Pencil Thin

What a month! I cannot believe that February is almost over. It has just seemed to fly by because I have been so busy. Since my husband’s auto accident I have had a very full plate. I now know more about cheap auto insurance vs. higher priced insurance plans than I ever wanted to know. When I am not dealing with insurance adjusters there is so much that needs to be done. My husband isn’t able to do anything that doesn’t require sitting which leaves pretty much everything else for me to do. I am exhausted and drained. I keep telling myself that March will be better and I will get through the coming weeks. That is what keeps me going until I fall into bed each night and wake up the next morning to do it all over again.

I am looking for opinions on shoes. I need a new pair or two. I am guessing I should probably get cross-trainers, but would also really like some shape-up type shoes. I like to run, do kick-boxing, weight training, step aerobics, and biking. So, a good multi purpose shoe! Anybody have anything they really like? Even a favorite brand. I love ASICS. For my foot they fit great. Since I try not to wear the same shoe for running that I do for cross training I find myself in need of new shoes. Cross training can makes your shoe break down more in the lateral motion and can cause you to have sore knees and ankles if you wear them while running.
Remember also, running shoes NEED to be replaced every 500 hundred miles. If you are running that is less than every 6 months! As states already, worth it in the long run!

In the next couple of weeks we are going to be picking up our new car. We are only going to have the car for about a year. My father-in-law was able to get us a one year lease on a Nissan Cube. I am fine with anything to drive at this point. I know my husband would much rather have a car that he can shop for Mopar performance parts to fix up with. I am just thankful to have a running vehicle with many airbags. It is also great that I don’t have to go out shopping for cars right now and deal with car salesman. Shopping for cars makes me want to poke my eyes with a hot stick. There is nothing I loathe more that haggling over sticker prices and added features. I am not completely in love with the look of the car we are getting but I will probably get over it after a few months.

I love these diapers and they are so cheap that it almost always will beat the price I can get with coupons even on Huggies or Pampers. I would say they are very comparable to Huggies and better then Pampers. Carrying these diapers has probably increased my shopping at Target about 10 fold because I will go in just to get diapers, and I have classically really disliked Target. Watch the size. I bought some size 3 and were happy with them, but one day compared them to a Huggies size 3 and huggies were bigger/longer – i.e. the UPs didn’t come up as high on the back and front, so less coverage. You may need a bigger size earlier than with huggies. I think they are better than Walmart’s store brand. Unless there is a really really good sale elsewhere on another brand, I buy these exclusively.

It has been the longest February I can remember for a long time. It started when a driver fell asleep at the wheel and plowed into the side of my husband’s car. He was seriously injured and thankfully is now at home. I don’t think I have slept a full night since the accident and probably look like a walking advertisement for reasons to get the best under eye cream. I am now finally feeling that a full night of sleep is just around the corner. My husband made it through the night last night without needing a sleeping pill or some pain medication. This is a huge step forward in the healing process for him. I am still afraid every time we get in the car because the reality is that no matter how safely I drive it is now painfully clear I can’t prevent an accident. I know that eventually this fear will subside but right now I can’t help but worry. Thoughts enter my mind at night as to whether we are choosing a safe replacement car? I also hope that we have adequate insurance coverage in case of future accidents.

Not too long ago I noticed that my plants in the kitchen window were all in need of new homes as they had outgrown their old ones. After checking the price of bigger pots at a couple of stores (YIKES!) I decided to see if the local thrift store had any pots.

They didn’t…but they did have a number of containers that, with a small modification, would work. I bought ceramic bowls and containers that were pretty and bright and best, cheap.

I brought them home, turned them over (with a towel underneath) and took a phillip’s head screwdriver and a hammer and gently created a drain hole or two in the bottom. Yeah, it will take some of the inside bottom, too. The glaze holds together. But since it will be covered with dirt it doesn’t matter. I had old saucer plates I didn’t use anymore and reused them for water catchers under the containers.

I bought five containers for approximately $1.50 each. The other stores (Walmart and Home Depot) wanted upwards of $6 and up for their containers.

It is funny how loosing weight can put a spring in your step. It took a bit of time for my mind to catch up with what the scale has been registering but I am now definitely feeling lighter. I have pants that are falling down and shirts that are way too big. I have decided to get back to seriously trying to loose even more weight in order to finish this phase of my life. It is cool because people are finally starting to notice my smaller frame. Someone asked if I had been taking a phentermine diet pill or something. I didn’t know how to respond to this question? I decided to say nothing and just take it as some sort of compliment. Some people just don’t have a clue as to how to pay a compliment. I think this person may have also wanted to know what my diet secret was and couldn’t figure out a way to pose the question. Either way I am thinner and happier and on my way to being even thinner!

When we moved into our house there were some areas of the house with fairly old linoleum in them. I have tried everything to get them clean because they really look like they still have life left in them. found that using an old fashioned wax stripper really helped. A lot of the grime is trapped in old layers of floor wax. Then, of course, you need to re-wax the floor since it doesn’t have any other protective coating. I used a liquid wax product that didn’t need buffing. They really will look much better shiny! The only problem is that it can be hard to find such old- fashioned products. My MIL swears by using ammonia to take strip off the crime off of old linoleum floors. (MIL uses very little water when she does it) Make sure to read the directions on the back and have proper ventilation. After a few hours of work I am happy to report that the wax stripper made a world of difference in these floors. It is nice to know that we are not going to have to put money into new floors right away and can continue to focus on paying off debt!

In the last week we have had a number of people at the house. This is a little bit weird for me because we tend to be pretty private people. My husband was in a serious car accident and I found myself spending a great deal of time at the hospital. I was handing keys to my house to everybody and anybody. It never occurred to me until this moment that I was letting people into my private space. It isn’t like I care if I have exposed acne treatments that I use to people. What I do care about is leaving a lasting impression on people about how I manage the daily aspects of our life. I wonder if someone collected a stack of mail, and sees a bunch of credit card offers, will they assume we have a bundle of debt? Will they wonder why I keep so many groceries in the house? Or will they think I have some serious dust bunnies that I have forgotten? It is funny the things that come into your mind when you aren’t used to people having free access to your home and life.

A friend of ours is dealing with a toddler with croup. If you haven’t had a child with croup it isn’t fun! When our 2nd DS at 7mo caught croup we rushed him to the ER and by the time we got there at 2am he wasn’t barking anymore. Why? Because it was the middle of Feb and it was cold outside. The attending doctor gave him a steroid that helped. But even the doctor said the best course was to just take him outside and he would clear up. That same child has been susceptible to croup each year. He is usually the only one to catch it when it comes around. Our doctor advised us to avoid the old shower/steam concept. He said that recent studies show that this can trigger a rebound type affect in the airway where they seem better for a bit and then suddenly get worse than they were before.

We’ve dealt with a lot of croup in our house, as it seems to accompany asthma pretty often. We’ve had a middle of the night emergency room trip because of the stridor as well.

For the last week my children have both had colds. My husband just spent a week in the hospital following a car accident. The dog hasn’t been to the groomers in two months. The entire family seriously needs a day at the spa and bad breath treatment or something. I think we could brush our teeth, shower, and get groomed and there would still just be a funky smelling “air” about us. You know that smell that people have when they are just not feeling really well? It might be in my head at this point after spending so much time at the hospital and at home caring for sick people. I wish winter were almost over so I could throw open the windows and doors and let fresh air into the house. Maybe next week things will seem better and our world not seem so full of sick people. I guess I should feel fortunate I have stayed healthy and been able to keep up with everyone and take care of them during all of this.

Every time I put on any foundation whatsoever, it magnifies every textural imperfection in my skin. It’s frustrating because the texture in my skin doesn’t look bad at all w/out makeup; I just want to even out the tone a little bit. The minute I apply any kind of foundation, though, the tone is even but every wrinkle, every dry patch, every bump or anything stands out so horribly!

I’ve tried liquid foundation, mineral powder (the worst!), powder foundation, everything. It ALL makes my skin look way more wrinkly and flaky than it actually is.

Please, is there anything that anyone has experienced that would help? OBVIOUSLY I realize that the perfect solution is just to acquire smoother skin, and while I’m working on that (AHA, hydration, moisturizer, etc.) too, I’m not having tons of success. But seriously! My skin isn’t bad at all; it’s just like any average thirty year-old’s skin! I just can’t believe that every woman out there who wears foundation has ZERO wrinkles, pores, or dry patches. There must be something that’s working for them! Does anyone know what it is?

Over the last three months I have learned a great deal about what my body needs to loose and maintain weight loss. I have tired a ton of weight loss products and think I have finally found the combination of products that works for me. One thing I know that my body loves in addition to various supplements and whatnot is protein. I have found that I function best when I consume what seems like an insane amount of protein. It is amazing how much protein I can eat and not gain weight. I think everyone is different but it feels really great to finally have an idea of what it takes to keep my body happy and my weight under control.

I just read an email from a friend who detailed how picky people in her neighborhood are. It makes me thankful for the neighbors that I have. She said that code enforcement is sore subject on her street because someone on the street called code enforcement on someone 54 times in 4 months and that was just on one of the neighbors. They called the police because one of the neighbors was letting his diesel warm up in the winter. It got so bad that code enforcement does not even come on her street anymore because of how harassed her neighborhood was.

My favorite story was that she had a neighbor and his camping trailer was sticking out 1 foot past the front of the house, he had 24 hours to move it back a foot!!!! Or he was going to get a ticket.. I mean give me a break. We pay our property taxes and this person was just being ridiculous.

I am glad my neighbors are quiet, kind, and not overly anal about stuff like this.

The other day I realized that it had been a couple of years since I have had to deal with having a period. The last time this happened it was only because I was pregnant. I can thankfully say that this time I don’t need to worry about taking prenatal vitamins or having morning sickness. About 2 years ago I had an endometrial ablation. It was absolutely the best thing I have ever done for myself. It is amazing to not have to deal with all that hormonal garbage associated with having a monthly cycle. When I went decided to have the ablation I had no idea how it might turn out but it has been great! I only wish I hadn’t waited as long as I did to have the procedure done.

Found out today that a guy in our neighborhood is selling drugs again. We live in nice area so this is really frustrating.

The guy lives w/ his mom and ran a meth house about 10 years ago. It caused big problems for the neighbors and he eventually went to jail. His mother looked the other way the entire time and wanted everyone to have compassion on him- Ugh!!!! He is out of jail, living with mom again and selling drugs again. People are parking down the street near our house and meeting up with him. A neighbor that lives just a few doors away from him is seeing drug deals go down nearly every day. Other neighbors are reporting them at all hours of the night and day.

Thankfully this isn’t right next door but it still comes as a bit of a shock. I can only hope it all goes away and he moves on or gets locked up soon.

It doesn’t seem possible but I am at the beginning of another round of dieting. The plan I follow has you take your dieting in phases or rounds. During the last round I lost 25 pounds and was able to keep it off with sensible eating and a little elliptical here and there. This round I am hoping to loose 15 pounds but would be happy with 10-12 pounds as well. I am doing a shorter round this time because I just don’t know if I can stick it out for 43 days this time. I loved loosing the weight so quickly and easily before but it was a very long 43 days. I am going to decide in about 2-3 weeks if this is definitely going to be a short round depending on how much I loose in the first two weeks. I will keep you posted!

A friend of ours has run into a credit card situation that they can’t figure a way out of and is considering taking the money from a 401k plan. I have tried to tell her this is a really bad plan but I don’t know if she is listening. One thing to think about is you have to pay back a 401K loan with after-tax money and then you have to pay taxes on that same money when you withdraw it at retirement. So it’s like paying double taxes on whatever you take out in addition to losing the benefit of the compound interest. My best advice to her was to negotiate her credit card debt directly with her creditor(s). I just hope whatever decision she makes she understands the long term implications of it and thinks everything through completely.

We have had a great deal of stuff going on in our lives lately. My husband was in a serious car accident a little over a week ago. It is funny how it takes something like that to make you realize how fortunate you are. My husband really didn’t like his job before the accident and frequently talked about changing careers. I listened to him describe how his job just made him feel awful. After the accident we received an outpouring of concern from his co-workers. It was really amazing how much they reached out to us. It really took my husband by surprise to realize that his co-workers cared as deeply about him as they did. I honestly believe this has changed his attitude about his job in a very positive way. He mentioned that it no longer makes his job seem so miserable because he knows he works with people who care about him. The people served by his office may not appreciate what he does but he now knows that his co-workers do appreciate him.

Do you have any family rules about kids playing at friends? Do you require them to spend about as much time at your home as they do at their friends? We’ve never had an issue with this before, but recently, my DS has picked up a friend that only wants to play at his own house. DS is 10- so it’s not an issue of a younger kid being scared to come over. It’s starting to annoy me. I’d like to get to know this kid, but can’t. I also don’t like my son being out of my home so much. DS is like, whatever. He says he has fun at the friends house so he doesn’t mind going over there and doesn’t want to make waves with the new friendship. DH says he never liked to bring kids home when he was that age, but DH’s dad was an abusive jerk, and DH is not, so that excuse doesn’t fly. Am I being an over protective mom by wanting them to spend as much time here as they do over there? Should I lay down the law? Should I just back off and let things be? Insight from moms of tweens is greatly appreciated as he is our oldest and we are new to the whole tween scene.

At this stage in my diet and exercise program I am trying to find a balance that keeps my weight under control. Part of what I have been doing is trying to determine which foods cause my body to gain weight and those that do not. What I hadn’t planned for is determining how much I need to eat to balance out the calories I am burning exercising. I recently determined that the morning after I hit the fitness equipment really hard I will incur a slight spike in my weight. I then found out that I needed to eat more to prevent my body from hanging onto weight. Once I raised the amount of protein I was eating each day my weight balanced out. It is funny when you are used to watching calories very closely to find out that you actually have to eat more food to loose weight or maintain. I am hoping that everything is now stable and I can just consider this my new eating plan for life.

I am now adding healthy carbs and some natural sugars back into my diet. One of the things I tried this week that I really enjoyed was Mrs. May’s Trio bars.

The name comes from the ingredients. The bars have a trio of trios: 3 nuts, 3 seeds and 3 fruits. The nuts, seeds and 2 of the fruits are the same in all the flavors. The nuts are cashews, almonds & pistachios. The seeds are sesame, pumpkin, & sunflower. The two fruits that are in all the flavors are dates and raisins, but you don’t really see or taste them so I wonder if they are cooked down into the “glue” that holds all the other ingredients together. The third fruit in each flavor is (obviously) dried fruit in the named flavor, though the tropical is a blend of three different tropical fruits, none of which dominates. The only other ingredients are rice malt, natural flavors, cane juice and sea salt.

These are great bars for anyone who has issues with wheat or dairy. The label says they are wheat free, gluten free, dairy free and kosher. They also have no preservatives. If you have peanut allergies, the label says they are packaged in a peanut free facility that processes other nuts.

Because of the nuts, they have 12 grams of fat per bar, but I’ve been reading articles that say nuts are a great snack and the fat in nuts is “good” fat. The label says there is 1.5 grams of saturated fat which surprised me but I guess some of the fat in nuts must be saturated. To round out the rest of the nutrition facts: calories, 170; total carbs, 14g; dietary fiber, 2g; sugars, 6g; protein, 5g; cholesterol, 0g; trans fat, 0g; and sodium, 45mg.