Nane and Paw

came to visit. Mike's parent's came down and took us to dinner for his birthday last week. I think it's safe to say Ellen's Grandmother ("Nane") is not yout typical Grandmother!!! Well, except for that she loves her Grandbaby to pieces.

Next week, she'll get her own bike and do-rag, but for now she is sharing with Nane and Paw.

DORI 2006 Update

So as promised (I sometimes hate my own self promises) an update on how I feel about my progress...

Well, I am not ripped and August is days away so time to rethrink the next goal. I am however much more fit that I was and a smidge smaller in the weight/size department. I think with a bit more dedication I could be closer this this goal, but I also think I've made very good progress towards it and the last month has not been wasted at all. An interesting discovery - I keep a spreadsheet where I log my weight, my mood and my body image (assigning a number rating to the latter 2). I guess the researcher in me wants to see if my mood is dictated by my weight or if my body image is or vice versa. So far, no correlation. My mood has been up, my body image neutral to negative with a couple of peaks I guess, and my weight shows a steady downward trend. HOw's that for some fitnomics. Hey..."fitnomics"..do I have an idea for future clients? I digress.

The big strides over the last 2 months have abeen a significant increase in cardio fitness, a loss of maybe 4 pounds and some strength gains (curling 15-20 lbs, walking lunges with 17.5's, 15 full suspended body weight dips). In the kitchen, I've decided the key for me is control my blood sugar, thereby controlling my hunger, and enabling me to make better food choices. I've discovered my penchant for sugar is a bit of a road blcok and to regulate this will take me to the next level, if not the ultimate level. I don't like to eliminate food groups as a rule, but refined sugar doesn't really add anything to the diet, and it really affects my blood sugar. The big change I've made is not eating fruit by itself in the afternoon...what felt like reaching for a healthy snack was really setting me up to be reavenous waaay before dinner. That change alone has helped. So for the next few days until August, I'll stick with the DORI 2006 plan (gotta see those self promises through yada, yada, yada) and see where that gets me. Next Tuesday Iwill report the results and a new set of time-contrained goals.

Breathe

Cuz you can't jump the track
We're like cars on a cable, and
Life's like an hourglass
glued to the table"

~Anna Nalick "Breathe (2am)"

You gotta love that. I am sitting here listening to what I lovingly call "L&D1"...the mix I made for ERS's delivery. I haven't played it in a while but I love it as much as ever. Perfect background for this day, and this entry. There is no turning back, you get to live this life once, it is always moving in forward (fast forward it seems) and I am acutely aware of that every day, particularly this one where I feel like I've put my "first things first" and am reaping the rewards.

First things first, in the fitness arena, I had a new personal best this morning. Today I ran an 8:59 minute mile. I can hardly believe I just typed that!! I was listening to "I can only imagine" which I downloaded from itunes after watching this video one morning and deciding it was now the perfect running song, because after seeing this, it's impossible to wimp out no matter what:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg

I had just upped my speed to 7.1 and I thought "Uh-oh no stopping now" and I ran with a beautiful lump in my throat remembering that video and never dropped the speed and voila, I ran an all time personal best...even when I ran a 10K and was trying to really be a runner, that never happened. That is why I love working out...deep down it is always about so much more than burning calories and looking good.

Then as I stood there slicing my first tomato from my garden (even better I was slicing it for my 7 egg white omelet with spinach and onions. You can't BEAT that for your body) I thought "some days you just can't beat being a sahm". At work, I ate great 90% of the time but its hard to whip up an egg white omelet in that environment. And its hard to beat one cooked with a tomato from a garden you would never have had time to have in the past, but always wanted. I have wrestled with my decision to stay home from day 1 and have had a hard time giving up my routine, independent time, career and extra money. It's all 10 times harder than I expected, and that is TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH to admit. But this is just not one of those days. I feel like we are all getting what we need. Thank God for the gym day care, Ellen spends an hour a day with other kids age ranging from hers to mostly 2-3 year olds so it is wonderful for her. And lots of time with her Dad, who spends every minute he is not away from home basically up her fanny. Sometimes I get to feeling lonely for her after he comes home! Again, hard to beat.

That is not to say I haven't kept the goal of getting on as a trainer in a gym very firm in my mind this week as I try to achieve my fitness goals, and also toyed with whether they need a gym on Highway 20 close to a friend of mine's house, even did some quick numbers for it, and thought very seriously just yesterday about checking to see if they need teachers at the college down the road. So many things I want to try. My mind is constantly wondering what the next step will be, but always aware that it's hard to beat what I have here.

Back to the tomatoes...only 3 red ones in a million green ones, 1/2 of which had blossom rot. SO I researched it, cured it and found my squash and zukes overcome with powdery mildew when we got back from Tybee. It's so embarrassing. Hazel and Janetta (my 2 very retired and white haired neighbors ) have already offered me baskets full of their plants' produce. Do I need to wear a white wig out there to water the darns thing or what!?

Last but not least, Ellen is back to her normal self after back to back trips out of town. The Texas-Tybee combo was a doozie for the baby. One was a plane trip to a different time zone. I see now why alot of parents are wary of this. Sleep schedules go out the WINDOW. It was fine, but she lost some sleep, which makes it harder for her to get good sleep which further deprives her and well, its a vicious cycle. And for a Mom who was getting up a minimum of 3 times a night until she was 6 or 7 months old, this is serious business. I protect her sleep schedule like a Mama Croc protects her nest, so it was good for me to have to learn how to be flexible and learn it wasn't all going back to sleepless nights (a.k.a. hell) in a hand basket. Barely got her back in business and napping and sleeping well at night and we went to Tybee...5 hours by car. Car seats are not that fun I dont care who you are! So, bless her heart...but she has been a good baby, a sport about it and she is back to normal now. Moms have to learn, too.

She got her walker from Grand Dad...suffice it to say she loves it! She LOVES it.











In about 5 minutes time she had motored over and was staring down Columbian Francois. He's one of the pigs Dad has given us, but he is a smidge darker than the one we have, hence "Columbian" Francois. You could tell she’d never noticed him before. So we moved the dog bowls so she could get in closer and turned out they were the same height and she had to check him out…

Can you see the pictures now!!?

So, the whole point of sharing this darn thing is to share pictures of Ellen...then I got lots of replies that folks could not see the darn things!! So I spent my afternoon trying to rectify (that word totally kills me incidintally) the situation. Somebody puh-leeze comment and give me your status. I can always see them on my computer, even when others have problems...so help a sister out!

Tybee Island Beach Trip

Everything is just so much more fun when you are a baby! I think in this picture she is thinking "Mom! I LOVE it when you take my picture!" This is her new shirt that Aunt Holli and Uncle Greg gave her from their recent trip to the Big Apple for their 10th anniversary.










This is Ellen and her bestest estest friend Lily Clare (also sporting the very stylish New York shirt). L.C. may very well be the most agreeable 2 year old in the whole wide world, she was nothing but loving and sweet to Ellen Rose...and everyone else for that matter. She won my heart all over again this weekend!








Here she is on the beach...she was fairly non-plussed actually. She ate some sand and dug in it a while then I think she'd been there done that and was ready for what was next.











Here we are on the balcony... we were quite impressed with the view.

Ellen Rose Smith

My new favorite picture

The Texas Review

Now that I am on a better roll here, I should recap our trip to Texas to see Grand Dad. Getting there was a breeze, everybody (but me) was totally at ease with the whole thing...this was taken around 6:30 a.m.-UG.



The whole trip was just so special. At the top of my head are the preperations Grand Dad made for us. Good ole golf-and-wine loving nearly-retired beach-bumming Grand Dad had gone out and bought diapers, wipes, special bibs and burp cloths, a pack n play and a high chair for his first Grand Baby's visit. All without any suggestion from me. How special and incredible is that? What a guy. Ellen loved her high chair...

It is possible she was less wild about the plums we were trying.

And the real highlight was that at my request he arranged to go see our family a few hours away and instead of just dropping by and having a visit, they put on a big shin dig where every relative within an hour plus came to see us...just for me and the little one!! It was just too special. There were homemade and garden grown dishes and folks piled around the table eating and having a grand old time. I'll never forget it. Nobody does that better than our family.

We also took Ellen to the pool for the first time...here are a few shots of her with the BEST UNCLE I could have ever asked for! Chandler was so much help, and just in general tons of fun to be around. Ellen loved him...

Victory and Dog

What a great Saturday night!! It started with a long process of "Where do you want to eat", "I don’t care, where do you want to go?". Rinse. Repeat. Our fabulous babysitter came at 6:30 and we headed out and had a nice long dinner at the local Italian place. The topic of conversation was what were your favorite times in life so far. In other words, when were you the happiest? For me, it was when I was 17...it was just a good year, when I met my husband and so many things seemed to come together as we fell in love and got married, and then when I was pregnant. But then, right now is a close runner up. Right now, we are finding our groove as parents, but getting back to "us" and really starting to have fun with this chapter of our lives. His included a stint when he was young; he enjoyed being a child/preteen about a million times more than I did.

Then after we paid the sitter and piled into bed, we ended up with me trying to learn how to make that weird muffled guitar sound boys/guys (OK, men) make that girls can never make. He is always trying to get me to make sounds (one of his favorite pastimes) and I DO NOT, as a rule, “make sounds." But I was dying to know. I was in tears as he (very seriously) is telling me to clench my teeth, but relax my jaw, and say "victory" then "dog." The V and D are the sound you are looking for but he was just trying to get me to get a feel for them trough clenched teeth before I graduated to the next level. Then you speed it up and add a "ch, che-che ch" in there and you top it off with a head bang and air guitar. I got close but not all the way. So glad I married someone who is so much less serious than I am.

Gardening

We've been growing kids and vegetables around here... this is a before picture from a month ago. She is in between a zuke and squash plant.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BETWEEN THE SAME TWO PLANTS.



p.s. Guess who is pulling up!!?

Cat's got my tongue

Silence is a virtue but I've never been this virtuous. I think I got a touch of stage fright. I was writing pages and pages and getting hand cramps and when I decided to just type out my journal all the sudden, I had nothing to say. I have always done a great job at most things until the pressure is on and then my confidence deflates. I really have a prblem with stage fright in life. I am as prepared as I can be, and then I balk when it's time to really take a crucial first step in something. That's cool as crap that it translated over to something as insignificant as starting a blog. I am fascinated how we are all so consistent when we pay attention to ourselves.

I've been hanging tough in my fitness quest. Been at a plateau (not really, since its totally self induced) for about 1.5 months. But I tend to view the glass half full in that respect. When you make positive changes that result in fat loss, its just as hard to maintain those behaviors and not gain the weight back as it is to add in new positive behaviors to keep that fat loss moving forward. Maintaining weight loss is progress, since backsliding would be soooo easy. I have to not only maintain these new (and therefore slightly uncomfortable habits, I have to ADD even more uncomfortable and new habits to them to move my fat loss forward. So I have not reached a plateau, I am just practicing repetition of my new habits until I get to the point where they are "old" and then its time to add more "new."

Had a great time in Texas visiting Dad, although he looks haggard. Eyes are bleary, his weight is up (despite daily weight workouts), and his mind and emotions are dull and lackluster. I wish he would just find it in his heart to retire and move this way...funny how that seems so obvious to me and not so obvious to him. I want him to know his first Grand baby and since he is the only Grandparent she has on my side, I am a little obsessed with that fact. Losing Mom afforded me some perspective and clarity I did not have before and really health and family are ALL that is important, and the rest is just stuff and fluff. So stressing over the stuff of life is normal, but ultimately a waste of time. And I want him close so Ellen can know him and grow up secure in her family roots. Here she is on her way to Grand Dad's...he calls her "smiley" since this is the expression she wears constantly...