.  Now that LR has expired, I am trying out Apple’s Aperture.  I’m not so crazy about this one.  It was difficult to figure out at first.  It seems that I can do everything I want in LR and Aperture, but LR is quite a bit cheaper.  I am not going to commit to anything right now.  I am only on day 1 of a 30 day trial.  I may even get one more program to try out before buying.  I want to make sure I get exactly what I want/need before buying.

Today was a bit of a trying day again with the kids.  This morning I used the TV a lot.  I just needed a break.  Lunch with Laura was a battle.  I made her eat the soup she refused last night.  She ate a little over half, but then I gave in.  I made her a sandwich.  She ate that and some oranges.  For breakfast she had 4 pancakes.  She was definitely hungry today after not eating much last night.  Warren did a good morning nap from 9:30-11:30.  He had soup leftovers as well.  He did really well with it again.  I did find a bit of a stash in his bib, but overall he had a good lunch.  The afternoon wasn’t so great.  I heard Laura awake by 2 or 2:30.  She normally sleeps until 3.  I left her in her room until 3.  Warren didn’t go down for his afternoon nap until 1:30.  He was awake by 3.  He usually takes another 2 hour nap in the afternoon.  Then tonight, Laura was needing to poop but was holding it.  Once we finally got her to try to go, it wouldn’t come out.  Such a battle!  She also had 2 accidents today because she was too busy to stop to go to the bathroom.  I’ll have to keep an eye on the clock tomorrow and make her take time to go.

Well, the hands on the clock show me that it keeps getting later and later.  My eyes are getting heavier and heavier.  Tomorrow has potential to be a big day. I have a card making class at Archivers with Mandy at 6pm.  I’m so excited to get out a little bit!

Things I have learned today:

1. Be careful of how long to cook hamburger soup in the crock pot.  It tasted a bit overdone tonight.
2. Pioneer Woman’s buttered rosemary rolls are good… except I did salt and garlic instead of rosemary and salt.
3. Even if I think the meal is a hit in my opinion, there are some that don’t.
4. My son totally took me by surprise tonight by eating most of his soup, including the vegetables.
5. Warren likes Oreos.
6. Sea salt sprinkled lightly on top of dinner rolls is really tasty, at least to me.
7. I am SO glad that i had the episodes of NCIS all recorded from the end of last season and beginning of this season so I could just jump from one to the next.  There is no way I would have handled waiting  a week at a time to watch them!
8. The Amazing Race should be interesting this year.  I have a few teams picked out that I think will do really well and others that will be eliminated quickly.
9. I may need an intervention for the dinner rolls.  I want to go have another right now.

This weekend has been a bit trying for me. It all started Friday morning really. It was my last morning coffee with the girls from church. Warren still wasn’t feeling 100% so he stayed close by. I was home by 10 since we had a repair man coming for the dryer. It was making a bad rubbing sound when running. He got here, we turned it on, and I heard a clinging sound coming from inside. I opened the door to find a screw tumbling around. Once I took it out the dryer sounded fine. Go figure. The best guess we have then is that the screw go lodged in the crevice between the drum and the wall. The repair man only charged us a percentage of the service call. I still felt dumb that we had him come all the way out here just for that. Friday night we baked some fish and had rice and peas to go with it. Laura ate all that I gave to her. Warren wasn’t so big on it. As a reward for eating such a great dinner I gave Laura one scoop of ice cream plus one cookie. May be a bit much, but I wanted her to know how proud I was that she ate everything that she was given. She didn’t even complain about it one time!

Saturday was a day full of laundry. Since we thought the dryer was broke, we hadn’t done laundry for two weeks. With four of us in the family, there was a ton to be washed. We had also just bought two garbage bags full of clothes for Warren. I only washed up one of them since that is the size he is in now. Suffice it to say that my day was spent doing laundry. I also made it a point that the clothes didn’t sit in the baskets for a week unfolded. Everything (with the exception of the jeans since I slacked off there) is folded and put away. For those of you who don’t really know me, this is a huge accomplishment around here. Laura was really whiny on Saturday. I had enough of it. I let Robert deal with her most of the time since I just couldn’t take it anymore. Then in the evening we did our weekly grocery shopping. We also went to Target for some paper goods. I found a lot of scrapbooking letter stickers for cheap on Craigslist. We met the girl at Target in Hudson to buy them. I looked at them tonight and they seem great. I’m excited to find ways to use them. Laura did not do so well with dinner Saturday night. She was crying and whining all through dinner. We didn’t have dinner all together since we got home so late. We just gave the kids some fishsticks and yogurt for Laura. She didn’t even eat all the fishsticks or even half of her yogurt. She was whining so much that we just put her to bed.

This morning Warren actually let us sleep until 6:30! We were on the ball and to church a little bit early! The last two weeks I sat in with Laura during Sunday school. I made the decision today that I’d just drop her and go. That did NOT sit well with her. I heard her crying as I walked back up stairs. I went down 5 minutes later to check on her and she was cuddling up to the director of Sunday school. I asked if she was ok (using just hand signals so Laura wouldn’t see me), and the answer was a sorta/I don’t know. I gave her another 5 minutes and went to check again. This time she was sitting on the floor with her class listening to the Bible story. I knew she’d be fine now. While Laura was at Sunday school, I was enjoying a visit and coffee with Tracey and Tashia. We decided to compensate for me not making it to coffee anymore that once in a while we’d go to the local Mexican restaurant for dinner. They both loved that idea. Now to pick a day/time. During church Laura was whiny still. Warren fell asleep on me and slept until communion. I was losing patience with her then. She LOVED the children’s sermon today. All the kids got a piece of a Hershey’s chocolate bar and 2 Starbursts. She thought she was hot stuff with that. Back at home, it was past lunch time. I had lunch going as fast as I could. This only made Laura whinier. Eventually we all got lunch. Laura went down at 1:30 for nap, which is way later than she normally goes down, even at Helen’s. Thankfully it was a quiet afternoon here. She slept until 5! I still think she is fighting off a bug of some kind. Dinner tonight was taco salad. Laura did really well with it. I mentioned it in my previous post. Immediately after, she wanted to go in and take a bath. Who am I to argue with that? She is starting to learn how to take off her shirts by herself. It’s amazing how independent she is becoming already. In some ways it is nice, but in others I want her to stay my little girl that needs me. After her bath, I let her watch a little bit of her princess movie and then to bed. I am trying to remember to say prayers with Laura before bed. As a part of Sunday school, the goal for this year and up to 1st grade is to say the Lord’s prayer together as a class. So now we are starting to work on that. After his bath, Warren got his blanket and toddled off to his bed. We had both kids in bed at 7:55 tonight. This is unheard of in this house! Usually Warren is up until 8:20 or 8:30. I am certainly not complaining though!

Looking ahead at this week, I will be busy enough. I promised Laura that tomorrow we would paint her nails again. She told me tonight that they aren’t pretty anymore. I am also hoping to do another craft project with her. On Friday we made a wreath. We cut out a circle. I traced her hand several times on red, yellow, and orange paper. I cut her hands out and then we glued them onto the circle to create a fall themed wreath. She calls it her flower or her sun, but that’s ok. She had fun doing it, it was time for must Laura and me, and I have evidence of what size her hand was at this age. I also mentioned finger painting to her. We may try that tomorrow or save it for Tuesday. Wednesday evening I am going to a card class at Archivers with Mandy. Friday I start as the assistant manager at Textbook Services.

I’m a bit nervous about taking this on. I know most of what there is to know about it. I’m nervous about having authority over the students that I’ve worked with, working along side Virgil more, and taking on more responsibilities. I’m sure I’ll be fine once I get into the groove of things.

I’ve talked a lot about Laura, but not about Warren. He is past toddling for the most part and full out walking. Sometimes he borders on running. He loves the independence that comes with it. He is much happier. We don’t have the gate up at the end of the hallway much anymore. He leaves the DVDs alone. He will go into our room for the most part. Sometimes he goes into Laura’s room, but there isn’t anything for him in there. I think he does it just to get a reaction, and boy does she give one! He is still very much a carnivore. It is a huge battle getting him to eat any fruits or veggies. I honestly don’t know what to do. I worry about how little he gets. His 15 month appointment is in November. I don’t think I want to wait that long to ask about it. I never had this problem with Laura, so I don’t know how to approach it. He is sleeping better. Sometimes he will wake up a bit before 5, but he is starting to move closer to 6:15 and sometimes 6:30. I’m looking forward to the day that we can all sleep until 7 again. Verbally, he is starting to make progress. To me, the biggest thing right now is that he is starting to say momma. He could say it before, but just refused to when I was around. This weekend I’ve been hearing it a lot from him. He does a lot of babbling too. I can’t recall if Laura did a lot of babbling or if she went into simple words. I’m just happy he is talking more. Oh yeah, and Warren is understanding some commands. If I ask him to go find Daddy he will go look for Robert. I can also have him show me his bed and he toddles down the hall to our room. Such a smart little boy. He is starting to communicate with me that he is tired and wants to go to bed. A few times last week he either went to our room on his own, or he happily went when I asked him where his bed is. Tonight he took his blankie from the living room and went down the hall.

Well, I think that about covers things for now. I’m hoping to update more even if it just a short tidbit. I may even take a page from a blogger I follow and post several times a day. They’d be short posts, but just something to put out there. I don’t know how many people actually follow me, nor do I really care. This is mainly for me to have a way to record what is happening in life and with the kids. It also allows me to vent my anger/frustrations.

Growing up dinner time (we called it supper) was a great time for our family. It was about us all coming together at the end of the day and sharing about our day. It was also a safe zone. We could openly discuss pretty much anything and feel safe about it. We were hardly disciplined other than the usual table manners. It wasn’t unusual for our dinners to go over an hour. With the way kids’ schedules are today, family dinners are becoming scarce. I knew before we even had kids that I wanted to continue those type of family dinners with my kids. Up to now, it has been difficult with the kids eating things different than we are. However, Laura is doing really well eating the same thing we are. She has really surprised me with some of the things we are eating. I think a large part of that is we are eating with her and she isn’t all on her own. Warren is still refusing anything that isn’t protein or carbs. Tonight Laura even ate taco salad with us. She needed some help with getting the lettuce on the fork, but then she was good to go. The part I am struggling with when it comes to our family dinners is the conversation. So often we sit in silence. Robert enjoys reading either his magazine or the newspaper while eating. I can’t help but be a bit discouraged that our family dinners aren’t turning out like I had dreamed.

In other news, Laura is still doing great with potty training. She is still very reluctant to go poop on the toilet. I ended up forcing her a bit today. I wouldn’t let her get down until she went (she was dancing around trying to hold it in so it isn’t like she was sitting there without a true need to go). She ended up going and we made a big deal out of it. She is working on earning a sticker for everytime she goes. Once she gets 12 she will get a small toy. If she goes another 12 times she will get a larger one. She also gets one cookie for each time she goes in the toilet. If she goes in her diaper at naptime, I don’t scold her at all since I have told her that is ok to do (just out of desperation to get her to poop at all some days), but she doesn’t get a reward of any kind. I’m looking forward to her not wearing a diaper at naptime. She has been waking up just a little bit wet each day though, so I don’t want to go without quite yet.

Why is it that when I hear, “I was downstairs doing x, y, or z, but then I heard you needed me upstairs,” that I hear, “I was trying to help downstairs but then you needed me upstairs since you can’t handle taking care of the kids on your own. Now it is your fault that x, y, or z is not finished,”? I hate hormones.