The Well-Read Mom

Running Junkie

2012-02-06T19:17:00.003-05:00

Well, the obsession does seem to spread like a disease. After a few weeks of super bad runs, followed by a week off just because of that pesky "life" thing, I am back in the saddle and starting to love it again. Now it is all I can think about. I am excited to run every day (even though I am on the "deadmill" thanks to Chris being away for work for a while) and I am actually looking forward to my 5K in March. Now I am getting consistently slower, an unfortunate occurrence that leaves me baffled, but whatever, slow running is still running. I am trying very hard to dodge the mentality that seems rampant in the community that you only count as a "real runner" if you are super fast, ever improving and running "real races" like marathons and ultras. Frankly I will be quite pleased to just squeeze in 30 minutes of exercise a day and start logging some consistent 5Ks.

Of course the retail aspect helps a lot. There is so much cool stuff. Now, don't get me wrong, running can be a very simple sport. Some decent shoes and a good sports bra (for all you ladies out there, heed that advice, just trust me) are all you really need. You can run in whatever makes your heart sing and the world is your track. However, hang out in this world for long enough and it becomes all about the gear. Soon yoga pants and old college t-shirts don't cut it. You need compression tights and technical shirts and special socks and a fuel belt for all you running specific drinks and gels and chews...you get the idea. I am convinced I need a GPS watch, and I have no less than 3 running apps on my phone. To cap it all off: there are the shoes. OMG the shoes. I am no longer a girl who desires the perfect black pump or this season's knee high boot. Now I am a girl who can wax nostalgic for hours on the relative merits of hundreds of sneakers. Minimalist, neutral, structured, shock absorbing, recycled, oh my! Needless to say I went shoe shopping with Alicen, theoretically for her, but then some Brooks PureConnects just happened to fall into my stroller. I am in love.

See? Spreading like a disease.

Also doing a modified version of this One Thousand Challenge (Thanks to Heidi for pointing it out!) where I am subbing out push-ups for side lunges. I need to look good in a matron of honor dress by August...momma needs to tone these arms! To keep myself on track I am posting my miles/times/splits as well as my count towards 1000 here on the blog. Feel free to bust my balls if I don't keep on this, I could use the motivation.

I guess if you have to be obsessed with something, fitness is not really a bad choice.

A Problem Much Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts

2012-02-02T16:03:00.001-05:00

Several weeks ago I read this great post by amoment2think about reasons why women stop breastfeeding. It was a really good post. It was inspired by another thoughtful post over at PhD in Parenting. Now I will say here that I didn't really love the original post because I think it spent too much time formula bashing and the resulting comment stream had not so subtle overtones of "if only doctors/nurses/mothers were not so stupid as to fall for formula's tricks then we would all breastfeed because it is the only acceptable choice." I know this was not the intent of the author, she merely points out how formula prevalence may contribute to a complicated issue, but sadly whenever the words "breastfeeding" and "formula" appear in the same post, the storm of righteousness (on both sides) tends to appear. amoment2think explains the case against blaming big formula way better than I can, so read both of the posts, then head back for my bit of input...its cool, I will still be here.

Now, both of those posts address really great points, but I think they both miss two huge issues: mothers sense of self and having a lifestyle conducive to breastfeeding. I know why these don't get talked about a lot, but I really think it is important that they do get discussed. If we are all going to work hard towards understanding why women who start out wanting to breastfeed don't always do so in the long-term, and hopefully create a system where all women who want* to breastfeed are eventually able to, then we do have to take a long hard look at these items.

First up is mother's sense of self. Breastfeeding, especially in the long-term, means you are still essentially pregnant. You must serve, to some extent, at the beck and call of the child you are now supporting with your body and your body alone. This is hard for some women. We live in a society where, as women, everything about our bodies can be considered public domain so adding in that now you will spend upwards of 2 years being a 24 hour buffet for another person can be really difficult to stomach. If you have had a difficult pregnancy or delivery, this may feel like insult to injury. These feeling are normal and perfectly appropriate (with the standard disclaimer that if you feel completely overwhelmed by this emotion all the time get thee to a doctor for PPD help), but they can make it so tough to get through those weeks where all you do is nurse the baby. Not everyone can get over that. Some women who do breastfeed feel this way, and don't enjoy the activity, but manage to do it anyway. Some women enjoy the feeling of being special because they now play the largest role in their babies' lives, and the new sense of self fits them well. Some women just plain get off on the martyrdom of it all. However, some women cannot overcome this and the bad feelings associated with nursing may far outweigh the perceived benefits. This does not make these women bad people, it just means that nursing is not a good choice for them. We need to acknowledge that these feeling are real and acceptable. This may not be something we can fix, but it is certainly not something can just be ignored.**

Second, and perhaps far more important is the idea that not everyone leads a lifestyle where they can just drop everything and do whatever it takes to breastfeed. When I talk about this I am alluding to many factors, but most importantly I am alluding to socioeconomic status. This is often not discussed because it is rude and it is often not studied because socioeconomic status is notoriously hard to identify in a quantitative manner for analysis. Long story short, success with breastfeeding depends heavily on having the time to get it properly mastered and on the ability to keep supporting it long term. For women who work outside the home this means you need ample maternity leave and a job that allows the flexibility and support to pump. Workplace support and decent maternity leave is hard enough to get in nice salaried office jobs so you can bet your buns that women who work in hourly unskilled labor (the women who are most likely to need to go back to work as a matter of basic solvency) don't get enough time off postpartum or a place to pump during a shift. It is not that they are too stupid to chose breast milk, or that they lack dedication to raising their children, it just means that they may have to chose between nursing and paying bills.

Of course, things other than working outside the home can make it unrealistic breastfeed. Maybe you are home, but still a functional single parent and someone has to make sure the groceries get purchased and laundry gets done. Maybe you have older children and can't be limited in activity by nursing all day, or you have an older special needs child so other aspects of family development are more important. These are not women who are being selfish or who are unwilling to commit. These are women who need to make real choices about what is best for their family. Now tons of women overcome these challenges, but tons don't and we can't just pretend that these factors don't have a huge impact on long term breastfeeding rates. Again, I am not sure how we "fix" this, but writing these women off as "not trying hard enough" or "not willing to prioritize" is certainly not the answer.

I think that these factors may play a much larger role than anyone realizes and sadly, they are also the hardest hurdles to remedy. This kind of harkens back to my post about awareness campaigns. Maybe we need to spend less time touting the evils of formula, or the natural/easy/cheap/blissful aspects of breastfeeding and focus on social/political changes that really help families. Better maternity leave, more workplace support for pumping, pushing for research to improve the nutrition/safety of formula and more discussion of alternative/combination feeding choices (we need not be stuck in the only formula vs. exclusively breastfed from the tap dichotomy) might be the real answers to increasing the number of women who provide breast milk to their children for those "ideal" time frames.

*Wanting to breastfeed doesn't inherently equal being a better parent, but wanting to do so means you should be given every possible chance to make it happen. Women who know they do not want to breastfeed are still making a good choice, but they are no longer the target demographic for the sake of this discussion. They do not need to "saved" from their choice in any way. The hardest part about this whole discussion is separating the idea that we need to support women who chose to breastfeed from the idea that we should try and make everyone chose to breastfeed because "we" know it is better. We need to do more to adequately support, and respect, all choices on the spectrum.

**Personal anecdote: having nursed my first for her first month and then exclusively formula fed my second, the first few months of having a baby are demanding as hell and no matter what you chose, that baby owns you and works you like a rented mule. I am not saying that formula is the easy path to low maintenance parenting (nothing makes this easy, trust me), I am merely saying that if this feeling of overwhelming loss of self is an issue, that bottle can take the sting out of the situation and that can be a really good thing.

I Am Aware That "Awareness" Only Goes So Far

2012-01-30T19:45:00.000-05:00

I am just going to say this: I think many (though not all) "awareness" campaigns are stupid. Yup, I said it. Now I appreciate that awareness is the first step to initiating change, all that" first you have to acknowledge you have a problem stuff," but there does reach a point where it is just folly. I think we have reached a stage where most awareness campaigns are ways to make people feel better because they are doing something without any of the pesky requirement that you...you know...actually do something.

Do we need another nurse-in to make people aware that "breast is best"? Nope, we really don't. How about you all stay home and instead, pitch in 10 bucks so you can donate a bunch of pumps to a local organization in need. Do we need any more pink themed crap in our homes reminding us that breast cancer exists? Nope we need to donate money to research or lobby for changes in insurance requirements for mammograms. (Hmm....seems like many of these things center around boobs. There is probably some deeper social theme that women's cases are only worthy of lip-service, but that may be too much philosophy for this particular rant.)

Not to sound all high and mighty, but for the time I could spend doing internet memes, and the money I can spend on pink magnets I buy yarn and knit hats for babies in Rwanda that would otherwise die of exposure. Currently I am setting up to make cloth pads for Empowering Women in Africa. I generally pick a cause a year and go to town. I made warm woolies for our local social services and knit booties for babies in NICUs that serve low-income populations. Sure it requires actual time and effort, but now a baby has a warm hat or a girl has the chance to go to school every week of the month. Maybe my hipster is showing believing I can change the world through crafting, but sometimes creating tangible change is all that keeps one going. Sure feels better than posting where I keep my purse.

I guess all I am asking is to see less $500 a plate banquets in honor of testicular cancer awareness and a lot more volunteering of resources towards helping actual people.

Tangential Though Processes

2012-01-26T21:15:00.002-05:00

I wish I could say that I have not been blogging because we have been super busy, but really we haven't. It has been the kind of weeks where everything happens, yet nothing happens at all. I certainly have time to blog, but by the end of the day all the cool things I was going to talk about have vacated my head and all I manage to do is watch The Vampire Diaries (Ian Somerhalder...that is all.) and knit. I know, does the fun ever start?

The running is going. Not well, or poorly, but just going. It feels harder and I am getting consistently slower...somehow that seems contrary to the entire point of doing a training plan, but what do I know anyway. I guess what matters is that I am doing it. Of course, doing it will be getting harder since Liz has decided to quit napping. This leaves me with two horrible choices: run at night when Chris gets home (hopefully before 8pm) or run in the early morning (early=5am wake-up call to ensure that the kids don't just wake up anyway). FWIW running with the jogger is kind of out unless I also commit to driving to a running location where the hills are not too dangerous to maneuver and running with her awake is out because she is not yet at the point where she will not try and play with the treadmill. I guess I need to make a hard choice about how much this running thing is worth to me. Also: WTF is 30 minutes a day for me too much to ask? Yes, it really is.

The Navy is being its usual self, so we are deploying the head hunters and planing on leaving, probably sometime this year. Basically the Navy said if you don't want to take this second chance sea tour offer (that you don't get to know what it is or even if we will let you take one until after you agree to do it no matter what) then we don't want to deal with you. Long story short, no one has the balls to say "you're fired, here is your severance" nor does anyone have the balls to say "we need to keep this guy." Since no one can nut up and make a choice that might interfere with their ability to ass-kiss their way into a a promotion, the goal is to force all the ugly decisions onto us and well, we have reached a threshold for the degradation ritual. Peace out people. I won't beg for the privilege, thanks though. Granted there are a few positions that would keep us in the Navy, but really, they now need to be cooler than what we can find out in industry. All offers are now fully equal so lets see who is ready to actually produce a job that suits us. The silver lining is that getting to go do whatever we want wherever we want is super exciting. A year from now I might be blogging from any number of awesome places.

Hopefully this brief post will get me over my slump since I have 8 half-written posts on my computer and a list a mile long of what I want to do with the blogs. Step one (cut a hole in the box) was to clear the decks and start again with some new graphics/buttons/pictures and so on. I also need to get going on the Twitter thing and recognize that, in terms of blogging, Facebook is dead so lets just not even pretend on that one.

Now to bed since Liz has croup and I, apparently, need to get up at 5 so I can go suck wind on the hilly backwoods roads of suburban CT. Living the dream baby. Just living the dream.

Snow

2012-01-19T21:09:00.000-05:00

Things here have been kind of rough the past few days. The kids have been possessed by some kind of evil spirits. Or maybe the opposite of spirits...like they are now androids sent to destroy earth via frequency of whining. ("Frequency" meaning both the irritating nature of the actual sound produced and the excessive rate of whines per minute (spoken WPM)) Either way, holy crap have they been driving me crazy. After a fit of tantrums last night because they "don't like how Daddy reads stories" they now live in a police state that basically amounts to them being ignored 45 minutes out of every hours because frankly, I will not deal with this shit any longer. You want to whine and cry, go for it, I have laundry to fold, socks to knit and books to read. Knock yourself out.

So, this post was going to the usual whine about how hard it is to parent, and be a SAHP and how kids are ungrateful little bottomless pits of need, but then it started snowing. And the world looks clean. Now there is a fun thing to do in the morning (play in the snow while I shovel) and the whole mood has changed. Charlie was still up when I came to get in bed and start blogging. I picked her up and held her while we looked out the window and watched the fat snowflakes cover the swing set. She got that look in her eyes, you know the one where your kid is just amazed by how awesome the world is, and all was forgiven and forgotten.

You know what? My kids are awesome, my husband is awesome and my life...it is also pretty awesome. Funk is now over. I am declaring it and so it shall be.

Good Reads of 2011

2012-01-12T19:24:00.001-05:00

If anyone is looking for some books to put on that new e-reader that was under the tree (I know you all are out there) here are my top picks from the 2011 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge.

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo- You just can't go wrong with good Russo. A bit about nothing, but somehow about everything, if you have read this author before then you know what delights await you.

The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman- Just a wonderful book. This one will knock your socks off. It is not often that a book really surprises me, but this one sure did.

Deadly Spin by Wendell Potter- If you thought health care reform was complicated before, you don't know the half of it.

The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin- A wonderful look at how scientific data can be so easily manipulated and the dangers that can ensue when those altered facts hit the open market.

The Fablehaven Series by Brandon Mull- I have read the first four, waiting to read the fifth. Young adult series that is just awesome.

Also highly recommend the George R. R. Martin Song of Ice and Fire series. I know these are trendy right now, but they are genuinely great books.

Now to see what 2012 brings to my reading list...

How Do They Know?

2012-01-10T21:14:00.000-05:00

My kids, like most children their ages, generally hit the ground running. Charlie's Time To Wake Alarm Clock turns green at 7:15 and you can bet that by 7:17 someone is next to my bed already in tears about breakfast cereal. Everyone herds downstairs, I pour cereal and I barely have the milk back in the fridge by the time they have lost interest and scampered off to play. (And by "play" I mean "fight over toys and cry.")

Unless of course we have somewhere to be.

This morning we were going to their first yoga class. It starts at 9:15 which given the "base factor*" meant we needed to be out the door by say 8:45/8:50. So what happens? They come into my room, crawl in bed cuddle up and demand a cartoon before breakfast. Forty-five minutes later they stroll downstairs and eat a leisurely two bowls of cereal (each!) followed by much relaxation and calm putting on of clothes at a speed best compared to that of glaciers. A veritable poster-morning for relaxed bliss...

...unless you were inside my head.

There you would have heard the frantic hyena-like screams of "for the love of all that is holy why can't you two just get out the freaking door. This is not even for me. I will not beg you to go to this class. Ieeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Now I get it, I love to stick it to the man. My own oppositional disorder is world renowned, but how do they know? I mean it is one thing when I say the night before "we have to go to the doctor's" and therefore they drag their feet because, well heck, you never know if a shot is waiting at the far end. It is a whole other kettle of fish when they just sense that today, of all days, your attempts to get them out the door are particularly time-sensitive.

Dude, that is just plain black magic. Nothing else to it.

*"The Base Factor" applies anytime you have to go the base and do something. You must leave insanely early. That way you hit no traffic, sail through the checkpoints, find a close parking spot and arrive to your appointment 30 minutes early with bored kids to entertain. Heaven forbid you leave a minute later. Then you enjoy rush hour traffic (regardless of time of day), get the full security car search after waiting behind a lost retiree for 5 minutes, have to park in Alaska and arrive five minutes late with frazzled tantrum-prone children.

Resolved...Finally

2012-01-08T19:30:00.000-05:00

It only took a week, but I think I am ready to declare some resolutions. I am trying to make my "resolutions" short, sweet and all-encompassing. Instead of setting discrete goals (lose 5 pounds, run 5 miles etc.) I am going to try and stick with a few key reminders of what I would like to do this year.

Move more: This can be more running, doing the full run of Insanity or just getting outside with the kids more often. Do something, even if it is only ten minutes of stretching before bed, every day.
Make conscious choices: This one hits on pretty much every aspect of my life. I do so much on auto-pilot that just being aware of what choices I am making (or that I am even making them...hello mindlessly eating cupcakes...oy) will hopefully help me make better ones.
Be more present: this is somewhat a corollary to #2 but I am sick of just getting through life, I want to enjoy more of it. Spend more time with my kids without splitting my attention between them and laundry, plan more family trips and make the most of this sea duty free time since goddess knows it could end in the blink of an eye.
Be move ready: I don't see a move in our future any time soon, but the idea that we could be sent anywhere at any time is the motivation to keep the house clean-ish, clutter free and organized. I currently have the house at a point where if packers arrived tomorrow, we would be pretty much set. I hope to keep it that way.
Make personal relationships matter: Just try and be a bit better at being a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mom and a friend. I am not a social creature by nature and I know that sometimes that makes it hard for me to put in the kind of personal leg work that these relationships deserve.

I think this should keep me busy for the year. I have lots of little specific goals I would love to meet, but they less about how I want to try and live my life, and more about little personal milestones. Perhaps I will jump on the bandwagon of bloggers who keep those running lists. Seems like it could be fun.

2012-01-03T20:49:00.001-05:00

Finally manged to complete All & Sundry's yearly recap...coming soon: 2012 goals.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Became a runner (in the loosest sense of the word), took my girls to Cape Cod and jumped a car (super scary BTW).

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year??
I did pretty well and I am making some new ones for 2012.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Several of my military ladies had babies this year.   Hope it is isn't catching since I no longer looks at babies and yearn for one, I merely think "whew, glad that is over."

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully no.

5. What countries did you visit?
None other than good old USA.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Being more present with my kids. Chris' time on the boat put me in an unfortunate mindset where I often had to scarifice spending my time with the kids to spend it on keeping the plates spinning. Now that the pressure is off I want to enjoy my girls, and our family, more.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don't have actual dates, but so much happened this year: my sister got engaged, my little sister got a new horse/job, Chris got relieved (best day ever)...all in all a very nice year.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year??
Running a race. Its not like I am some kind of super athlete, but that was way outside of my comfort zone on many levels. I had to make my body do something, I had to do it with other people watching...these are big anxiety things for me.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I do sometimes feel like I could have done more to help Chris when his job was going so terribly. I know it was pretty much out of our hands, but even as hard as we were working I feel like maybe I failed to provide the needed support sometimes.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Hilarious UTI debacle and I wrapped up the year with a minor running injury, but nothing major.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Hands down my Vibram KimodoSports.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Rent, groceries and our horrible take-out habit.   Thankfully we also have a compulsive investing habit so we did a 529 for Liz and maxed out our retirement savings too.

13. What did you get really excited about?
Charlie going to school, LEGOKidsFest, learning some new crafting tehcniques and, of course, running.

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Oh Darling by Plug in Stereo. Annoying hipster music, but hearing my girls sing this is so awesome.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:?

– happier or sadder? Happier, no more sea duty.
– thinner or fatter? Thinner and faster.
– richer or poorer?   About the same.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of??
Spent time with Chris, made better use of all our museum memberships and done more stuff alone.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of??
Stressed out about stupid Navy stuff, been snappish with the kids/Chris and cleaned, oh the stupid, pointless cleaning.

18. How did you spend Christmas?
Just the four of us for the big day then a week seeing all the family in NY.

19. What was your favorite TV program?
Ditched cable so I got very into BBC stuff on NetFlix: Being Human and Babylong were my favorites. Currently very into: Burn Notice and Blue Mountain State.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?
The Fablehaven Series by Brendan Mull.

21. What was your favorite music from this year??
Can't really narrow this down, I am currently into Classic Rewind on SiriusXM and I am still rocking the Sigh No More album by Mumford & Sons

22. What were your favorite films of the year?
I can honestly say that I have not seen a movie in a theater in 4 years...

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 29, Chris had duty the night before and did not get home until 10pm. There was Indian food and cupcakes with my kids. It was pretty representative of our lives during that horrible time.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Not spending those 6 months on the boat. That did a lot of damage to Chris, to me and to our family.   I know people do it all the time, and we would have been fine had we needed to continue, but with the luxury of being out of that situation I can say definitively: it sucked.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Trying to Squeeze in a Workout and Bathe Once Every 24 Hours Chic?

26. What kept you sane?
Running, my girlfriends, my mom, Chris and my kids who always make me feel better no matter what.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011?
Just try something, what is the worst that can happen?

Checking In On 2011

2012-01-01T13:56:00.000-05:00

Lets drag out last year's list of goals and see how we fared, then I can plan some new goals for 2012.
For me:

Get fitter and lose some weight. -I lost 20 pounds and have kept it off. I ran two 5Ks and have become a running fanatic. I have a long way to go on my fitness goals, but this one was a major success.
Do the 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge-Nailed it. Look for a list of good reads coming soon.
Develop the blog- I made it as far as getting this and the crafting blog set up as ".com"s but this area needs some more work. Blogging goals will definitely be part of the 2012 to-do list.
Keep crafting-I did a lot of crafting this year, though I did a very bad job blogging about it. This one counts as a success.
Revamp my wardrobe-Did fair to middling on this one. I am stymied by the fact that in order to keep up the fitness goals, I often have to sacrifice putting on real clothes. The trade-off being that while I may be at school drop off in compression tights, I know I can get on the treadmill the second the opportunity presents itself. This area could still use some work.

For my Family:

Do some light home schooling- Total fail. However, the girls have been taking advantage of many educational activities (story, pre-school, tumbling, museums etc) so I guess all hope is not lost.
Clean less, play more- I am getting better about letting go, I still prefer a clean house, but I am more realistic about where it should be prioritized.
Set some serious savings goals-I did not make my big goal, but despite the detachment for cause, and the resulting loss of spot promotion/sea pay, we are in very good financial standing. College for the girls is under control, we are debt free and able to keep saving. Sounds good to me.
Make better food choices- This one is going well. It waxes and wanes, but generally we try and make healthy choices. I certainly cook more interesting things and the kids are broadening their willingness to try new things.

2011 was a pretty good year, lets see what 2012 has to offer...

Wish List

2011-12-14T22:25:00.001-05:00

Lately I have been feeling a little lost in this sea of SAHM-dom. I have been running less and seeing my friends way less than is desirable. This is a normal occurrence during this busy time of year, but it is taking its toll. To cap off the experience Chris is at sea right now* and I am left with the dilemma of being out numbered by the munchkins in my house. This is not new territory for me, and the kids have been as wonderful as a 4.5 and a 2 year old can be, but it has made me dwell on the things that I (and probably any parent for that matter) would really like in life.

So all I want for Yule is:

A day where I can shower, or better yet pee, without anyone smashing on the door and screeching hysterically.
A day where I can drive without it sounding like a pack of meth addicted howler monkeys** are in my backseat.
A day where nothing crashes to the floor. No one drops anything, careens into anything or spills anything all over.
A day where no one falls down. For no reason.
A day where I sleep until I wake up, not just until the whining begins.
A day where I can run without having to chose between 100 pounds of jogger, 45 pounds of jogger or treadmill.
A day where I can walk into a room in my house, just one single room, and not see a swath of destruction left behind by my kids or husband.
Silence.
Did I already say silence? Well let me put that one out there again. Silence.

What I am getting instead is a few days solo parenting, a trip to NY for a big family shindig where I get to explain why my husband is yet again not there and burning the candle at both ends to make it all happen. On the upside, there is coffee and coffee makes all things doable. Any other Yule requests out there?

*Yeah, did you see that? Somehow while driving a desk he still manages to be at sea with perfect timing to ruin most of our holiday plans. So...is he hopeless and needs to be removed from service immediately OR is he the only person in the world who can go out and do this job? Please, for the sweet love of all that is holy pick one. I am dying here.

**Monkeys? Monkies? Dammit, both spellings look super stupid.

Catching Up

2011-12-08T20:04:00.001-05:00

My little break turned into quite a hiatus, but here we are once again. I have lots of random stuff (plus some questions) so lets just jump in shall we?

Serious holiday crafting getting done here. The most grueling part was doing the photo shoot of all the finished projects. I will get those up on the Full Of Knit as soon as possible pending delivery.
Chris' job is picking up and turning out to be amazing. It is perfect since he gets to head out the door just as the kids are waking and generally arrives home minutes after they fall asleep. Not that I am bitter or anything... No really, I am glad he is loving his new assignment and the fact that everyone seems to love him so we can probably make a niche spot and stay here until our time in the Navy is done.
Read an amazing book: Tinsel by Hank Stuever. It examines Christmas via the lives of classic middle/upper middle class Texas households. Funny, poignant and delivering some hard universal truths about American Christmas, this is a must read.
Holiday gifts for preschool teachers? Just the main teachers in her room? Everyone who works with her? The center director? AHHHH! I am a total first timer and I have no idea what to do.
Today is the two month anniversary of the family's "best day ever" when Chris left the boat for the last time. You know what? It still feels damn good.
Ran my second 5K last weekend. Ran more of it, it was way easier, but I went 6 seconds slower. Not really bummed about the time, but seriously bummed that I have not run since due to the shooting pain in my one shin that will not resolve. May have to suck it up and see a doctor. Hopefully I can be OK and run another on New Year's Day. Ironically the longer my running intervals, the slower I go, but whatever, just got to get it done.

And He Did Not Miss A Beat

2011-11-30T21:37:00.001-05:00

I have developed an odd obsession with the Australian Showtime series Satisfaction. It is about sex workers, only tangentially, but yeah, the theme comes up a bit. In this particular episode a wife hires a gal to have an affair with her husband. This will allow him to wander but provide the discretion required for him to obtain political office. The following conversation occurrs:

Me: So like, is that a thing. For your 40th birthday I get a call girl?

Chris: Um...

Me: Or is that like a silver wedding anniversary thing?

Chris: Oh, is that what it is?

Me: Sure. 25th is hookers and...I don't know...something.

Chris: I see.

I am pretty sure this means we are soul mates. I mean after all, who else could deal with all my crazy (and it is a lot of crazy) and never even pause. It is almost as if he finds my irreverent immaturity endearing. On that note I am off to watch Bridesmaids and get some sleep. Farewell NaBloPoMo.

Hitting the Wall

2011-11-29T21:23:00.001-05:00

While it has been a noble experiment, I am kind of glad that NaBloPoMo is ending tomorrow. At first it was fun and I found that I had lots to write about. This was finally the time to put on paper all those posts I had been meaning to write. Now? Not so much. I feel a little blogged out. I know I have kind of been phoning it in around here and maybe a little time off in December will help change that.

On the flip side, I am proud that I will have finished this project. I think some of the posts were good stuff and I can say that the exercise really made me get a grip on what topics I want to tackle more. This comes with the realization that if this blog is going to ever be more than folly, I need to spend more time doing real posts. I need to spend time I may not have right now. While I may not be able to make this space everything I dreamed of right now, this month taught me that I can do so if I ever wanted to.

Now, I must plan some kind of NaBloPoMo grand finale...

The Cuteness

2011-11-28T20:24:00.001-05:00

Is there anything cuter than kids decorating a Yule tree? I think not.

Traditions

2011-11-27T19:13:00.001-05:00

Today I took just Lizzie to the grocery store and on the way home spotted my first Yule tree on a car roof rack. In a moment of pure excitement I yelled "Christmas Tree Point." Lizzie dutifully yelled back "kiss tree pint" and while it was adorable I realized...well I realized that I probably sounded like a crazy person...but I also realized that now the "Christmas Tree Game" of my childhood can be part of my kids' lives. For the uninitiated the game is basically that while you are out cruising around (an activity that makes up 137% of the average suburban day) you keep your eyes peeled for Yule trees. On cars, in trunks and being wrestled into garages. If you see it and call it first, you get a point. I am not sure we ever really kept score, but we were always ruthlessly vigilant about looking for those trees. As we grew older and spent less time driving together the game faded, though when out together we can still be counted on to shout if a tree is spotted. Chris may not be as into this idea as I am. No matter, Charlie can learn the rules tomorrow. So excited.

I also plan to revive another family tradition. Every summer we has "The Great Reading Race." A sheet of poster board was hung and when you finished an age appropriate book, you put it on the list. Some years it was number of books, some years we did number of pages so periodicals could count. There were many variations, but we were always having "the race." It may be a slow start since all kid related reading still requires adult participation, but with two parents actually home and an entire library at out disposal, I bet we can rack up quite the reading list by the start of Kindergarten.

Maybe it is the holidays. Maybe my kids are just finally aging into being humans. Either way, I am excited that we can revive some of my family traditions and keep growing our own.

Testing

2011-11-26T20:39:00.001-05:00

When I bought this phone almost a year ago, I did so because Chris convinced me that I could totally blog on it. Until today I have not tested this theory. Now, I have used the phone for lots of blog related stuff. I Twitter, Facebook and read/comment via phone all the time. If this works then I need to get off my buns and use this more. Haha. Now I can say that today's post was generated by "phoning it in.". Get it? This is not only a total lamo post, but I did it on my actual phone. Dude, that is comedy.

Fun Family Time

2011-11-25T18:21:00.001-05:00

My ILs are super into board games. We now have an entire extended family who loves to play such games. It makes family get togethers super fun and means that we are always researching, buying or playing an awesome game. Just in time for holiday shopping here are my top favorites right now.

Settlers of Catan- This one is pretty easy to play and can be learned quickly. There are several expansions that create many ways to play at any level of skill or desired strategy.
Dominion- A card game that takes mere minutes to learn, but provides and seemingly infinite number of varied games depending on which random assortment of cards are put into play.
Agricola- Basic resource acquisition game. This one is a bit harder to learn, but has many levels of play as the base kit contains several variations on the theme. For this I highly recommend the little pack of models because OMG, the little sheep are to die for.
Ticket to Ride- So easy to learn, but does require strategy and some decision making. The expansion packs add lots of dimension too.
Puerto Rico- A bit resource acquisition and requiring some strategy this game is good for a crowd.
Munchkin- This game is, in theory, easy to play. That is assuming you have people with reading skills. Be warned the first few play throughs are excruciating and forget playing this with slow readers. However, once you get going (or if you are not a total B like me) this is a fun game.
Pandemic- A cooperative game where all players are on one "side" working toward a common goal. A must for true geeks like me who like board games and the epidemiology of obscure diseases. (This Venn diagram has more overlap than you might think...)
Arkham Horror- Another cooperative game with a Lovecraftian theme. Game play is pretty easy to master, though it never feels the same way twice thanks to all of the inherent randomization and variation.

I suggest you check all these out. For great reviews, information and an awesome way to go down the gaming rabbit hole head on over to Board Game Geek. Enjoy!

The Perfect Day

2011-11-24T20:15:00.001-05:00

It really was. We made it to NY safe and sound last night and woke up this morning to my MIL taking care of the girls. Chris and I grabbed and extra half hour of sleep then went out for a run. We ran because for one glorious morning we did not need to worry about jogging strollers and juggling run times. He did 3+, I did a neat 2.5. Slow and steady, not breaking any records, but really focusing on my form and making those intervals a little longer. My iPod died half way through, but that was kind of OK since I just focused on the running for a bit. It was super "meta" and I liked it.

Then it was some time in the sauna (yeah, my ILs have a sauna, it is the shiz) and a tasty breakfast. Then showers and off to my SILs for games, snacks then turkey dinner. The food was amazing, the company was more than amazing and the girls were good as gold. Now I have two sleepy girls in bed and I am enjoying some quiet time.

Today is a good day to reflect on how blessed we are and I am thankful for so much. My family, not only my beautiful healthy kids and my amazing husband, but also for my extended family who are so much fun and bring so much love and support into our lives. That yet again we find ourselves in good health and financially stable. I think this holiday season kick off is just what we need to shake off this funk and get back to living our wonderful lives.

Starting A Streak

2011-11-23T22:18:00.001-05:00

I am doing this: RW Holiday Running Streak. On the one hand, it is *only* a mile a day, on the other, it feels a lot like a training schedule. Training schedules make me gun shy. Of course, I should be jazzed to even consider it. Chris pointed out that a year ago running a mile a day would have seemed crazy. Not I say things like "only 2 miles" and "quick sprint, you know the 1.5 mile loop." My family is pushing for an investigation into an obvious body snatching. If nothing else it will be two solid weeks of running before my JingleBell 5K. Now off to bed. After all, Chris and I have a hot date for run before we eat ourselves silly.

Back To Navy Wifery

2011-11-22T20:32:00.001-05:00

Chris has been assigned a "real" job, so now I have to get back on the bandwagon and play good Navy-wife. On that note the girls and I went to the Thanksgiving luncheon at Chris' work. Charlie used her "get on the news" superpower and made the Group 2 Facebook page. Goddess have mercy, they sure are cute.


Photo: Submarine Group 2 Caption: Commander, Submarine Group Twopersonnel and their familiesattend the annual Thanksgivingmeal, Nov. 21, 2011.

Book Review "Sunday"

2011-11-21T20:31:00.001-05:00

Yet again the book review is being posted on the "wrong" day but hey, at least I am reading and blogging.

This week's recommended reading is The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos. This book breaks down quite nicely why BMI is a useless tool and why the number on the scale is not the best indicator of health. Now, none of this is considered "news" any more, but this book makes some very good points in very interesting ways.

First, if just weighing less made you healthy then liposuction would be a life saving medical intervention. I mean if your weight is the whole medical story then just suck the fat out and voila: perfect health. No? Oh so that is not how it works...hmmmm.
The corollary is that you can't make big people little any more than you can make little people big. People who tend to fall outside the "normal" BMI may not benefit from being "forced" into the acceptable range. (Real life example: My bestie Alicen and I are the same height, yet the odds of either of us being healthy at 135 pounds is pretty much zero. That would be heavy for her frame and way too thin for mine. Ballet dancer vs. linebacker. Genetics baby.)
Correlation is not causation, one way or the other. You know this is my shtick, but Campos does a wonderful job of explaining that losing weight tends to make you healthier since methods aimed at losing weight include the real causative agents of good health: good diet and lots of activity. Of course, good diet and exercise don't have to make you weigh less to make you healthy, a fact the medical community kind of glosses over.
The exact studies (Campos points to four major ones) that are used to "prove" the obesity-ill-health connection don't actually prove that fact. Without heavy editing and selective use of the data and results, one does not see the obesity-disease link. One sees the expected good diet and exercise links, but not a direct causative relationship between one's weight and one's health.
Campos is a lawyer, not a health care specialist. At first this seemed odd, but really, this only proves the point that much better. If someone who is pretty sharp (law is not easy), but not in the health care field can look at the research, divine the statistics and realize that the obesity epidemic is not factually based then we need to take a good look at why that myth is being propagated.
The obesity epidemic may be more about politics and the last bastions of the "isms" than about medical fact.

The take home message here is that the best indicator of long term health is activity/fitness level. This is not to say that weight loss isn't good. If the number on the scale is what gets you off the couch and chowing down some veggies, then that is great. Just understand that making those healthy choices will make you healthy. Not thin. Not the owner of an unrealistic body. Just plain old healthy.

High Production

2011-11-20T20:21:00.001-05:00

Today I accomplished a ton of stuff I should blog about. But not here. I spent all day on my sewing machine doing holiday crafts. Chris kept the kids away so I was able to do in one day what would have taken me weeks otherwise. I made 10 items and set up 6 more for additional non-sewing work. It was crazy.

The thing is that this stuff belongs on my other blog. You know, the one I set up specifically for crafting. the crafting blog that I have not posted on in months. Almost exactly since I paid to make it a ".com," genius blog marketing strategy there. Oh yeah.

What is the point here? NaBloPoMo has taught me that I actually can post every day. Some days it is well written genius, some days it is not. None the less, I can do this. I can make the time and find something to say every day. Now imagine if starting on December 1st I keep posting every day, but do some days here and some days at Full Of Knit. That would be called "building my blogging empire."

I think I shall do just that.

Join The Club

2011-11-19T18:00:00.001-05:00

This post was going to be all "WTF is wrong with me and my kids." I am in a serious funk. The kind of funk that makes me not like my kids and husband very much. The kind of funk that makes it very hard to be my best self. Is it the time change? The weather? The pre-holiday lull? I have no idea. I do know, however, that I am not alone.

This post at All &Sundry perfectly describes my life here. The Ramble Ramble household is playing this game too. I think we can best sum it up with the words of Liz Lemon: "Everything is just the worst." It is completely irrational but if I have to mop up one more spill, fold one more bit of laundry or deal with one more crying kid, I will be sprinting for the deep end as fast as my (most likely unbathed) legs can carry me. I do not like myself when I am this way, but it seems like I just can't stop.

The week was rough. Doctor's appointments, the gutter debacle, illness, shitty weather and all the general fandango that keeping this place going entails. Liz has developed some kind of issue where (seemingly) if she is awake she is crying about something. Charlie is just being a total menace. Chris is skating on very thin ice thanks to his own funk.* The week wrapped up with me outside on Friday afternoon doing the yardwork, alone yet again, in the setting sun. That is right. It was was 2:35 in the afternoon and the sun is glaring right in my eyes because it is fucking setting. Like most people have not even had lunch yet and there goes the daylight. Green goddess on a cracker, no wonder we are all screwed up.

Today I got a break. I finished the yard work, with some assistance. I got to shower alone and then enjoyed a nice afternoon out with just Charlotte. When separated my children are lovely. I spent the afternoon cutting out various fabric bits for holiday crafts and now the kids are in bed and Chris is off to get Indian food. I think I can see the other side of this. I think I can make it.

*In his defense he is working through some serious post hell-boat decompressing and only just this week got assigned actual work to do. Of course, I can't feel happy for him because all can think "Hoo-fucking-ray for you. You get bored and in a funk and tah-dah, you get a new awesome job. I get bored and in a funk and...oh wait. Still here. Still doing the same old crap."

Wake Up Call

2011-11-18T21:19:00.001-05:00

06:07
Charlie: Mommy, my clock says seven.

Me: Is the first number seven?

Charlie: No.

Me: Then it is not wake up time. Try and sleep or read a quiet book.

06:17
Charlie: Mommy, my clock says seven.

Me: Is the first number seven?

Charlie: No.

Me: Then it is not wake up time. Try and sleep or read a quiet book.

06:27
Charlie: Mommy, my clock says seven...

So you get the idea. Clearly my plan to teach her to use the digital clock and chill out until 07:00 has failed. In desperation I ordered the OK to Wake! Children's Alarm Clock and Nightlight hoping that the novelty of the new item will override her desire to torture me for an hour every morning. I used to be the kind of parent who thought this was BS, surely you can teach a kid to just use a clock right? Well, yeah. Now I am the kind of parent who realizes her kids are way smarter than she is, and maybe, just maybe, some fancy glowing clock will earn me ten more vital minutes of sleep.

It should be here Tuesday. I am super jazzed.

Sweet dreams y'all!

Gutter Gunk

2011-11-17T18:46:00.001-05:00

Warning: this is a totally whiny, venty, self-indulgent post. If you don't want to hear me call for the WAHHHHHmbulance, just click away now, I won't be offended. Promise.

The good news is that part of my hefty rent price tag goes towards someone else doing the major maintenance on the property. This includes the gutter cleaning. Sweet. In theory. In practice it involved me arriving home from the market to find my entire front walkway, front planting beds and deck covered in gutter slime. Complete with a huge smear of crud down the front of the house. For realsies.

Once I abandoned my initial theory that the house had undergone a wild animal attack, I did what any self-respecting women would have done: I made Chris call the property manager. While that was a real wussy thing to do, it was was probably the best choice since my message would have been something akin to "listen up you effing F-tard, WTF is wrong with you, get you ass over here and fix this before I kick you in the face." See, that was a good decision.

The story ends with a guy coming and blowing the crap off the porch, then leaving. Followed by a rainy night that turned the deck into a mud pit of festering gutter crud. The grand finale was when the guys finally came and power washed the deck and front of the house. Heck, the guy was even smart enough to ask me to move my car so as to avoid just spraying the mud off the house and onto the car. Good news, they are learning.

Now, in hindsight I do realize that I may have overreacted just a bit. A bit of mud is hardly the end of the world. However, it was just the last straw in my life. I spend every waking minute of my life keeping up with the this house. If I am not actively doing laundry/sweeping floors/picking up after the kids then I am mentally streaming the endless list of laundry/sweeping/picking up after the kids that needs to be done. Now I know these are first world problems. Boo-hiss that I have such a time keeping my giant water-front house clean between shuttling my wonderful and healthy kids to all their swanky activities. None the less, I work damn hard around here and when I arrive home to see the yard, the yard that I maintain more of less on my own (more on how I probably shouldn't be doing all this alone given Chris' new work schedule later), destroyed by a job poorly done, I just want to scream.

All is well that ends well, but let there be a few lessons learned here:

A job is not done until it is actually done. Like completely finished with no remaining signs that a job was being done.
I am a total B and I will make you come back do it as many times as it takes to get it right.
Chris may want to start participating a bit around here so he can escape the trickle down punishment of my crazed frustrations.

So yeah, this week has not been rainbows and unicorns to say the least. Thankfully we have a quiet weekend ahead of us so we can rest, reset and try again next week. There have been some positives like Liz turning 2, good doctor's check-ups, a sweet work-out (albeit in the pouring rain) with my bestie Alicen and another sweet run tonight. Lets just try and focus on those good things shall we?

NaBloPoMo Failings

2011-11-16T18:37:00.001-05:00

It has become quite clear to me that that I am not doing a great job with this here project. I can pinpoint the main reason: I never seem to have a fricking clue what day it actually might be.

ControverMonday post was definitely put up on Tuesday, because hey, today is Wednesday. Well, I hope it is Wednesday otherwise we missed our ENT appointment that I had to book out 7 weeks in advance, so yeah, lets go with Wednesday.

Sadly, this is not a unique occurrence. It has become quite clear to me that I am getting way stupider as I age. Like terrifyingly "how does she even dress herself in the morning" stupid. Not only have I become calendar impaired but I screw up pretty much every project I attempt and I can't even remember the last time I managed to do something major without hurting myself. See also: hurt shoulder. May have been from pushing the jogger today. May have been from falling down the front steps on my way to get Charlotte from preschool. You know. Hard to tell sometimes.

Maybe that damn FluMist liquified my brains. Did I bitch about the FluMist yet? Well, I should have because it tried to kill me. Get the squirt in the nose and head on home. All of us do great and life rolls on an usual...until about 7pm. At that point I spike a 103F fever with crashing headache and retire to bed where prescription grade Motrin doesn't even touch this bitch and I shiver, miserable and sick, all night long. It was great. My kids are fine, Chris was fine when he got his, though he does have a theory about how you have to sleep to get an immune response and since he was on the boat working 22 hour days, odds are his did not take, but that may just be pseudo-science. Anyway, I am fine now. Either I have a kick ass immune system and that reaction means I am now set to go, or I have a sad little immune system that can't even handle a virus that is already like 99.9% dead and well, I am good as buried because there is no way I will survive the winter. Eh. Either one is fine I suppose.

So there you go. It is Wednesday. I may have posted every day this month, though who the hell knows. I now need to lie in bed with a heating pad for my shoulder and try to get my act together for tomorrow. Which should be Thursday. We have the ENT. Okay, deep breath: "I can get my act together, yes I can."

ControverMonday: Chicken Pox Parties

2011-11-15T11:49:00.001-05:00

I also spaced on doing this on Sunday, kind of like how I had to play catch-up with my "Saturday" post, but anyway... amoment2think put out the topic: chicken pox parties and here is my take on it.

I will start by saying that both my kids have been vaccinated forVaricella. Partially because I amsuper-pro-vaccinating and also because it is required for many schooldistricts. While I have mixed feelingsabout schools requiring such things, as a former public health worker, I getwhy these rules exist. Additionally, Igot chicken pox "later" thanmost and had a very rough time with it. My little sister was exceptionally sick due to dehydration from the fever and oozingspots. Also, I got shingles when I was24, because you know, why not? Shingles? They suck. I would rather be in a labor than haveshingles again. Just saying.

So due to my personal experience and schooling I chose to vaccinate mykids. I figure if the vaccine iseffective to an acceptable level and the chance of a bad reaction is less thanthe possible risks from actually getting the disease I am all for it. Kids do still get chicken pox, and it can besuper bad, so I was in for inoculation. However, I see the flip side that exposing your kid to a medicalintervention to prevent a generally mild disease seems a bit counter-intuitiveso this, along with the flu vaccine, is where I say "make your own bestchoice." Theoretically Varicella and flu do notpose the same public health risks as say measles or pertussis so, there can begaps in the herd immunity without the same level of risk. (Actually, these diseases pose the same potential mortality as some other scary diseases, we are just as a culture unaware of how many people die each from the flu. It is a lot.) I am completely in the camp of thinking thatpeople who do not vaccinate at all are being selfish and irresponsible, butobviously there is a lot of grey area and things like carefully choosing yourvaccines and your vaccine schedule are great ways to ensure the best of bothworlds.

So, with all this said, inoculation is inoculation right? I mean there is very little differencebetween the long term outcome of getting the vaccine and getting thedisease. So why do "chicken poxparties" squick me out? I guesspurposely exposing your kids to a full blown case of a potentially bad diseasejust seems like such a bad idea. Granted, I grew up in an era where this was routine. In fact, my mom even tells the tale ofsending me to preschool with a confirmed case of the pox because hey, yougot to get it eventually. I think thatis the fine line though. I would send mykid to school if some other kids had been diagnosed, just as I would not skipgymnastics for the flu or daycare for impetigo, but I would not purposelyschedule a play date just to try and get my kid sick. This is the difference between naturalexposure leading to natural disease incidence and forcing your child into anarcane method of vaccination. I can'tseem to explain why it is different from poking your kid with a needle to elicit the same immune response, but to me it just is.

In summary: I am pro-vaccination for Varicella though not militant because I get why it may be unnecessary. I am definitely anti-pox-parties because,well, come on, that is just gross.

Picture (Spoken "Cheater") Post

2011-11-14T19:21:00.001-05:00

The girls take tumbling. It is awesome. Charlotte is quite good and the instructor is encouraging us to move her along with some more formal training. I have mixed feelings about this, but that is a post for another day. For now, check out the awesome action shots. The lighting in the gym was a nightmare, so the timing is far from perfect, but none the less, some are pretty sweet.

The little one mastering the balance beam.

Balance beam dismount!

Straddle Jumps

Book Review Sunday

2011-11-13T20:23:00.001-05:00

Recently I have been very into young adult literature. I feel quite grateful that my children will have access to such a wealth of choices since when I was a teen/tween the choices for books was limited. Once you got outside of The Babysitter's Club and Nancy Drew, there was not a prevalence of great young adult series. The few others that did exist tended to have a sci-fi/fantasy spin making it clear that the only people who read silly old books were probably only doing it between advanced calculus classes and LARPing practice. Now, probably thanks in large part to the Harry Potter phenomenon, there are tons of great options, many still in that genre, but somehow popularized.

Currently I am reading the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull. The books follow two youngster who discover that their grandparents run a preserve for magical creatures. Part mystery, part coming of age story and part adventure series these books are a wonderful read. I won't tell any plot because really, you need to check these out and experience them for yourself. Written at the same level as the Rowling tomes, these are a quick read for adults and a nice level for kids who are ready for some serious length/material, but perhaps not full on Twilight ready. I think of these as a great precursor to the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. (All you other dorks say Hayyooooo.) Check them out, though if you are like me, you will have to wait your turn since the kids here are avid little readers and often (if you can even imagine) have the books I want checked out. Darn, exceptionally literate, whippersnappers.

DUPLO

2011-11-13T20:15:00.001-05:00

Fireman Joe was thrilled to learn that they had successfully broken the world record for "DUPLO people doing the Electric Slide." In other news, if you have kids, you need this.

1% Is Not THAT Big A Number

2011-11-11T17:50:00.001-05:00

Amidst all the positive effects of the Occupy Movement (though I have mixed feelings about "awareness campaigns" this does seem to be creating a good ripple in the pond) I am left with a growing horror at how many people don't seem to get it. I am amazed at how many people really believe they are part of the 1%. I mean sure, 1% of a country our size is a lot of people, but really, not that many. Maybe like, oh I don't know, lets say in 100. (Hahaha, math is a laugh a minute people, it really it.)

My girlfriend has a friend in NYC who is an investment banker. He was telling her how he and his coworkers were making fun of the OccupyWallStreet people by posing with "We Are The 1%" on their iPads, you know instead of cardboard signs like the peasants have. The only funny thing about this story was Mr. Investment Banker's belief that he is, in fact, the 1%. Sadly, he is not alone in this error.

I think I can clear this up for everyone: if you have to do anything above and beyond having a pulse to make a living, then you are not part of the 1%. As long as you have to show up and do work, probably for someone else, then you are working class. Make whatever you want, but unless you make a living just by existing, you are part of the 99%.

Sure, there are many spots along the 99% spectrum that can make life grand. Lots of people in this group live without worrying about money, but that is not the same as the kind of wealth we are talking about here. When the wealthy are asked to pay more we are not asking more from the middle class with our SUVs and McMansions. We are asking this of people who make more in a quarter than your entire cul-de-sac combined. Hopefully the Occupy Movement will help more Americans understand this.

The Worst Run Ever

2011-11-10T21:04:00.001-05:00

I feel like this is a phrase I have been throwing around a lot lately. Since my very pleasing 5K I have had a seemingly non-stop series of bad runs. Events have conspired such that I had to do my running on the treadmill or with the double jogger. Both of these things lead to miserable and demoralizing results. The treadmill is just a drag and every time I run on it I realize how long the winters here can be and I just want to cry. As for the jogger, yeah, that is 100 lbs of kid and stroller. Add in that where we live is all hills and suddenly a nice walk with the kid is a long stream of, alternately, inducing a heart attack by going uphill with half your body weight in resistance or feeling like your body will snap with the effort required to prevent the stroller from careening down the hill and into the pond. It is hard to feel like you are making a progress when fighting against these things.

So why am I still at it? Because I can still make my body do it. For the first time, ever, I have made my body do something just because I said so.

My body and I have a long history of not seeing eye to eye on things. My weight has always fluctuated with no correlation to diet or exercise. I spent 70 weeks of my life having my body chose my growing babies over me only to have that same body totally crap out and refuse to nourish those children once they were born. I could go on and on here, but the point is that I have never really felt like I could trust my body to get on board with my plans. I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop, the injury to strike or the bizarre illness to roll on in. Yet, with the running this has not happened.

So that is why I was out there today. Running uphill. In the torrential downpour. Against the wind. I was there just because I could be. Just because I can finally say to my body "sorry, this is all happening, and it is happening now." I may never get fitter, or thinner, or faster, but I will forever be able to hold onto this sense of control.

You can't help but feel totally bad-ass when you are streaking up a hill in the rain with the wind whipping your hair and "Stereo Love" blasting in your headphones. This. This is why I run.

The Votes Are In

2011-11-09T21:01:00.000-05:00

The first bit of good news is that the Personhood Amendment did not pass in Mississippi. This is especially important since the state still went primarily republican and voted "yes" on many other conservative pet issues. This indicates that people are starting to make informed decisions on a case by case basis and not just voting with classic party lines. That kind of thing could be a real game changer in the upcoming campaign season.

In other good news Ohio will be allowed to have collective bargaining. I think this indicates an important bit of social change that may have been inspired by the Occupy movements. Mostly though this makes me very happy because I am a pro-union gal. While I will not pretend for even a second that the system is perfect, it does work on many important levels. I feel this way for two main reasons:

I come from a Union Family. Both my grandfathers were union men in construction and patent engineering. Both my parents were educators and worked within the NYS Teacher's Union. I have seen first hand how the collective bargaining process allows workers to do the best job possible while also providing for themselves and their families. In an era where women staying in the workforce post-kids was still a novelty my mother taught full time, enjoyed proper maternity leave and was provided job security. My father who later moved into administration was able to retire at 55, but since the system is so wonderful, still works as a superintendent, by choice, in an interim capacity. That's right people. The system is so beneficial to its users and consumers alike that there is actual retention in the field. Pretty good for a job where you have to have a graduate degree so as to earn half what you might make in industry.
My husband works without a union. His place of employment requires no limits on work hours, provides no overtime, allows no sick days, does not guarantee holidays and may soon offer no major retirement or healthcare benefits. My husband worked 100 hour weeks. Many submariners are working a 2 person duty rotation meaning they work for 40 straight hours, often with no breaks, only to come home long enough to sleep (and by that I mean 4-5 hours) then do it again the next day. The irony here being that this employer is the federal government. An entity that probably wouldn't let this happen to any other American workers. I am not saying there are not benefits, clearly there are some otherwise none of us would be here doing this, but still that is a lot of abuse for a paycheck and in some cases, the chance to die young.

So yeah! Go Ohio. Go Mississippi and all the other states who saw some real change this week. Sometimes it is very uplifting to read the news.

Dinner Time Banter

2011-11-08T19:12:00.003-05:00

Chris: I think I have ADD.

Me: What makes you say that?

Chris: I can't seem to focus on my work, and I can't seem to listen when other people talk to me.

Me: Nope, pretty sure you just have narcissistic personality disorder.

Chris: What?

Me: You just can't be bothered to focus on anything that doesn't interest you at that second. You could if you wanted to, you just don't think you should have to. Not ADD. Narcissism.

Chris: Fair enough.

Me: Probably a necessary trait for success in your line of work. See also: delusions of grandeur, megalomania and a borderline pathological disregard for the lives/families/time of others.

Chris: Yeah, we better leave the submarine force, my douchebaggery is already way out of hand.

Me: Well, you are in good company. I am blogging all of this with no sense of irony.

So, is blogging the ultimate form of narcissism or is this just a nice way for all us introverts to play at extroversion for a while? I bet a bit of both.

Book Review "Sunday"

2011-11-07T14:41:00.000-05:00

This round of book reviews is the running edition. I have been reading about running quite a bit lately to help keep me motivated and these are some good ones.

Run Like A Mother by Sarah Bowen Shea & Dimity McDowell- This was a cute book. While it did offer some training tips, consider it more of an inspirational collection of stories from other moms who are making this work too. At the time I read it I found it hard to get really into it since none of it covered my current experience. While there were countless tips on how to get those runs in while still being wife, mother, good employee etc., there was very little addressing of people who do it in non-traditional work/parenting/marriage situations. A good inspirational read, but unless you answer to working out is "just leave the kids with your spouse, you deserve it" this may leave you a bit cold.

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall- The definitive "barefoot" book. Part narrative about looking for the tribal runners and part scientific analysis of running and how humans evolved to run, this one was a great read. entertaining and informative. This one will be getting a re-read since it was not only highly entertaining but really very helpful in changing how I run and therefore, gaining some speed while out hitting the pavement.

Marathon and Half-Marathon: The Beginner's Guide by Marnie Caron - This is an honest to goodness training manual. Co-written by the Sports Medicine Council of BC it offers advice on all aspects of running then wraps up with a 26 week plan to get you running either a full or half marathon. I love the training plan because it focuses on walk/run intervals. The program can build you up to just plain running a whole race, but focuses on the idea that as long as you keep going farther and faster then the actual running to walking ratio is not a big deal. Very mentally soothing for anyone who wants to be a runner, but finds the idea of just plain running for hours to be too much. You know, people like me.

Enjoy and get out there, if I can be a runner (in the loosest possible sense) then anyone can!

Daylight

2011-11-06T15:02:00.003-05:00

So I am not such a fan of Daylight Savings Time. I have mentioned before that "fall back" is hell when you have little kids, but it creates other problems as well.

Now the sun sets at roughly noon meaning that the odds of me getting to run outdoors while not getting hit by cars here in the sticks drops perilously close to zero.
I am exhausted, the kids are exhausted yet, no one plans to sleep any time soon.
See also: backing into the unopened garage door because yup, between the time change and illness, I am that deliriously exhausted. Oh, now that is comedy. (No damage to door or car, but still, I feel like an idiot.)
I am hungry all the freaking time because my body has no idea what is going on (never mind that we have done this 30 times thus far) and compensates by making me want to devour an entire pizza.
Kids are doing the same so now I am either in the kitchen preparing/serving/cleaning up food or arguing about why we can't have food since we just had food, that you snubbed, 3.7 seconds ago.
Getting all the clocks in the house synced....where is that freaking oven manual?

I suppose it all shall pass soon. As I sit here, surrounded by my most loved ones enjoying the wood stove and cold weather fun I can look at the sun streaming in my windows and think: Motherhumper, someone should Windex those things, they look awful.

Happy Fall Y'all!

Want

2011-11-05T23:08:00.000-04:00

It should be apparent that I am a huge dork. I mean this in the best possible way, but yeah. I am a full on math-loving, computer programming, board game playing geek. So on that note I think I need this:

Squeeeeeee! Of course Playboy's reviews said it was for experienced gamers only, but come on. It looks so cool!

Pulling The Plug

2011-11-04T21:23:00.000-04:00

One of the many advantages to Chris not being on a boat right now is that we no longer needed a land line. Of course, once we got rid of that, we suddenly realized just how much we were paying for cable. This inspired us to try an experiment.

Can a house full of TV junkies (mostly me, the kids are actually not that into TV) survive with no cable TV?

As it turns out we totally can. I often find that I am not watching TV in "real time" anyway so the difference between watching outdated shows OnDemand and watching them on Netflix or Hulu is not that noticeable.

The kids are very into Yo Gabba Gabba and Super Why so they are not phased. Heck, watching the same episode a million times is basically pre-schooler crack so that is Win-Win. They are also avid consumers of the library DVD collection so that keeps it "fresh."

Currently I am working my way through the BBC version of Being Human. It is amazing. Not to be all "everything is better in Europe," but it is far superior to the American version. Darker, funnier and way less time spent explaining the details. Love it!

So there you have it. We are the kind of family who doesn't have cable. Oh my, could we be any more hipster?

As Always, It Is Getting Political In Here

2011-11-03T19:13:00.000-04:00

While I am pretty sure everyone has an idea of what is going on in Mississippi right now, in case you don't here is the run-down. The state has up for vote Amendment 26 known as the "Personhood Amendment." This would define for state law that life begin at conception and thus, outlaw abortion. However, that is not the real catch here (you know, in case merely outlawing pregnancy termination and the related autonomy for women was somehow not the slippery wicket), the real issue is that in its most literal interpretation, this also outlaws some forms of birth control and throws many fertility treatments on shaky ground.

As one can imagine hilarity has ensued. A Personhood USA spokesperson appeared on the Diane Rehm Show and came right out and said that under this law any birth control that could, theoretically, act after conception to prevent pregnancy would also be illegal. That means, no pill, no IUD, no ring, no patch, no shots and certainly no morning after pill. So outside of the all but extinct diaphragm/cervical cap usage, if you are female, straight and living in Mississippi then your only legal form of birth control is one that requires full participation of your male partner. (Note that female condoms exist, but have you ever been able to find one OTC easily? Well, there you go.) Is the blood spurting out your ears yet?

It gets better in that when questioned the lovely Personhood USA representative seemed pretty sure that fertilization happens when an egg and an oocyte meet. Great plan except both of those words mean egg. Last time I checked I can't, thank goodness, fertilize myself. Parthenogenesis is not really seen in humans. Seventh grade biology called and said "wake the fuck up."

So three main things terrify me in all this:

The Misogyny- Apparently persecuting women and making them second class citizens never goes out of style. While explaining the millions of ways this is a feminist/humanist issue would take way more web-space than I have here, let it be said that this is about female oppression. Dress it up any way you like, but this is taking control of the female body away from women and giving it to the people that the far right think should have it. Let us all hope we can someday grow up and be male, white, straight, Christian and wealthy so as to have a few freedoms now and then.

The Conspiracy- The idea that this faction of the political sphere knew full well what the far reaching implications of this amendment would be and just sort of glossed over it hoping to expand the influence once it was made law. This is an uber-conservative gold-mine; no abortion, encourage abstinence since no other choices exist, place female reproductive rights in the hands of proper god-fearing men and make a mockery of science. This thing basically satirizes itself with its own ridiculousness.

Of course, I doubt it was this well strategized. Even more horrific is this third point:

The Ignorance- I think people really don't know this stuff. I think that the people in this country who are striving to regulate our health and our bodies genuinely have no idea how science works. The idea that people are making laws all willy-nilly while lacking even a rudimentary understanding of what those laws mean actually keeps me up at night. With fear and rage.

So, what I am seeing here is that a woman can't terminate a pregnancy under any circumstances. Additionally she can't utilize most highly effective forms of birth control so her chances of having an unwanted pregnancy skyrocket unless she chooses to abstain totally (like any nice lady would) or just stick to female sex-partners (and rot in hell for all eternity, or so they say.) Top off the suck salad with the notion that the same politicians who would require her to carry the pregnancy to term then do NOT, under any circumstances, desire to ensure that the resulting child has health insurance, access to health-care, food to eat, decent public schools to attend or a safe home in which to live.

Nice move guys.

This is where we cross the fine line between "pro-life," a personal choice that is perfectly acceptable and may happily govern your own life and "anti-choice" where everyone must do what your doctrine says or else. In this case, the "or else" is jail time. Pretty insane.

Run Momma Run

2011-11-02T14:35:00.000-04:00

I just ran my first official 5K. It was amazing. I ran in the Monster Mini-Dash in Providence, RI and had a blast. Chris ran "with" me and took the jogger with both girls* (I am exhausted just thinking about it) and I ran with my girlfriends.

I should mention here that my girlfriends are a pair who have run marathons and completed IronMan competitions. They certainly did not need to spend this kind of time getting from start to finish, but they did. This is one of the many things that keeps me running even though I am not really great at it. There is this inherent sense of community in which anyone who is willing to pound the pavement is welcome.

Needless to say I am now addicted. Apparently 5Ks are the runner's gateway drug and sure enough I am itching to do it again. We are already registered for the Downtown Jingle 5K in a month and I am jazzed to get a bit better by then.

Current 5k time: 37:42 (12:10 splits)

*He did 31:01 with 100 pounds of kid and jogger. I am so impressed because that thing is a total bitch to run with.

First Timer

2011-11-01T16:46:00.000-04:00

This year I am doing NaBloPoMo and actually looking forward to the challenge. I have not been blogging enough, though I have lots of things about which I want to blog, and this might just be the fix. I suppose if I ever want to do this for "real" I need to get used to doing it as a daily task and not just as funsies whenever the mood strikes. I am also hoping to commit to commenting more because so many bloggers have been writing amazing stuff lately, and I have utterly failed to acknowledge their brilliance by the simple pleasure of commenting. Basically I need to get back into this community now that my personal life is not such an ulcer inducing rat race.

I also have a few other "firsts" to share, but those will come later on. You like that little teaser? You know you do, so come on back as I try to entertain you for a full thirty days.

Love

2011-10-17T08:49:00.000-04:00

Since we are now living in the fairy-tale land of shore duty and it is all rainbows and unicorns around here, I have a list of things that I love. Silly stupid things that never fail to make me smile.

When my checkbook balancing matches the bank's numbers to the penny. A little thing, but it makes me feel like a fiscal genius.
Canceling our home phone line because we no longer need to have twenty back up phones for the hourly calls from the boat.
Related love: sleeping more than 45 consecutive minutes every night.
The way Lizzie says "namaste." Having spent some time working on "banana" she went directly to "banana-stay." We do kiddie yoga, say "banana-stay" and just roar with laughter. Must. Get. Video.
Charlie asking me "Mom, I already know the earth is a sphere, what about other planets, how do they go around the sun?"
Ugly-light-up-Disney-princess shoes. I hate them because they are hideous. I love them because they were on sale, Charlie loves them and we no longer have to fight about shoes. Put that one in the win column.
My new running shoes. I got Vibram FF: KomodoSports. I am having an illicit affair with them. (See this post for all the details since Alicen explains it all way better than I ever will.)
Halloween! I love the fall, I love this holiday and we are doing a family 5K with trick-or treating afterward. I love that we are becoming that kind of family and therefore being good role models for our kids.
The fact that my husband is kind of a big deal. The fall-out from our recent "firing" is playing out quite well. Several job offers, apologies from high ranking staff, offers to go back to sea and continue his career should he chose*, the ability to basically design his own Navy job and much dissent and uproar with the general theme being "what was this skipper doing anyway?" Outstanding!
Arkham Horror. I am a huge dork and love all kinds of games, but this one is so awesome. I finally caved and learned to play this weekend. So much fun.

Now, back to my life of sunshine and lollipops.

What little things are you guys loving right now? Lets share the joy!

*Disclaimer: This may be less than awesome since the Navy obviously wants him back at sea, there is a pretty good chance that he will be "voluntold" to go back to a new boat. Sucky due to more sea time, but good in terms of getting back on the bonus train and keeping the option of a career in the service open should things improve and make us want to stay. I figure they "own" us for three more years anyway so whatever, though I am interested to see what happens. The glory here is that our time frame for staying or leaving really doesn't change unless we want it to.

Good News and....Oh Wait, Nope, Still Really Good News

2011-10-11T19:01:00.000-04:00

Long story short, Chris is no longer the Engineer on asubmarine. There is no way to reallysugar-coat the fact that he was “relived for concern” which is Navy-speak for“not doing the job we wanted in this situation.” You would think that this is the most awfulthing to ever happen, but surprisingly, it is actually the most awesome thingthat has ever happened. I say this withno sense of sarcasm which for me is kind of a big deal.

Now, some of it is sucky. The whole thing went down with the usual naval lack of professionalismin that everyone else in the gossip mill knew it was coming, except the peoplein question. The time line required forthis kind of removal means that the Commanding Officer must have been planningthis move since within days, if not hours of Chris’ arrival leading me towonder what chance he even had anyway. Lastly, for a boat that didn’t seem to feel he was a good fit, they wereall more than willing to use his technical skills and political contacts to getthrough this recent certification exam that they were totally set to fail untilabout 5 weeks ago. Those bits kind ofsuck, I am not going to lie.

However, we are thrilled because, well, how can I putthis? We are done with this now. The best analogy I can think of is whensomeone who has been very sick for a long time passes away. Yes, you are sad, and you miss lots of thingsabout them and there is the grieving and the knowledge that things will neverbe the same, but there is also that huge sense of relief. You know that this really is a bettersituation for everyone including the suffering sick person. It is just like that. The submarine experience in question was agiant fight against an insidious cancer and now it is done.

So how will all this play out? We are not too sure yet. Chris reports to a mystical organizationknown as Squadron today and he will find out all the details. He has been relieved of this duty, but he isnot fired from the Navy. He is stillemployed, getting paid and collecting benefits*. He will probably get placed in some kind ofoffice job so he can serve out the rest of his contract then we will detachfrom the Navy. Basically, odds are highly in favor of thefact that he will just keep getting the all same pay and benefits for doing athird of the work while having lots of time to job hunt. Can someone show me the downside?

UPDATE: He will workat “Group” until his paperwork is processed; we then play a shore-duty slateand spend the next three years doing office work. This completes his contract to the Navy (wedo have to pay back a bonus, but we have the cash so whatever), grants us jobsecurity and health benefits for three more years and allows him to fulfill therequirements to pay for our kids to go to school on his Post 9/11 GI Bill. Oh and did I mention the part where thebig-wigs basically apologized to him for all this and offered him work on theirpet projects? I should have because thatis kind of the best part!

As far as our personal lives go, this is a lifesaver. Now that we are (hopefully) clear ofsea-duty, we are finally able to talk about the things in our lives we had beenignoring. Our marriage had been put onthe back burner, and it sucked. The kidshave some issues, nothing they wouldn’t survive, but now we can do so much morefor them. Chris was miserable andborderline physically ill from the 100 hour work weeks and psychologicaltorture. And me? Well you don’t have to read too many recentblog posts to realize that I was one crisis away from a complete psychoticbreak. (When he told me I, no joke,broke down and wept in relief.) Now it is (probably) no more deployments, nomore slave-labor style hours, no more missing life events and struggling withrunning the lives of four people with one little frazzled person at the helm.

I know that the phrases “we didn’t want to stay in anyway”and “it is all political” should be filed directly under the heading of “thingslosers say when they get canned” but honestly, we had a three year plan toleave the service, now it is oh wait, still a three year plan (with no seatime) and the total political mind-fuck that this whole thing has been is morethan I can even describe here. I amdying to see how it all shakes down since the aforementioned gossip mill isrunning high of the fumes of “how on earth do they remove a guy like ChrisK---?” and lots of people have their fingers in this here pie. (See the UPDATEabove.) However, we can watch as casualobservers since we are short timing now.

And it feels just fine. Mighty fine indeed.

*Honestly they can’t afford to fire him even if they wantedto because there is no money in the budget to process the paperwork. Every year when the fiscal year turns overthe Naval funding system basically shuts down. No one gets to move, repair boats or get orders printed because (and youcan’t even make this shit up) they don’t have the toner required to print theorders. Yup, the whole United States DoDcan’t do work for 4-6 weeks due to office supply shortages. You see why we are not too bummed to begetting out? I think you do.

You Learn Something Every Day

2011-10-03T20:34:00.000-04:00

During this deployment the world has granted me...shall we say...lots of chances to expand my skill set. So far I have mastered:

Installing a shower head
Jumping a car (Scary as hell BTW)
Installing wiper blades
Gluing baseboard heaters back together
How to drive to Newport, RI
How to survive minor surgery on a 22 month old
Baking a bitchen apple pie
Juicing (as in making fruit juice, not some kind of weird steroid thing)
How to wire and reset a cable box
Replacing a toilet seat

So look at that. I guess this will pay off in some little ways. I am suddenly becoming exactly the kind of person you want in your lifeboat.

My Emotional Well Is Running Dry

2011-09-27T19:47:00.000-04:00

I am still here, and while we are all fine and dandy things have been super busy. Liz had her tubes put in her ears, Charlie has been sick, we had my MIL here for a week (so awesome I could weep BTW) and my little sister is getting married so yeah, there is all that going on. Now, I know that I whine constantly about my pseudo-single parenting, and I bet you are all bored, but guess what? I am still doing it and it is starting to wear me down. Like, a lot.

The real issue is that I am just fresh out of emotional fortitude. My kids are at kind of difficult ages for this lifestyle (though I imagine there is no good age for this crap) and I am just mentally beat.   Every single thing is a giant fight. We get up and fight about the potty, then about the PJs, then about the bed, then about the stuffed animals and so on. We have not even had breakfast yet and I am completely out of psychological gas.

The real icing on this cake came yesterday. The girls have tumbling classes "together" in that Liz and I participate while Charlie hangs out and does some coloring and then Charlie has class while Liz and I hang out. After dressing the two of them (imagine wrestling 35 pounds of bread dough into a set of pants), dealing with the "car seat buckle freak out" and arguing about hand holding for "parking lot rules" Liz decides to enter DEFCON00 level histrionics because she wants to color too. As I beg her to come and join class, a class that frankly bores me to tears and only exists for her benefit, I realize that lesser woman might just quit here. She would realize she is out of her depth and stop even trying. A a smarter woman would just walk away and realize that her kids are ungrateful assholes and there is not much to do about that.   A stronger woman would know how to handle this.

Sadly, I am none of those women so I shall keep trudging on with my emotional reserves on empty, persevering in the hopes that someday my kids will appreciate all I did to try and make up for the absence of their father.   Someday this will get easier, my kids will get older, my husband will be around and I will have some mental relief. Until then I will fake it until I make it. What else can you do?

It Is On...Or Maybe Officially Off..

2011-09-19T15:56:00.001-04:00

You Know You Are A Navy-Wife When...

2011-09-06T14:39:00.000-04:00

...the doctor in the ER says he wants to admit you and you look at your watch thinking "it is 5am, Chris is already late for work so yeah, that is not really going to work for me."

To get into a major over-share here, I had a raging UTI that got so uncomfortable that I finally had to give it up and seek medical attention. Of course it is the middle of the night on a holiday weekend so off to the local ER I go. The triage nurse takes one look at my "sample" (does trying to pee in a cup ever get old? I think not.) and directs me straight back to the exam rooms and puts a giant orange RUSH sticker on my labs. It is right about now that my feeling foreboding kicks in.

Apparently I not only have some kind of pee infection, but it is a super special kind of cystitis and it is serious business. The questions start coming pretty fast now:

"How did you drive yourself here?"

"Do you need some pain killers? We can prescribe narcotics."

"Do you think you have kidney stones?"

Just OMG, who needs this stress! I was pretty confused since I was not feeling that sick except the whole peeing fire thing. Interesting side note: this is the third time in two years that medical professionals have been surprised to see me up and operating without pharmaceutical grade pain killers. I consider myself a total wuss when it comes to pain so this makes me very curious. Maybe I am actually some kind of superhero with an odd resistance to illness induced pain? Who knows.

Anyway, they wanted to admit me for fluids and monitoring, but I managed to talk the doc down off that ledge. Dude, I do not have time for this shit. Chris has work, he leaves "soon" so things are crazy, I have two kids to care for and my SILs wedding is this weekend. If my body thinks it is going to torture me with this crap, it has another think coming. I brokered a deal where I would drink like 600 gallons of fluids, take it easy, take what may be a borderline overdose of antibiotics and take these crazy "antispasmodic" pills.

It is now a day later and I am fine. I feel great, the antibiotics are working and we are back to our usual lives none the worse for wear. Even though I feel better, I am milking this for all it is worth and swearing off housework until Friday. It is nice, but I can really live without this excitement. Truly.

PS The magic pills make me pee bright, and I mean full on visible from space, orange. They will also make my tears orange. The antibiotics also make my skin hyper-sensitive to the sun. So now I can't go in the sun and I cry orange. I am a mother-effing TANG filled vampire! Life is good.

We Made It

2011-09-04T19:26:00.001-04:00

So, you probably heard about the little "weather incident" that struck the east coast. It was very much the opposite of awesome. While we were very fortunate that we had no damage to person or property, it was still pretty stressful.

The whole thing kicked off with the boat leaving. Yup, you heard that right. When a big storm is coming the submarines go to sea. Follow that up with Navy-issued e-mails that contain the phrase (and I am not making this, copy pasted right from the letter): SHIPS AND SUBMARINES MAY BE ORDERED TO SORTIE AND AIRCRAFT MAY BE REQUIRED TO EVACUATE, LEAVING FINAL HURRICANE PREPARATIONS TO FAMILY MEMBERS WHO MUST BE PREPARED TO ASSUME THE BURDEN OF SELF-PROTECTION AND SURVIVAL IN THE SERVICE MEMBER'S ABSENCE. (The all caps is a Navy thing, but the italics are mine.) Holy crap, way to not panic the masses there. Talk about overly dramatic.

Faced with all this I did what any sane person would do and left. I storm proofed the house and went to my ILs in upstate NY. That was very much OK. We lost power for roughly 24 hours and while there was basement flooding, no major damages reported. After much deliberation, we came back to CT Wednesday since Chris' time here is limited and well, I had to face the music sometime. Other than having to throw out everything that was in our fridge and freezer, our only issues were a sizable stick collection on the lawn. We got power back in the wee hours of Friday and life has been pretty much normal since.

Statewide this was a huge deal. Many still don't have power. Citizens are irate and the politicians are coming under some heavy fire. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand natural disasters are only really understood in hindsight and well, who could have known how it would all play out. On the other hand, I'm sorry, did you fail to see the giant fucking hurricane coming straight for us? You should have probably at least considered having a plan for that.

Granted, CT did not get hit as hard as some. My SIL's wedding should be this weekend. In VT. Assuming there are still roads that lead to the site. So see, it could be way worse. We still have actual roads, so that is some pretty important perspective.

At the end of it all, we made it thanks in no small part to the endless support of friends and family. Without my support system doing this Navy-style would be completely impossible. On that note: Really? Send everyone to sea? We survived Irene and all I can say is: I am so over this bullshit.

A Typical Day

2011-08-24T08:22:00.000-04:00

To make it a real calendar day lets start at 00:00:00...

00:00 to 04:00- This is “sleep time.” Almost always punctuated by one kid needing something, about 50% of the time also disturbed by the boat calling. The boat calling is a bit of an issue because Chris, being exhausted from having been on said boat for 16+ hours “yesterday” sleeps through both phones ringing. I am ordering lingerie that reads “midnight secretary.” It will be HAWT.

04:00 to 04:30- Lie in bed and try not allow my fury at how Chris absolutely cannot shower and shave without dropping things on the tile floor like 4,917 times to slowly erode our marriage. Chris then kisses me goodbye, tucks me in (marriage saved!) and leaves for work . He will not be a player in this drama until, at best, 20:00.

05:00 to Kids Waking- The entirety of my meaningful sleep. Yes, you can live on less than five hours a night more or less indefinitely. Four and a half years and still going strong!

06:15 to 07:00- Kid are generally up and destroying their room so the day begins. We go to the potty, change diapers, make beds and get breakfast going. The kids eat breakfast while I make coffee and unload the dishwasher. They then head off to play.

Until +/- 09:00- The kids play fairly independently in the playroom and living room while I do a bit of housework. I generally do a quick round of de-clutter and one task like running the vacuum or giving a bathroom a swipe so as to keep this place going.   Now is also a good time to get some meal prep done so lunch and dinner are planned and under control. This is also when I eat breakfast by hiding in the kitchen and wolfing it down over the sink hoping the kids don’t find me and demand some.

Until +/- 11:00- This is when we generally get dressed and head out the door. Errands, play-dates, doctors appointments, museums, library, story etc.

11:30- Lunch. Sometimes out if we are still out (then I eat too), often we aim to be back here so we can unwind and get ready for…

12:00 until around 13:30/14:00- Nap/quiet time. Liz sleeps and Charlie hangs out in my bed with some cartoons. This is “my work time.” I generally hit the treadmill, make my phone calls, check my e-mail etc. If any major cleaning needs doing (scrubbing bathrooms, mopping floors) I do it now. Generally I am completely exhausted by the time the kids wake up, but oh well, I can do in an hour without them what it would take 3 hours to do with their “help.”   If I get to eat lunch it is happening now. **This will change soon since Charlie will be at school from 12:30 to 15:00 starting in a few weeks.**

14:00- Snack time. Diet Coke break.

Until 17:00- More activities. I usually try to get the kids outside all afternoon. This can be more play-dates, trips to local parks or just letting them loose in our backyard. If the weather is bad I use this time for “structured” stuff like art projects, play-doh etc. Winters in CT sure are long…

17:00- Kids eat dinner while I have a snack since odds are I did not eat lunch, yet I won’t be having dinner until 9pm when Chris and I can eat together.

17:30 to 19:00- Baths, maybe a cartoon, stories and bed. This is a real process, but worth it since they are generally asleep by 19:30/20:00 meaning I can get some more work done. I work-out now if I did not get a chance during nap/quiet time. I fold laundry while I watch TV and then, assuming no other housework needs doing, I relax a bit. Blogging, knitting, sewing, reading and so on happen now. **Sometimes this time and nap/quiet time get reversed. I will blog/rest/craft then and haul ass after they go to bed. It all depends on what is on my to-do list that day.**

20:00 to 22:00 Chris gets home somewhere in here and we eat together and, if we can before Chris falls asleep, spend some time together. On bad days this is 15 minutes of “admin” so we are all up to speed on household stuff and boat schedules, on a good day we may watch some trashy TV together or have a glass of something on the deck.

No later than 22:00- Assuming he has made it home by then, bed time for Chris.

23:00- I turn off the TV/put down the book and try to sleep though before you know it, it is 23:59:59 and the day rolls over…

In reality it is not a awful as it seems here in type. I do get to spend my days “playing” and much of my serious “work” can be done in drips and drabs between kid activities and kid needs. It is also getting easier since my kids are getting bigger and can do things with less hands-on supervision. While none of the work is “hard,” for me days are pretty much go-go-go with not much downtime between when the kids wake up and when Chris gets home. I guess my point here is that the life of SAHP-dom is less about intensity and more about duration.

Hey it could be worse, heck I could be Chris in this equation. His day makes mine look like a cake-walk…maybe he needs to guest post….

This post is thanks to Ginger over at Ramble Ramble.   She set up a blog hop so check out the participants and please let us know what your day looks like!

Back on The Badwagon: Now With Added Self-Loathing

2011-08-23T12:59:00.001-04:00

While I am quite sure that no one is really interested in my endless food/fitness quest, I am back on Weight Watchers. A few weeks of the Whole30 thing killed some serious bloat and broke my crazy cravings for carby sweetness, but I know myself and without the structure of the measuring and recording, I will not keep making good choices. The great thing is that you can pretty much do both.   A real selling point about the PointsPlus program is that you can eat any “style” you want and as long as you are staying in your points allowance, you will probably* see some benefits.

Side note: I read Nina Planck’s Real Food and it was really helpful in redirecting my eating goals towards eating “clean” unprocessed food that is actually recognizable as food. This book doesn’t say anything new, she and Pollan heavily share research and inspiration, but it did present some pretty convincing arguments for not eating a lot of what Americans consider to be “food.”   Be warned however, that Planck is seriously anti-veganism, even stating that raising kids vegan should be considered neglect and she is toeing the party line about breastfeeding pretty hard. Also be prepared for complete lack of socio-economic awareness. Like Pollan’s work, this is what you *should* do, not what is really practical/possible for many people. Assuming you can temper these quirks, I highly recommend this book. End Side Note.

So, back to the points I was actually hoping to get into before this post just wandered off the trail….

I was thinking of starting some journaling over on the Weight Watchers’s site. They allow you some “blog” space (whoooo momma, these people would last about nine seconds out here in feral blog land) and I was going to use that to be a space in which I can blather endlessly about the weight loss thing while not cluttering up this blog with a topic in which you all probably have no interest. However, reading other stuff over there makes me feel like the program creates a shared space where a feeling of fat loathing is almost encouraged and where the mantra is “thin by the scale is real thin” instead of the more reasonable idea that “fit and healthy is the new thin.”   So many people, quite specifically women, seem to be wrapped up in the idea that getting in that BMI range is the only thing that matters and that the number on the scale is what is making them healthier.   It is somewhat frightening to me that this whole business is based on reinforcing the idea that it is your weight in numbers, and not all the hundreds of little healthy lifestyle changes, that will save you.

So that raises a lot of important questions about which I will blog here at the Well-Read Mom including, but not limited to:

Why are we still so hung up on BMI?
Is BMI so heavily “loved” because of the economic benefits it creates in the food industry, the diet industry and the medical sciences?
Is there a gender disparity in how modern medicine treats “obesity” in men vs. women?
Is “fat loathing” a gender issue because the only things society hates more than fat is fat women?
Is the above true because there is still a pervasive norm for womens’ bodies to be considered public domain?
Am I just as bad as the rest since seeing that scale go down is pretty darn thrilling?

Needless to say more to come on all of this, but don’t worry, it wont all be anti-establishment ravings, I have some other ideas in the works too.

*I say “probably” since I stagnated for so very long even with the points counting and working out that I hardly feel the idea is foolproof, but I imagine if you just keep hammering away at it, you will eventually get some results.

Is It Worth It?

2011-08-19T22:14:00.000-04:00

While nothing will be happening any time soon, the powers that be are tossing around the idea that the traditional military retirement should change.   The basic gist is that instead of the old plan where you stay in for 20 years and you get half your pay for the rest of your life, it would be a more “civilianized” system with a government funded 401K style plan that gives you 25% of your pay when you reach “retirement age.”   This will be a huge money saver since people are living longer (I know, what jerks!) and 17% of the service stays in to receive these full benefits

This idea has many good points and bad points. The good news is that this will cut some dead weight by getting rid of people hanging on for those last few years just to tick the clock to 20 and it will allow members who leave with less than 20 years in (83% of the service) to retain some retirement in the bank. The bad news is that there is the possibility that people will never do more than one contracted cycle (now you can do a handful of years, leave with the GI bill and a hefty 401k to roll-over) and I can imagine that this may deter recruitment at all levels. I bet there will be plummeting retention at the officer level, though that is mere speculation of my behalf.

This works out fine for people who are retired, their benefits won’t change. While this will be a tough sell for new recruits, at least those individuals can come in aware of what they will, and won’t, be getting. The people who get the most screwed, not a shock here, are the people currently in the service.   Without getting into the complicated details, people who are currently in will start accruing the new retirement in the new style as soon as the policy in place and they will then receive 25% of their salary for past years served, paid out as an annuity, when they hit retirement age, but only if they do the full 20 years as was previously expected.

For anyone keeping score at home that means that if Chris stays in, he will get half of what was “promised” when he commissioned, paid out 20 years later than was promised, but only if he still serves the full 20 years. Basically he has to fulfill his original contract so he can *hope* to get half his promised benefits two decades later than he was originally slated to receive this pension.

At first I thought my indignation might just be a bad case of millennial self-entitlement. Certainly we have “enjoyed” many worthwhile benefits from military service so really, there was a pretty good chance I was just being a total douche. However, the more I look at that deal, the more it looks like a really crappy deal. Also note: he works in a floating office building, that just happens to contain serious weaponry and a nuclear plant, doing managerial work. In terms of putting your ass on the line for the country what he is doing is baby-town frolics compared to say 19 year-old Marines in the deserts of Asia. I don’t say this to devalue what he does, he works hard at a really important job, but just to give some frame of reference. If it seems shitty to us, imagine how people in their third tour of duty in war-zones will feel. For the first time in our lives we are looking at not being a career Navy family.

While personal anecdote doesn’t define a trend, I can point to at least one guy in whom the military has invested, conservatively, $750,000 (probably more like a cool million, but adding up the “incidentals” got very time consuming) who will walk away and take all those skills and training somewhere else. Ideally a nice socialist nation where this shit is not even an issue.

I predict some serious bad reactions to this particular dose of “screw your civil servants,” since at the end of the day, this not about debating the merits of this job as opposed to any other, but about the accountability of our government at large. Does the DoD really feel comfortable changing the contracts mid-stream and calling “takesies-backsies” on promised benefits? Sadly, I bet they do.

The New Normal

2011-08-16T20:05:00.002-04:00

Long story short, the girls are now sleeping in the same room. They requested to do this so I flipped the rooms around and now there is one for just sleeping and one for dressing/reading/playing/auxiliary guest room if needed. This is great in many ways. They sleep better, they sleep longer, Charlotte is getting over her night-time anxieties (we can close the door and not have every light upstairs blazing) and they are so very cute together. The downside is that bed-time requires me to be the super police. I am now a week deep in a long process to slowly get them going to bed calmly and quietly. It is working, but holy crap, it is time consuming. The first handful of nights were sheer hell with much fit throwing, screaming and general hatred. However, the past few days it has really clicked.

It has been so nice. After we read stories they jump in their matching twin beds with matching IKEA Vitaminer duvet sets (often in matching PJs...it is an illness, I know),cuddle up with Twilight Turtle (Charlotte) and Twilight Ladybug (Elizabeth) and blow each other kisses. I then hang out and cuddle with them until they fall asleep. It is cool and quiet in their curtained room with the A/C going. In a rare feat for me, I just lie there with them and rest. Charlotte plays with my hair while I tickle her back and Elizabeth loves to take turns kissing each other's cheeks and rubbing noses. The day melts away. Eventually the two of them are snoring up a storm (ENT consult for Liz on Thursday TYVM) and I head off to enjoy an hour or two of reading/knitting/trashy TV.

This is new territory for me since my kids were "sleep trained" and therefore spent most nights going to sleep on their own. Yes we had lovely night-time routines with lots of books and snuggles, but nights where I hung out until they were fully asleep were the exception not the rule. For Charlotte this was necessity since it has only been in the past year or so that she would even dream of going to sleep if anyone else was/is around. She had to be left alone or no one would sleep. Ever. Elizabeth slept alone from day one due to her preference to sleep unfettered. Even an a wee peanut she would only do the cuddling thing for so long before she would fuss and try to stretch out longing for her bassinet and space. The idea that we can all hang out and doze off together with the understanding that we are keeping each other company for funsies is quite new and very refreshing. While they were not ready for this routine in the past, they are now and that is amazing since it means so much more than good sleep.

This means my kids are kids, not babies. I am half-way to the point where they will both be in school full-time. While I simultaneously long for that day and dread it from the bottom of my very soul, in this respect, my babies growing up is wonderful.

Leaking Out Everywhere

2011-08-10T12:23:00.001-04:00

So we are seemingly hemorrhaging money. I will apply the caveat that it is all money we have, money we set aside for these specific expenses even, but none the less, watching the checks fly out the door gives me the willies. The reason it really kills me? Well, because this seems to happen cyclically.

It all started in the usual way, we are savers on principle so when Chris' Xbox was dead, I decided to surprise him with a new one upon his return from his underway. "No problem" I thought. I put away a ton of money while he was gone. I was feeling pretty smug in my fiscal prowess. Saint Alexis: Patron Saint of Bulging Savings Accounts. Then things started to go downhill.

Chris' computer soon died and he wanted to get a ThinkPad (throwback to his good old days at RPI where they are standard issue) and we looked at the money and said "sure, we can do that." (Side note: Mad props to my girl Sandra in NC who works for Lenovo and hooked us up with her hot discount. Your job is awesome!) Then things started to head downhill.

We prepaid all our oil for the year so we can lock in the price. The dryer died so a new washer/dryer set is coming tomorrow. Chris' car needs a hefty load of routine work. Charlie is doing pre-school in the fall (probably bumping from 3 days to 5 days if there are spots). Chris needs a new dinner dress uniform thanks to making LTCD. Lastly, the real icing on the cake: my laptop is dying.

Now, we are not going to be bankrupt here. We knew most of these expenses were coming. We put aside tax return money, bonus money and monthly pay to accommodate this stuff, but still when it rains, it is a fucking monsoon. Thankfully we have never really faced a situation where where we honestly did not have the money, somewhere, somehow for stuff like this, but watching it all fly out the door when we worked so hard to save it all up is borderline physically painful.

I am left here in the "wreckage" wondering why does this stuff come in spurts? I mean you tool along happily for months, even years, with no major drama then suddenly everything in the house dies at once. Do things have a certain lifespan and therefore if you start "fresh" when you get married/live together/whatever, you can count on a steady influx of dead crap? Are the gods and goddesses of money and fortune just that fricking spiteful? Am I just being melodramatic and frankly this is all in my head? (Yup, bet that is the one.)

So, does this seem to happen to anyone else? Just wondering because this particular dose of crazy pills is doing me in.

Communication

2011-08-05T13:05:00.000-04:00

They say good communication is key to a happy marriage. I sincerely hope this counts.

Butter chicken curry over brown rice and a stout cupcake. Seems like the least I can do for a man who works 100 hour weeks.

Modern Misery

2011-08-02T19:52:00.000-04:00

Our Family Readiness Group (spoken "FRG") has a Facebook page. Now this is a bad idea on so many levels, but it has proven to be especially excruciating...more excruciating than I had ever even anticipated. What is it about working on the internet that leaves people totally free to be absolutely hopeless? This group, as is often true in any internet forum, proves that there is, in fact, such a thing as a stupid question. I think there are three main reasons that these kinds of internet groups become such magnets for this behavior.

First, I think people are genuinely this unable to take a step. I think that women who are 32 weeks pregnant and only just now asking (randomly, on FB as a primary resource) about details like how to tour the hospital and how to get their kids enrolled in TRICARE are merely symptomatic of a larger problem. I am going to sound old and crotchety here, but it really seems like the population at large has lost all ability to exhibit any foresight or, god forbid, do some research themselves. Why be proactive and take care of your own life when you can just ask the internet? Sure we all poll the audience every now and then, but when it comes to big things like, oh I don't know, planning for babies, perhaps there are better resources than "the interwebz."

Second, I think people may have a poor understanding of what these kinds of social media can, and can't, do. People seem to think that FB pages and groups are direct interactions with the entities they represent. Just as people will direct customer service questions to the FB page instead of the appropriate e-mail or phone number, these women seem to think that the FRG page is some how a direct line to all the organizations in question. This is meant to be a social forum for people who share the common trait of being on this boat, not a personal concierge service to answer questions you can't be bothered to research.

Lastly, and this kind of ties into the second issue, I think these women have the FRG social group confused with the boat's Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is meant to be your resource when you are not sure how to get your questions answered. I think many of these "stupid" questions would be less problematic if directed, privately to the person who is actually tasked with pointing you in the right direction. Having served in the position of Ombudsman, I promise you that the 99% of the time, the questions you are asked are purely because the "asker" can't logic their way out of a wet paper bag (see issue one), but none the less, those situations are easily, and quickly resolved, when asked on a one-on-one basis.

Now, why does this even bother me? Probably because I am a know-it-all bitch, but deep down inside I think it might be more than that. I think I find myself genuinely worried about these women. I mean, if they can't even get their act together and figure out where they are going to deliver their kids, how will they ever handle the endless onslaught of real life when these guys disappear for months at a time? So this is the kind of "adult" the internet age has wrought. Clearly, I am too old for this crap.

A Fresh Approach

2011-07-28T20:56:00.001-04:00

So the Weight Watchers thing has fully stalled. I meticulously count points and work my ass off on the treadmill...my weight stays the same. I say screw it and eat whatever I want...and my weight stays the same. Sure I am glad that I lost 20 pounds and have kept it off for a while. I would still recommend the program and know lots of people who have not had this problem. I am also very happy with my fitness progress. However, I am vain above all else and I want to shift a few more pounds. Enter the Whole Foods eating plan. Heidi at The Maxwell's Madness did the Whole30 program with amazing results. Inspired by that I looked into it and while I am not hitting it as hardcore at that site outlines, I am embracing the whole food concept.

I am following the program as outlined with a few little modifications. I am allowing myself one Diet Coke a day, and I probably won't lose much sleep over the occasional white potato or scoop of peanut butter. I may also have a drink if it pleases me, but really that rarely happens so no worries.

I am really liking it because it gets rid of those problematic fluffy carbs while still allowing fruit and the more carby veggies. Cutting out dairy basically self-limits bad fats and thanks to that I am pretty sure that what I am eating would fit in my points, though I am not under any obligation to be measuring, weighing and stressing about such things. Also, black coffee? Really just fine. It is so easy to do and having survived the three days where your body freaks the hell out and is "dying" to get some sugar, you don't feel hungry.

Add in that running is going pretty well and we may just get over this hump! In prep I read Michael Pollan's Food Rules and I am now reading Nina Planck's Real Food. Both are excellent reading. Perhaps the 20 pounds that stand between me and my goal weight are not so hard to beat after all...

**Having posted this I did want to swoop in and provide the warning that if you head "down the rabbit hole" from the Whole30 site, you will eventually find yourself in serious lunatic fringe territory. I guess my disclaimer here is that I am not sure all of this is anything more than pseudo-science, but I am sure that I had to kick my bad-carbs habit and this is doing the job. Less strict whole food mentality is that no foods are bad foods assuming they are food. That is my overall goal, this just seems like a good jump start. Okay, that is all.**

Where Is My Time?

2011-07-27T20:16:00.000-04:00

I mean I honestly seem to have lost all my time. Everyday I run full tilt from sun up to sun down (and then some) and somehow there is this ever growing list of things I have not gotten done. The past three days alone I have not managed to:

Workout
Fix the books that need taping back together
Do Chris' absentee ballot paperwork
Slap a coat of polish on my nails and toenails
Pluck my eyebrows
Make more Oil Cleansing Mix
Blog
Write thank-you notes
Sew a new tote bag
Work on my knitting
Clean the fridge
Get my car serviced

Now why are these things undone? I have no idea actually. It sure feels like I am doing things non-stop yet somehow, stuff just is not getting done. On the upside the girls and I are really enjoying our summer, yet I am left feeling like every time we go out and have fun and live life, we fall a bit behind on the pesky details that keep life going. Like getting laundry folded. I suppose this is the slow but steady fall out of Chris never being home. Over time the little things that I just can't work into the daily schedule add up to a crazy annoying list that hangs, forever, over my head.

This is what happens when one person has to handle every. single. detail. of the lives of four people. Oh, and then there is this, so it probably isn't really going to be worth it after all. Looks like I am pulling an all-nighter...now, where is the tape?

Some Random

2011-07-21T09:21:00.000-04:00

I have so many things I want to blog about, but two kids with laryngitis means very little time for such folly. Instead, you can have this shot gun blast of random.

Cha Cha being sick provides a new conundrum: how sick is too sick for school? I know she is not contagious, but she is still a hot wreck with a nasty cough. My gut says keep her home (and I will) but I just see a long winter of like 25% attendance ahead of us and it makes me so sad.
News, because I read sometimes: President Obama is backing a bill to get rid of DOMA. This is huge because well, it is huge, but it also removes the loophole the DoD planned to use to deny benefits to same sex partners. Somehow the existence of DOMA meant that same-sex marriages were not "real" on the federal level so the DoD, being a federal entity did not have to grant those marriages the same value. Kind of stupid give that marriages are granted on a state basis and really only valid because most states will honor another state's documents, but anyway, with that gone the game certainly changes.
In other news: You Better Be a Lady. Not really newsworthy, but just infuriating that this kind of crap happens all the time. Would anyone have called this behavior out had it been a man, you know someone who belongs in power? I doubt it.
Now, just in case you didn't know I am a raging hypocrite, my girlfriends and I have developed the alarming habit of talking about men the way that men have always talked about women. By that I mean we objectify them. You know what? It feels good. Doesn't make it right, but I get it now. This, my dear readers, is what boat-induced celibacy causes. (It might also make someone think "The Backstreet Boys" are hot, but that is an anecdote for another day...)
Related topic: anyone else watch TrueBlood? You should because Alexander Skarsgard and Joe Manganiello are just heart-stopping.
New mantra thanks to Heidi at The Maxwell's Madness: Fit Is The New Thin! I went to itch my arm the other day and felt a weird bump. It was my arm muscle. Yup, I have arm muscles now. who knew?

Okay, all that is out of my system and I can get back to what I am supposed to be doing: getting the house ready for my ILs. Hooray! Visitors! This means I might get up 10 minutes away from my kids! I love them, but man, divas, the lot of them...

Everything I Need To Know About Life...

2011-07-18T04:00:00.001-04:00

...I learned from mowing the lawn.

Almost anything can be "easy" with a bit of foresight and determination. If everyone had to plan projects the way I undertake this task with two little ones in tow, I bet efficiency would increase world-wide.
Things are generally only labeled as "hard" if they are "man work." Mowing lawns, changing oil and shoveling snow are hard. Child rearing, house cleaning and meal planning are mere piffle to be done between episodes of General Hospital.
Physical fitness does pay off in the end. What used to be a huge physical exertion that left me sucking wind and ready to die is now classified as "light cardio." Hill sprints make for good mowing. Take note.
Music makes everything better.
Suburbanites will bitch about anything. Thankfully there is a drama for almost any season. Shoveling, lawn care, leaf raking...for every season there is a wank fest. Since being a suburbanite is best accomplished by being male, straight, culturally white and in all other ways culturally "normal" this fact may be closely linked with #2.
If you think someone should do something, then odds are that you just may be that someone. Corollary: If you think that you not doing a task means it won't get done, you are probably right.

So there you go. My lawn looks awesome and I have found my moment of zen in it all.

Mondays are for lists courtesy of abdpbt.com.

Book Review Sunday

2011-07-17T09:57:00.000-04:00

A quick run-down of my most recent books from the 52 Books in 52 Weeks list.

Deadly Spin by Wendell Potter- Read this. Potter was in PR for a big-time, for-profit insurance company and he tells all in this book just as he did when testified before Congress. While the "hows and whys" of insurance companies screwing the client base are not shocking, the political game playing blew my mind. No matter where you stand on the health-care reform issue, this book will change your perspective on the current state of our health-care delivery system. A must read for political dorks like myself.

The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman- Such an amazing novel. Just be warned it is some seriously powerful stuff. I was loving the book (usual fare of being about everything yet nothing in a pleasantly intelligent way) and then I was nearly knocked out of my chair. It has been a long time since a book created that visceral a reaction in me. Add this one to your list.

Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates- Putting this one in to let you all know you can probably pass on this one. I blow hot and cold on Oates, sometimes I read things of hers that are amazing, and other times, not so much. These stories were "classic JCO," but not in a particularly thrilling way. Your mileage may vary of course.

You Know When The Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon- This book was great, for me, and probably other women in my shoes. These loosely connected narratives of life for Army wives in Ft. Hood were not amazing in terms of great writing, intense use of literary technique or anything like that. However, they were spot on for anyone who has been one of the "left behind." Being an Army wife herself, Fallon perfectly articulates countless little experiences that you may only "get" if you have been there. I recommend it for anyone, but realize that its value may be in appeal to a niche market.

The quest to read continues and I have a few promising novels on the pile so hopefully I can keep at it and do more blogging that is not about my whiny self-indulgence.

Peeved: Sucking at Feminism Edition

2011-07-13T11:15:00.000-04:00

Recently I have had to deal with the wildly annoying process of getting a 529 set up for Bitz. I have never spent so many man-hours begging people to let me write them huge checks in my life.   Seriously, for all the weeping and wailing about the economy no one can seem to shift their ass and help me invest and, by extension, make money for them. Needless to say, the whole situation- which should have been easy as pie by the way- has left me a touch irritated. The icing on the cake is that when I finally get all the paperwork from our financial guy (we will call him DB, bet you can guess what that stands for) it is all done in Chris’ name.   An interesting twist given that I called and asked to set up an account for my daughter with money from my checking account.   In short, I find myself irrationally irritated by this and I think I need some perspective.

Maybe this is no big deal. In this particular case Chris is home, I can just do the paperwork and tell him to sign the lines (totally kosher way to do finances BTW) and send it back. Also, I can do pretty much whatever the hell I want anyway thanks to my mighty Power of Attorney. Really, even if Chris had not been home, a simple addition of a copy of said POA would have made all this go away. What matters is that the 529 is established, my kid can go to school, the money can leave the account and stop tempting me with the dulcet tones of “new washer and dryer” and I am done with the process.

BUT, and there is always a but, isn’t that “oh well, no big deal, I will just take it and get this done” mentality exactly the kind of crap that feminism is supposed to be against?

The back-story here is that I have always gotten a “vibe” from this guy that we were really worrying about Chris since he is the “owner” of the money.   DB is not concerned with my retirement, after all, it is not like I am retiring from any real work. DB is not concerned with my input, it is not like it is my money anyway. Basically, DB is a giant tool who thinks he is starring in Mad Men and not running a financial planning firm in the year 2011.    This knowledge leaves me with a sense of burning injustice that makes me want to storm in there and make his life rough for a few days while he corrects his “oversight.”

In my head I am reporting him to BBB, NOW and anyone else who will listen to my crazed feminist diatribe. In reality I just fucking want to be done. I guess this makes me just another casualty of how the endless influx of tiny little infractions against your very sense of self eventually leaves you too worn down to do anything about it.    I should be fighting the good fight here, but frankly my life of endless childcare, housework and general management of the lives of four people (a job I actually do enjoy and choose to do thanks to the feminists before me who worked so hard to grant me that choice) has left me a bit too overwhelmed to give a shit.

The paperwork will get signed tonight, the check will get written and I will drop it off tomorrow. I will probably just hand it over while shooting dagger eyes at DB, but at least it will be done.   For today, I suck at feminism. You guys will still love me right?

Changes and Choices

2011-07-11T15:30:00.000-04:00

So, just in case you missed me throwing my eternal pity-party here at the The Well-Read Mom, we are yet again at a horrid crossroads where I am left whining "but what about meeeeeeeee?!?!" The good news is that Bitz is in her twin bed. No more crib, no more tumbling out of the crib and no more 35 pound dead-lifts to get her in and out of the crib. The bad news: the definitive lack of containment. While a lack of napping, the cranky toddler and seeming hours of waiting for the safety of my own sleep are not new parenting territory, this is ruining, and mean just killing, my work-outs.

Yeah, yeah, first world problem. SAHM/step ford wife can't find time to work-out. Boo-hiss. Tiniest violin. I get that. BUT, it was my saving grace these past months and having to give it up for my kids (like everything else I have already given up...call the "waaahhhhmbulance") is a major sad face. In light of the new playtime extravaganza in the toddler's room here are my choices:

Quiet Time- Just give up on naps but declare 1.5 hours a day as quiet time. I don't care what you do, just be doing it in the safety of your child-proofed rooms and leave me alone. Pros: I get to work out and some housework will get done. Cons: rooms destroyed, several hours of endless torture from over-tired un-napped kids. Kids now too tired to go to bed without fuss leading to sleepless nights. Repeat and escalate until kids are 18 or someone dies from exhaustion.
Enforce nap by sitting until Bitz falls asleep. Pros: No tired toddler torture, I get to work out, no destroyed rooms. Cons: Time required to get toddler down is maximum allowable time for preschooler to amuse self with a video, thus workout accompanied by constant stream of demands, questions and narratives. Not restive and no housework gets done until 8pm.
Work out at night- Pros: housework gets done during nap/quiet time, toddler sleeps, preschooler entertained because watching me fold laundry proves less interesting than TV. Cons: lets face it, who wants to work out at 8pm after 12-14+ hours of non-stop childcare and housework? I am spending the one waking hour Chris is (sometimes) home working out.

Right now I am seeing this as a Lose-Lose-Lose situation with me being the only one losing out on anything. Awesome. Granted, come September this gets easier since Cha Cha will be in school in the afternoons and I can then corral only one kid into submission, but the next two months loom long and work-out-less. All together now as I embrace my diva-hood "Oh well, I guess I will just sacrifice this too...anything for my family." You might want to take your drinks on the porch since I am already on the cross...sometimes my own negativity is appalling.

Anyway, that is the only real drama here at the house, so hey, it could be worse. I promise some book reviews soon since I have read quite a few great things lately. I am also planning a slew of shameless consumerism posts since I have some cool stuff that I think everyone deserves to know about. Feel free to offer the needed ass-kickings in the comments, clearly I need it...

Declaring Independence

2011-07-04T14:17:00.000-04:00

Remember back when I blogged, like twice in one week even? Yeah, that was cool. Then Chris came home, things got...pretty much the same so I guess this will just happen when in happens. None the less I have a list today! These are thing from which I am declaring my independence:

My child as an extortionist- I am so over the tantrums. Now I just ignore them. At home you can go pitch your fit in your room until you are over it, out of the house I can wait until you are ready (if it is something I need to do) or we can go home right now (if it is something meant to be nice for you). Have fun at preschool. You think I am a hard-ass? Your teachers will have no tolerance for that shit.
A few more pounds- Hitting a few weeks of strict point watching and no "fluffy" carbs. Rice, pasta, bread...you all make me blow up like a balloon so see ya later. Keeping up with the running. Doing the programs on the treadmill. Can you say "hill sprints?" My goal: 6mph on an incline of 8 for at least a minute...it is a lot harder than you would think!
Home-Port guilt- Chris is not a fan of his job, I mean really, who would be? At work from 5am to 7pm seven days a week with no end in sight and someone always on your ass? No thanks. I am supportive of him and his needs during this time, but I have to let go of the idea that I am responsible for this. The fact that I wanted to live here does not make me the root cause of how much working for the Navy sucks.
Being the maid- I handle the housework as a function of logistics, not because I live to serve. House rules are being formulated, they will be shared (ahemChristopherahem) and I am out. If the 20 month-old can get her stuff in the hamper, so can you.
Being a "fixer"- it is becoming unfortunately clear to me that many members of my friends/family are incapable of getting their shit together. That is fine, it is your life, but it is no longer my problem. As the old saying goes "a lack of preparation/organization on your part does not constitute and emergency for me." (Or something like that-whatever, you get the idea.)

So there you go. I am just as mean-spirited as ever and I am now "free" from this stuff. Feels like Independence Day baby!

Fear Culture

2011-06-22T19:46:00.000-04:00

When I took the girls to the beach, I was pleasantly surprised at how well they handled the situation. Both of them used good listening ears, played nicely and showed a great respect for the water. The thing that pleased me most was that they did these things while not showing any real fear. This is a big deal for me because, like every other parent on the planet, I am always struggling with how to walk that fine line between teaching my kids to look out for themselves and teaching my kids to be paranoid wrecks.

Certainly we want to teach our kids that the world can be a dicey place. You do need to be aware of safety at all times, but when does "caution" become a fear culture? Sure my girls should grow up knowing to wear their seat belts, be careful on boats, be aware of what they eat and eventually (be-still my heart) make wise choices about the biggies like drinking, drugs and even the sex. However, I don't want them to be the kids who are panicked every time their faces get splashed with water or who freak out when presented with non-organic snack.

In our current parenting culture this is especially challenging. In a world where one gets a lot of "mileage" out of being the "concerned mom" I can see how it is easy to race across that line and just keep running. Major good mom points are handed out to those who are the most apoplectic about "safety" and "thinking of the children and our futures." Before you know it, every single thing is riddled with hysteria and worry. Not only is it just exhausting to be that worked up all the time over everything, but I am not sure that teaching our kids to treat the world that way is healthy.

What is the answer here? I am sure I don't know. I guess we all just need to wade through these murky waters doing the best we can to keep our kids healthy and safe while not turning them all into total neurotics. As is so often the case with parenting, you just make the best choices you can at the time and hope for the best. I can't protect my kids from everything the world puts out there and maybe (on a small scale) that is okay.

Pump Up The Jam(s)

2011-06-20T10:13:00.002-04:00

We are back from our vacation in Cape Cod with my parents. We had a great time and even though traveling with kids hardly counts as "down-time" I am feeling pretty re-charged. Part of this new motivation will hopefully be more blogging, but I am even more committed to getting back into the running. While I am still getting on the treadmill a few times a week, I am starting to miss doing it and making progress so I am re-committing myself to my goal of going longer/faster. Basically I plan to do half an hour a day (the most I can realistically do right now) and just push myself to go farther in that time each day.

A key component of these runs is the soundtrack. Somehow the right music, at the right time, can change a sucky run into a perfect candidate for an cheery 80s workout montage. My parents are generously sponsoring me in getting a new iPod for my birthday (my phone does music, but for a litany of reasons, it is less than ideal) so I must build a few running playlists.

These are my current favorites to get my buns moving*....please chime in with your favorite workout music too!

Down by Jay Sean
Check It Out by Nicki Minaj and Will.I.Am
Sandstorm by Darude
Sexy Bitch/Chick by David Guetta
Right Round by Flo Rida
Taio Cruz (pretty much anything he does)
Evacuate the Dance Floor by Cascada
All The Things She Said by t.A.t.U.
Bulletproof by LaRoux
You're So Vain by Carly Simon
Don't Stop Believing by Journey (or the Glee kids)
Bad Romance/Poker Face by Lady Gaga
Forever by Chris Brown (I know, straight to hell foe this one.)
If U Seek Amy/ Dance Until The World Ends by Britney Spears
I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry

There are many more, and I am loving Pandora for a nice "random" generation of music that keeps me going, but these are the songs that, for now, always make me feel like I have one more sprint/mile/lap in me after all.

*DISCLAIMER: I have genuinely awful taste in music. I have accepted this as a "quirk" instead of a "flaw," lets just roll with it okay?

Upheaval

2011-06-08T21:49:00.000-04:00

The solstice is coming up and often when we hit these big deal dates, things start shifting and changing en mass. This has certainly been true around here. The kids are undergoing some big transitions, mostly positive, and I know my life has been doing the runaround too.

Charlie has finally made the jump to no diapers at all. I feel like we lingered with a nigh-time pull-up for a long time, but I learned early on that it was just easier for everyone. While she was more than capable of going through the night but, being a kid who never misses a chance for passive-aggressive torture, she quickly taught me that my life would be a living hell if I forced her to do this even one second before she was ready. It appears that this week, she was ready. She said "no thanks" and we haven't looked back. I have to say, it has been great. She heads off to two days of summer "school" in July and that will mark her start at preschool. She is growing up before my eyes and I won't even pretend it is not killing me.

Bitz is following along in the big-girls thing, She now wants to do the potty thing, with limited success, and she is talking up a storm all of a sudden. The biggest change, and here come the upheaval, both literal and figurative, is that she can now climb right out of her crib. I guess we have to change it to the toddler bed, but I have my doubts about how that is going to work. I ordered some bed-rails so maybe we can do an intermediate step. Now she is a terror to get to sleep and well, lets just say she doesn't stay down for the night as well as she used to. I am assuming here that as a parent you never get to actually get some sleep, but only time will tell.

As for me, I recently had a friendship end. The long and short is that a friend I had in VA has finally proven my deep seated suspicion that our friendship was based purely on how I could serve her needs. While I am sad to see this relationship end, on some level it feels good to know that I am cutting out people who drain me. I guess I am maturing in my role of wife, mother and sometimes single parent and I can now see that in order to do this I need to surround myself with people who understand that life is give and take, not just one or the other. I feel grateful that I do have so many of those people in my life, needless to say I would not be here, still standing, were it not for my family and friends who provide that mutual respect and support.

In ten days it will be the longest day of the year, and lets just say it commences another meaningful countdown and I can't wait. I never thought so much could happen in a mere six weeks, but it sometimes feel like I can't even remember life before this deployment. In many ways, it is for the better.

Oh, Yeah, I See What You Did There

2011-06-03T20:38:00.000-04:00

By now I am sure everyone has seen the new USDA food guide "Choose My Plate." I am very interested in how this announcement develops since I am currently reading Marion Nestle's Food Politics and she spends a lot of time discussing how presenting nutrition information is really hard. So many special interest groups have their fingers in the pie that nutrition experts are often censored in what they can, or can't, say about any given food. The words "eat less" are basically verboten and going after the big guys like meat, dairy and soda is a one way path to career suicide. I think that the new representation of what to eat does a nice job of showing what actual research indicates is a good diet while politely skirting the issue that animal products should be in moderation while plant products should be the bulk of the diet. I just wonder how long it will take for the authors of "The Zone Diet" to file a lawsuit.

As for the book Food Politics itself, it is a pretty interesting tome. While much of what I have read to date is not surprising, or even news, the supporting facts and figures help to illustrate the finer points of how the food industry works to control what we eat. My only caveat about the book would be that for someone who claims to be telling everyone what the science says versus what the popular thought says, Nestle is awfully quick to jump on the bandwagon that obesity causes endless deaths and health care expenditures per year. Like many people in the field she thinks that just because poor diet and inactivity leads to certain conditions and that obesity is often a co-morbid condition with poor diet and inactivity, that you can just draw the overly simplified conclusion that bad diet makes you fat and being fat makes you sick. It is really more like a chicken foot diagram and less like a connect the dots exercise. Just saying.

Otherwise a very enlightening read and I am certainly reading it at the perfect time to fully appreciate the new food guidelines.

Still Here, Still Fighting The Good Fight

2011-06-01T21:03:00.000-04:00

I have been super absent from blogging, that is because I have been super absent from pretty much anything that is not child-rearing and keeping the house safe/clean for said children. That is all I can get done in the meager 24 hours allotted for an earth day.   In a nutshell, I am pretty much over this deployment. Not good given that we get to keep doing this for an unspecified amount of time, but yeah, the girls have cottoned on to what is going down and they are sticking it to me good.

Bitz is very busy being a toddler. I feel like I am living in a Ben Stiller movie where every scene you enter you can already tell what cringe-worthy disaster will strike. Of course, in real life, it is less about the "hilarity" of lost suitcases and flooded lawns and much more about endless self-destruct mode interspersed with epic tantrums because I either 1. prevented the self-destruction and she is pissed or 2. did not stop her in time and now she is suffering a "grievous" injury to her person or her dignity. It is amazing to me that when Cha Cha was this age Chris and I totally thought it would be great to have another. Toddlers no longer inspire in me amusement and bliss, guess it is a good thing the baby factory is closed.

Cha Cha has been in my bed more nights than not. In her defense she did just have a nasty case of strep throat that landed us at urgent care on the holiday with no open pharmacies (awesome! story for another day). However, I think she has now to come to feel that this is the new routine and I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand I am sure she is missing her Daddy so if this is what gets us through then so be it. On the other hand...being with your child 24/7 with no breaks and not even your own space in which to sleep is taking its toll. I am a better mom when I get a few hours to myself to rest, but a "good" mom would do whatever it takes to get through this Navy thing alive. Talk about a rock and a hard place. Never mind the drama that will ensue when Chris gets back. He is only home like 6-8 hours a day and most of those hours are spent sleeping so we can not be playing these games.   Just ugh!

Well, there is my pity-party all laid out for everyone. Must be something in the air since I feel like this whole "woe is me" thing is doing the rounds. Looks like we are all getting our Summer Solstice upheavals early this year.   No matter, I am sure once the hormones clear my system, the kids get healthy again (man, I crack myself up sometimes) and we get back into the swing of things it will ease up. At least that is what I tell myself.   Tomorrow we have a fun play date for the girls to model some adorable clothes for my girlfriend's Etsy shop so that can be our first step in the right direction.

Serenity now!

Yes! This! A Million Times Yes!

2011-05-25T20:28:00.000-04:00

Today's suggested reading is Feminism 101 brought to you by Mellisa McEwan at Shakesville. This one is long and serves as a consolidation of topics covered so beautifully in her many posts. Bookmark it and read it all eventually. I am not sure I have fully absorbed all that this has to offer, but it elicits in me an almost visceral response of "Yes, this is exactly what I have been trying to say."

High points that I feel must be looked at include, but are certainly not limited to:

On What Angry Men Can Learn From Girls and Queers- I think this so well articulates why change is hard. It is hard because those most often in positions of power are there because their lives (male, white, affluent, Christian, straight, etc.) fit the rules of normalcy. Why would you be interested in change or even aware that there needs to be change?
On the Fundamental Difference Between the Anti- and Pro-Choice Positions- This is exactly it. You are only as entitled to your rights as the next person. That is the bit that extreme conservatives seem to conveniently omit.

and my very favorite because you know this is my ax to grind in a huge way:

On Projection and Homophobia- This one put into words exactly what I was trying to get at when I wrote this post. There is a line in this one that sums it all up so perfectly, you will know it when you see it, believe me.

There is so much more, but check it out and when you are feeling appropriately fired up, come back and tell me what you liked, or didn't.

I Am So Healthy My Doctor Could Just Puke

2011-05-24T20:05:00.000-04:00

This week I am aiming to point out some of the good stuff I have been reading lately. While I have not been writing much, I have been reading books, blogs, news etc. Just be warned these are definite "down the internet rabbit hole" things so I will provide a brief synopsis so you can skip the clicking if you need to.

I will start with this great FAQ page Don't You Realize Fat is Unhealthy? at Shapely Prose the very clever work of Kate Harding. Basically this page, and all the linked pages which are really worth a read too, she does a great, and often hilarious, job of debunking the whole myth that weight and good health are directly causative. (They may be correlated, slightly, at best, if you remove the confounders, but not really even then.) She covers all the high points of what is wrong with dieting culture and how you are what you eat and do, not the number on the scale. You can eat well, get lots of great exercise and be healthy as an ox while still being medically overweight/obese/morbidly obese.

This article found me (via comments on a Regretsy post, see above re: the rabbit hole) at a perfect time. Despite working the program and working out I have not been able to break past the 20-22 pounds of loss that I have achieved to date. While I feel great, look pretty darn good and certainly have made some really healthy lifestyle changes, I am not sure I can ever be "thin." While I have come to grips with the idea that this may be it and that I will keep working the program because it keeps me conscious of my eating and helps me make better choices, I may never lose another ounce. I was feeling pretty depressed about that until I started doing research. Real research. With actual studies. Taken as a whole body of literature. (That is called meta-analysis, learn it, live it, love it.)

Without getting into the numbers because lets face it, I am the only person here who would do statistics for fun, what I found was exactly what Harding is saying. My lifestyle now will keep me running until I am 100, my weight will only make me more acceptable to the eyes of strangers.

I love Weight Watchers and what it has done for me and I will continue to do it, but I will now be measuring my success in miles run, pants that fit and months spent with those 20 pounds gone forever. Somewhere between my vanity and my actual health lies my number on the scale. I have accepted that and now I feel so motivated to keep eating well and working out it is amazing even to me.

Of course, now I want ice cream and I am fresh out of points. Oh well, tomorrow then. I will soothe my soul with the fact that I ran (no walking breaks) two miles today and did not feel like dying at any point. That is way cooler than being a size 0.

Sometimes, You Just Know

2011-05-20T15:53:00.000-04:00

Today marks our 6th wedding anniversary. I am only slightly aware of this fact because Facebook told me, but none the less, I am going to get sappy and thank the universe for bringing me what some would call "my soul mate."

Chris and I have been together forever, like really forever. We were high school sweethearts and even though we have only been married six years (not that long) I have no experience in my adult life where I was not 100% sure he was "the one." It has not always been perfect, or even fun, but every now and then we have a little moment where I am reminded that we are pretty much perfect for each other.

A couple years ago now we took Cha Cha to see her first movie in a theater. I was pregnant with Bitz (spoken "puking my guts out between trips to take the then potty-training toddler to the ladies room 3,658 times per hour"). We went to see "UP" and the movie opened with the Pixar "short" about the clouds that make the babies and the storks that deliver them. Of course, being a 12 year old, my mind immediately went to this "Family Guy" clip:

As I giggled in my seat I turned to look at Chris and caught his eye discovering that he too had turned to quote the exact same Family Guy reference. It made my day, which was not an easy feat at that particular time. That my friends is true love. Yup, it sure is.

Behind Closed Doors

2011-05-17T19:53:00.000-04:00

Inspired by Alicen's clean pantry at The Space Between My Ears, I have given the whole house a closet overhaul. The good news is that they are no longer death traps threatening to kill innocent bystanders by way of avalanche. The bad news is that for a full day's work, the house looks pretty much the same. No matter. Stuff! It is getting done! And it was good!

Linen closet. Looks lumpy, but I do the Martha Stewart thing where all the sheets get put into one of the pillow cases so all you need do is grab a "set" and be off. Of course, I do not have a fleet of hired help so mine look less like neatly stacked displays and more like lumps of snaggled linens...because that is pretty much exactly what they are.

Cha Cha's closet, no more quilt/afghan rain every time you open the door.

My "half" of the closet. If diva-ship is measure in cubic yards of clothing and accessories, then Chris has me beat by a long shot. I have this rack, the stack of hoodies, a few plastic bags and a shoe box...he has all the rest of the walk in closet. Go figure.

The Slump

2011-05-16T13:09:00.000-04:00

In what can only be described as a ridiculous twist of fate, all my solo evenings seem to be leading to very little blogging. In an attempt to remedy this I am going to assign myself a few weeks of exercises. The theory is that I will have some posting protocols so I actually get stuff up here and hopefully get my groove back. I am going to work though photos, lists, book reviews and shameless consumerism so as to kick start what will hopefully be a nice summer of blogging.

I will start with this photo of my girls because it never fails to make me smile. This was the debut of their matching bunny PJs and the look of Bitz saying "cheese" is just the funniest thing I have ever seen. Good thing they are cute because right now they may both have mono, so that is going to be so great. I mean truly, amazingly great. Even though we spent all morning traveling to multiple medical facilities so as to get all the care/tests we needed, it is all worth it when they are home safe and sound, chilling and being so sweet.

Family Fun

2011-05-09T13:54:00.001-04:00

We went to NY this past weekend for my SIL's bridal shower. My sentiments on showers/registries in general aside, it was a great party and we had a blast. I got to see some people, both friends and family, that I have not seen in a few years and many of them had their kids there too. It was a wonderful day spent in great company, but there was one odd thing. I know other bloggers have blogged this to death, but I was amazed at how many people, like at least 60% asked me if we were going to "try for the boy."

Now, I will apply the disclaimer that I can kind of get the question: "are you having any more kids?" For whatever reason when your youngest hits two the question starts rolling around. It is very rude and invasive since you are basically asking relative strangers "so, when are you all going to be having unprotected sex again?" but whatever. However, the idea that one in my shoes would only be trying again so as to have a boy boggles the mind. Do people really still do that? Just have as many kids it takes to get the "preferred" gender? Do men really feel they must have a male heir like this is The Tudors? Are women really willing to be a pregnant that often just to appease some social construct that no man is complete without a son, or that no woman is complete without a daughter? I know it has been discussed to death, but I really just don't understand.

Now, here is where I make a terrible confession: I have zero interest in raising little boys. I enjoy the company of boys, I love the sons of my friends as if they were my own. Had one of my children been a boy, we would have been thrilled because all children are a blessing. But given the choice, I am pretty happy raising a house of girls.

I find that being a mom to girls allows me much more flexibility. An unfortunate side-effect of the societal idea that boys are somehow preferred seems to be that boys absolutely, unequivocally, must be true boys, wear only boy stuff and do only boy things. When my girls play rugby in the backyard I am "progressive," but when a boy goes to dance class eyebrows are raised. I shop for my girls in the boys section all the time, but a pink polo shirt or (le gasp) a doll stroller for a little boy is just not as acceptable. Frankly, I just could not put up with the gender-role BS that seems to go along with parenting boys. Plus, now I can avoid the whole circumcision drama llama and for that, I thank all that is sacred.

There I said it. I am not made of the right stuff to parent boys and the universe gave me the kids that were right for me.

PS We had a vasectomy so yeah, if we have a third baby someone will have some explaining to do. (Mr. Urologist, I am looking at you because goddess knows I barely have enough hours in the day for current family...a lover is kind of out of the question. Ha, it is funny because it is so true...)

Not All Bad News

2011-05-02T04:00:00.000-04:00

As part of my new plan to remain positive about this sea tour, I have come to appreciate that being on my (our) own has some perks:

The house stays clean- Chris and I have differing methods of getting stuff done. I do it "now" and he plans to do it "later." I am sure I don't need to explain how that generally works out. At least now all the dished get in the dishwasher, all the clothes in the hamper and everything put away where it belongs.
Groceries are cheap- The kids happily live on Annie's Mac-n-Cheese and I am pretty content with cereal for dinner. Even with Chris paying his own mess bill, it is a money saver. May not seem like much, but it helps to build my "underway savings" up a bit.
Trashy TV- The TV is mine, no limits and I can watch as many trashy B/C rated horror movies I want.
Crafting- With less housework and the kids in bed by 8pm, I can knit up a storm, sew a million quilts and work on my plans for some subversive cross-stitch.
Sleep- I would give anything to not do this type of separation, but there is nothing like having the whole bed to myself. I am a diagonal stomach sleeper, all knees and elbows...I have never been so rested.
The kids sleep- Even Bitz, my early riser, will sleep soundly and happily until 6:30/7:00. Amazing how pulling 4am alarms and phones calls all night out of the equation can really earn you a decent nights sleep.
Running- No late dinners to make and nowhere to be so I can pound out as many miles as I want when the sun goes down.
Separation pay- It is exactly what is sounds like...AKA "No Nookie Pay." I generally consider that little bonus to be my "pay" and in long-standing Navy tradition will probably grant myself a nice "deployment present."

Sure it is hard, but there are some often undisclosed perks to this life. Now I must be off to stack the Netflix queue with every cheerleader massacre movie ever made.

Enjoy more lists courtesy of Listless Mondays on abdpbt.com.

Pride

2011-04-28T15:40:00.000-04:00

Chris recently left and will be gone for "a (long-ish) while." I took the girls out to chase the boat as it went down the river and out to sea. It is always hard to do this, but I think involving them in these "silly" traditions will help make the transitions easier. They sure did love it. We got to stand out in the mist and hear the fog horn as we watched the boat drive past the light house and out to calmer and deeper waters. I had a wonderful chance to see my girls embrace their lifestyle and be so brave in the face of what will be a challenging time. There are days when I realize what it really means to do this job, and I am so proud it almost hurts. I am sure time will fly and before we know it we will be chasing the boat the other way and cheering for their safe return.

Books!

2011-04-23T04:00:00.002-04:00

So I am finally getting around to posting some book reviews meaning that I might start letting this space live up to its name of "well-read." While I have been reading a lot of junk thanks to the allure of free books for the NOOK, I have read a few that bear actual note.

Poison by Sarah Poole A pleasant read while being pretty educational. While the premise and plot are pure fiction, the back story is very well researched. Consider this a perfect primer if you are as into The Borgias as I currently find myself.

Little Face by Sophie Hannah I read this after loving The Wrong Mother, and while it was a good book, it fell a bit short of my expectations. I really like Sophie Hannah and I think that she writes quite cleverly about women, children and relationships, but this book just wasn't, for me, as much of a show-stopper. However, I would still add this one to your reading lists.

Song of Ice and Fire Series by George R. R. Martin- I have read the first three in the series and I am currently reading the fourth while anxiously awaiting the fifth and final book this summer. Simply amazing series even if vaguely medieval fantasy adventure is not generally your bag. Many compare Martin to Robert Jordan, but these books take all the good bits of Jordan's drivel and deliver it with far less agonizing results. Martin is a guy who realizes that if you can't wrap up the cycle of the hero in less than 500 pages you might want to just give it up. There is also an HBO series based on the books so that is a nice plus.

Lastly the most amazing book I have read this year is The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin. This book is "about" the vaccine autism link. While that subject matter is evaluated in depth, and Mnookin does a great job of debunking the so-called science that leads people to think vaccines cause autism, the book is really about how easily people will buy into a flawed idea. The author uses the vaccine debacle to illustrate how the media, politics and the shortfalls of science can quickly conspire to create a group who will persist in their beliefs regardless of what the evidence may say. This is a must-read not only because of the wonderful look at the subject matter, but also because it will totally re-frame how you see this debate and so many others like it.

See, it is not all depressive rants and failed dieting around here these days. We are relatively educated depressive ranters with food issues. Happy reading!

Food Fight

2011-04-22T12:00:00.001-04:00

The girls are now living in a police state again. As a trio of ladies we are all learning some hard lessons about how I am not in fact a personal concierge service/maid/short-order cook etc.   While Bitz is merely being trained out of classic age-related high drama (hello time-outs), Cha Cha is creating the bulk of the drama. Sadly, that drama surrounds food.

While it may not be about food really, her current diva status is manifesting itself through seemingly endless fights about food. The back-story is that Cha Cha has always been a "snacker." She never fell into any discernible pattern with her bottles and getting her to eat real meals has never not been a struggle. Her usual MO is to request a food, eat two bites, say she is done then wander off. Twenty minutes later we repeat the show...and again 20 minutes after that and so on. Soon I am living in the kitchen and the fridge is overflowing with tiny Tupperware full of snacks, each missing one bite.   Between Chris being gone and a weekend of my MIL fully indulging this behavior*, we were back to food hell. After an unfortunate dust-up over an uneaten yogurt last night I called a halt.

We are officially back to the house rules of you can eat what I make (or not) when I make it. We have only spent maybe 75% of the morning in hysterical tears about being "so hungry" so really it has not been that bad. It does, however, raise the almost overwhelming issue of how do you not make food an issue?

The hardest part of this whole weight-loss thing has been coming to grips with the fact that I have food issues. Seriously fucked up food issues. So how do I enforce an end to the food dramas without giving my kids food issues? Also, how do I balance my current need to measure, weigh and record everything I consume with a mentality that teaches my girls to eat well and not be obsessed with weight? I know that losing the weight and getting fit sets a good example for them, but at what point am I teaching them to be too obsessed with food?   When you are dealing with a 4 year old and a 1 year old, the fine line between "you need to eat some healthy food before we can have dessert" and the "clean plate club, now with cake and heap of guilt" becomes hard to articulate.

Oy, I know I just need to realize that the food issues are really just control issues and that removing that factor from our lives probably won't kill anyone. I figure by Monday we can be over the meal thing and back to the normal level of Hysterical Toilet Flushing Obsessions and the Car-Seat Buckle Freak-Outs.

My kids are not jerks on purpose, they are just crippled by their CABS.

See also: This great post by Alicen about this very issue.

*I don't blame my MIL for doing so, Cha Cha is an ace manipulator and this kind of relapse is the price I pay for daring to enjoy 18 hours away from my kids. Fair enough.

Fat Fighters…Yeah It Is Pretty Much Just Like That

2011-04-18T12:26:00.000-04:00

When I started this whole Weight Watchers thing and decided to be vain and do more than just get healthy, I set a goal weight that I felt was reasonable for me and went for it. The end plan was to lose the weight, get into maintenance and become a lifetime member. Having signed up for the online version I knew I would have to switch to meeting eventually to get that lifetime membership, but that was okay. I can switch whenever I want to. The real killer for this dream was the recent realization that you can only become a lifetime member if you set a goal weight that Weight Watchers determines is a healthy weight for you. That means that I basically have to get down into my healthy BMI range or pay the monthly fee forever, until the day I die or until I decide to just switch to maintenance. Granted I can stop paying when I reach my goal, but if I ever want to do the program again, I have to go back to paying and re-registering and all that. Awesomesauce. I am not saying it is not worth it, it totally is, you can't put a price on what I am doing here, but it is a major point of contention for me. Personally I know that I will probably never get down to 140. I have not weighed less than 140 in all of my adult life, even when I was wearing 6s and 8s, sporting a bra band size of 34 and rocking it out with less than 1200 calories a day (I know, I know, bad , bad, bad).

This realization has tainted all my hard work to date. While I do have good news:

I have lost 22 pounds and 16 inches off my body
You can really see the change in my tummy, the one area that really bothered me. (I am so fine with big butt, big thighs, I never had nice legs so who cares, but the horrible double stomach roll that anti-depressants gave me? Yeah that pissed me off. Poor mental health, the gift that keeps on giving.)
I am getting pretty fit, running miles in about 13 minutes, lifted a 5 gallon keg of beer the other day with ease that made the stock boy get all wide-eyed. Yeah baby!
I got a super cute dress for Sub Ball and felt really good wearing it, a major first for me.

I have also managed to focus on all these bad things:

I am still wearing my same size 14 jeans. They fit better, but they still fit just fine, 22 pounds and I have not dropped a dress size. I still had to buy my dress in a 16, sure it is way more of a Queen Latifah 16 and a lot less a Roseanne Barr 16, but still, a fricking 16.
I have no bras that fit and no way to get any…apparently. While the ones I have do not fit well anymore, no combination of cup or band sizes fits any better. I have not gotten any smaller, just different and even more oddly shaped. Simple extraordinary.
My friends are all within 10-12 pounds of their goal weights and looking at becoming lifetime members. I will have to lose another 40, yup you read that right 40 pounds before I can get there. One gal is super tall, so granted it is not really fair to compare us, but the other gal is my height and she is just doing so much better than I am. She is also training for a marathon (these women are so wonderful and such an inspiration lest you think I am a sour old friend-hater) and therefore gets the added advantage of eating more points per day than I do. Add in that I am projecting all my other jealousies here such as how one had kids in school so "has her life back"* and their spouses are still in school so they have the back-up/time to do things like find 3 hours a day to run and I am starting to think that I am a terrible person for even feeling this way. So jealous I could spit and green with envy is not a good color on me. I love these women and they are doing so well, and workings o hard, but it is really tough to keep these feelings in check right now.
I just don't see 140 in my future so the little voice in my head is saying things like "why bother?"

Now I am in serious funk. As petty as it is, I am now pretty peeved about it all. I am torn between the idea that I should just keep on doing it as I have been since it is working and the idea that I will be damned if I am going to pay for the privilege of busting my ass for a year just so I can still be told that I am too heavy to reap the benefits. If I want to feel like I am not good enough, I can do that for free. That is what is comes down to: I have worked so hard and done so well and it will never be good enough.

If it were not for the Fat Fighters skits of Little Britain fame constantly running through my head, this would have been dead in the water long ago…

*We all know that is not true, but my bummed out little brain loves to say unfair things like that.

Still Here....Kind Of...

2011-04-13T19:18:00.000-04:00

I was so going to be blogging this week, but yeah, that is not happening as much as I would have hoped. This was our first week with Chris being some variation of gone and it has been easy in many ways and really hard in many others. Notably the kids are sick...again. Ear infections all around plus a sinus infection for me. Ironic that I did not get to do the real post I was working on about the military health system because it took me well over 6 hours to navigate said system so we could see two providers for a total of 15 minutes. I am knackered and so disgusted with the whole mess that I can't even discuss it rationally so that post will be tabled for another day.

I do have some stuff to look forward to though, I have a few posts in the works about:

Weight loss success with pictures of my smoking hot dress for Sub-Ball this weekend.
Three great books I have been reading.
How Chris and I will be having a little "come to Jesus" moment about his major case of "ass-end-itus"

My ILs arrive tomorrow and Chris may be home for at least a few consecutive hours this weekend, hopefully that will translate into some time to blog.

This Is Going To Be A Huge Hit

2011-04-07T09:03:00.000-04:00

This is pretty disjointed and all over the place, but I can't even type as fast as my thoughts/questions are flowing in...

So this government shutdown thing really may be happening. We really may not be getting paid after tomorrow. Our next paycheck may be for half our pay and then after that...who knows. Thankfully this is not a deal breaker for us...

Side note: I was pretty peeved with our financial adviser last time we met. He really seems to be genuinely uninterested in providing any actual help in our planning, a phenomenon probably not unrelated to our choice not to "buy in" to the next level of services. Long story short we are not looking at purchasing any new stuff that will make him money, so he isn't really interested in giving a shit. He strongly implied that the cash we had in the bank was "excessive." He seemed to think our emergency fund could be better used, that we didn't really "need" an emergency fund given our line of work. Well guess what asshole? Now I am feeling pretty good about those 6 months we can survive without getting paid. I think we can skip our meeting next year... /Side note.

...but I am absolutely fascinated as to what will happen next. There are many people who will not be okay. In essence the military pays as well as any other job for your given credentials however that means that some families are not getting paid as much, often not even "enough." What will happen to them? On a larger scale what will happen to everyone?

Will the DoD selectively pay out allowances so that people still get the cash for rent and what is earmarked for groceries etc. or will they just give us all half of everything and walk away?
For people in housing that means that only half their rent/utilities gets paid and since the housing is privately owned and operated, there is nothing stopping the company from starting eviction processes. How is that going to work?
What happens to the clinic? They were out of tongue depressors when we were there this week and can't order more. Today it is cotton swabs, but what will happen when Cha Cha goes in for her 4-year well child and there are no vaccines available? (OMG you have to read The Panic Virus and holy crap I will just die of stress and anxiety if Cha Cha can't get vaccinated....freaking out!)

You see how this gets very complicated very fast.

OMG the media circus alone will be worth the price of admission. Families of people genuinely deployed, on the ground, in war zones will be doing it all for free. I am personally thrilled about the idea that I will get to spend my future time single parenting and dealing with Navy BS for no pay. It will be so great! When Headline News gets a hold of this one, it will be amazing.

On the upside, this may be our ticket out. I make no bones about the fact that our choice to do this over something similar in industry is based 90% on the financial benefits. Without getting into the gory details as incentive to sign contracts and sell your life to the federal government we get a sizable bonus every spring. We stay in because this bonus means we can save for the girls to go to school, ensure a debt-free lifestyle and and make sure we can provide for this family if a crisis *ahemlikenowahem* should occur. We may not see that bonus this May, therefore we can walk away, no fault. If the Navy fails to pay the nuke contract bonus, then the contract is pretty useless and we could just leave. We won't. that 10% of doing it because Chris loves the job will always win out (even thought math doesn't work that way), but not everyone will feel that way. Is the military prepared for the mass exodus of people when they realize they can cut and run without having to pay back in the contract bonuses?

Have I mentioned this is going to be awesome? It really is.

Granted, I doubt it will happen. I am sure the government with put on the big boy underoos and get it done in some way, shape or form. All this hemming hawing and general BS will wind down and everyone (and by that I mean everyone because this is the true meaning of bipatisanship in that every idiot out there regardless of party is being a total tool) will figure it out. I am pretty sure the bad press of denying military families pay alone will get this job done fast. Then we can all return to our normal lives of blaming the other party for trying to not pay soldiers and listening to people tell me how "lucky" I am to be here making so much money and enjoying all the "free" benefits. Yup, that is us, living the dream baby, living the dream.

Cheat Sheet

2011-04-04T08:01:00.000-04:00

In my quest to do this weight loss thing "right" I promised to avoid overly processed things as much as possible. I was really determined not to fall into the dieting trap of only eating "synthetic food product" because it was fewer calories/PointsPlus. I have done pretty well with this, and the new program really supports this plan, but there are a few things I just can't seem to give up. The problem is really in avoiding the artificial sweeteners. I always thought that people were pretty silly to be putting "fake" sugar in their food instead of moderating the amount of sugar they use...turns out I may have been right. None the less, here are my aspartame-fueled "rule breakers:"

Diet Coke- more specifically the Stop and Shop generic diet cola. It tastes just like Coke Zero, is made of identical ingredients and is, no joke, 1/3 of the price. I know it is basically just a glass of cancer-juice, but I love it, the caffeine makes me feel wonderful and hey, I guess there are worse vices out there.
Fat Free Cool Whip- Cool whip is gross enough as it is, but the Fat Free one is zero points for a decent sized scoop. It is ridiculous, but somehow that bit of whip makes my 100th bowl of fruit seem more like dessert and less like a consolation prize for the fat girl who can't have ice cream like everyone else.
Some Light Yogurts- I generally stick to plain and vanilla yogurts so I don't have to deal with odd sweeteners, but those coffee ones are so tasty.
Starbucks "Skinny" Drinks- At a mere 3 points for a huge cup of seemingly decadent coffee, one of these as an occasional treat will just have to be in the repertoire. I am sure they are made of something just awful, but they taste so very good.
Diet Hot Cocoa- For 1 point per packet I can make my coffee a mocha or enjoy a sweet treat in the evening. Sometimes I need that chocolate fix, what can I say?

When I put it all out there, I guess five "bad" things is hardly a problem and most are occasional use anyway. I have found ways around the other issues like getting an air popper so I can ditch microwave popcorn and I am working on a hot cocoa mix that doesn't require me to buy the nasty little Swiss Miss packets. All together the quest to lose weight and get the whole house eating less processed foods is going quite well.

Anyone else suffer from these indiscretions or have any hot tips for substitutions?

Hitting Our Stride

2011-04-01T13:25:00.000-04:00

Finally, my life feels "normal" again. Three full weeks on the boat and we have now settled into something that approximates a routine and things are really smoothing out.   The fact that Chris is gone before we all get up in morning and generally home after Cha Cha heads to bed means that we can just do our thing and get on with it now.

The first major change is the sudden ability of my kids to sleep until 7am. I think that Chris' alarm at 6-ish was placed in just the wrong spot in their sleep cycles.   Now that he gets up much closer to 4:30 than not, they seem to be able to sleep through his general crashing about (stealth is not one of his strong points) and then slumber peacefully until a relatively reasonable time.   Game changer. Suddenly everyone wakes up rested, happy and ready for breakfast. Well-slept kids then play nicely in the mornings while I putter about and do some housework, then it is off to various activities, errands etc. It is almost like they are actually humans and not just misery inducing androids sent here to debilitate the world population through sleep deprivation and general whining.

The next biggie is enforcing nap/quiet time and then using that time to work out. Previously I was not even looking at the treadmill until 7:30pm and well....for me, that is a sure recipe for failure. (Side note: Hats off to parents who work outside the house and still manage to work-out. I am here inches away from the gear all day and still find it hard. Great job guys.) Now I get it done, get showered and move on with my day while Bitz naps and Cha Cha enjoys either book reading or movie watching on the couch. The added bonus is that Cha Cha actually rests now instead of just waiting until I leave to get housework done and promptly destroying the entire playroom in a matter of mere seconds. See above re: when kids are rested they are not such jerks.   I think my general productivity may be down due to this change, but hey, everyone still has clean knickers and no one has contracted any diseases from the house so we will call it "good enough." This is definitely a selfish act on my part, but it seems to benefiting everyone so we are going to run with it. (Get it? Run with it? Oh man, I do amuse myself so much...) Lastly, this has cut done on our screen time a lot. Since Cha Cha gets her TV then, she is not whining for it all day. Not a perfect solution, but something with which we are comfortable.

I feel like a cloud has lifted and we are living normal lives now. The kids eat three meals and an afternoon snack and no one is hysterical about any of it. We do story, tumbling, dance, playgroup and craft projects, just like the SAHP on TV! We have set bedtimes that occur with out epic meltdown. Sometimes life is just grand. We all miss Chris terribly, but there is a certain ease that comes when you just pull a player out of the equation. It was lovely having him home, and I miss it so much it makes my heart actually ache, but his unpredictable work schedule and the resultant inability to get the kids on a schedule did make it much harder than I had realized. The dirty little secret of this lifestyle is that sometimes it is almost easier when the guys are just "out" and you don't have to be balancing the kids and the scheduling crazy.

Here's to a life that is a little less crazy and little more organized. This structure will see us through. As our friend pointed out "each day the kids are one day closer to 18 and you are one day closer to the next shore duty." Amen brother, amen.

If It Were Not So Funny...

2011-03-30T12:53:00.000-04:00

...then it would just be true.

My crazy pills are being delivered by the case these days. I can thankfully say that nothing "bad" has happened, but man I am just exhausted by the never ending run-around that is keeping our lives going. I am keeping a sense of humor and that is helping a lot, but I still often feel like I am the only sane person in a room full of crazies. In no particular order here is some stuff rattling around in my head, some silly, some annoying, some serious but all laugh out loud insane.

Chris is convinced that we got paid at his promoted rate...we definitely did not. I won't get into the details of how you can tell this (hint: you match the number in the bank account with the number on our official pay stub and with the published value for our rate/rank...shhhh, don't tell the secret) but yeah, really, we did not. The amine fumes have done him in already.
Every month we also have this heinous discussion about when we get paid. It is either the 15th and the 30th, or the 15th and the 1st. I feel like every time I ask him, I get a different answer. It doesn't really matter since it usually posts a day earlier and all is generally right with the accounts...but not yet for this cycle. It could be that the magic eight-ball of DFAS payments has not yet produced the checks, or it could be this: DFAS Cannot Promise Pay In Government Shutdown. Awesome.
We had a library fine of 30 cents, the library spent 44 cents sending us a notice to that effect...really?
Our local parks and recreation department apparently failed second grade math because they seem to think that the value "1.06 years" means 18 months. No, "1.5 years" is 18 months. I am pretty sure we use a base ten system here. I tried to explain to the gal on the phone that math doesn't work that way and that the registration system should be updated so others don't get confused. She seemed to think I was mad about Bitz being too young. No, I am commenting that you are clearly too stupid to function.
Had a wardroom wife send out an e-mail that disclosed boat schedule information. I am sure I don't need to explain why this is a problem. The Family Readiness Group wanted to have a Facebook page. Again, do I need to explain? Of course what do I do? I don't want to be a total rat, but I also don't want to go down in the blaze of glory....and I am officially out.
Cha Cha had a major big sister moment yesterday. We were at the park with some friends from story-time and one of the "big boys" pushed Bitz. Cha Cha quickly went in to help her up and walk away. She tells me "Next time I will tell ---- 'no pushing please.'" Add in that they already share clothes and I think we have something we can work with here.

That is pretty much it around here. I feel like I should be blogging more, but just keeping my head above water as we transition has been so time-consuming, I don't even have anything to talk about. Hopefully we will settle in soon and I can get back to doing this better and more regularly.

Seasoned

2011-03-28T08:07:00.000-04:00

This is it people: welcome to boat life. We had our "Hail and Farewell" on Friday. It was nice to meet everyone, but it really hit home that we are on a boat now. As they say in the films "this shit just got real." We are already looking at some serious sea-time, lots of missed holidays and birthdays and oh so very much of me handling every, single, last detail of four people's lives all by my lonesome. As sick as it is, I console myself with the idea that at least I am "alone" because he is off doing something important...because he has to be. I know that some people do this all alone all the time just because they have partners who do not participate, I reckon it could be worse.

Now this is me:

When you arrive at a sea command as a spouse, you are generally given a "token of belonging" to welcome you into the fold. Here in CT that preferred choice is a pendant from a lovely local jeweler engraved with the boat's seal. Women collect them like rings on a tree to symbolize their time in the Navy. I now have two. It is official, I am a seasoned Navy spouse.

I feel a role as "mentor" coming on a for a few younger spouses and I was already able to answer a complicated health insurance question for a friend who will soon be a Navy spouse. I have served as Command Ombudsman, taken the COMPASS course, volunteered for the yearly SOSA tea, endured a deployment, experienced the shipyards, seen a boat christened and commissioned, had a baby on a sea tour, enjoyed cocktails with the Brazilian Navy, designed an FRG and and survived 5 moves in almost 6 years.

I can do this.

Looking Good

2011-03-24T08:44:00.000-04:00

Looking good is really hard.

I have a meet-up with some other boat wives today and our official "Hail and Farewell" tomorrow. Add in that Submarine Ball is in a few weeks and I desperately playing catch-up on the maintenance. My hands are a wreck, my feet have been brutalized b the running and I pretty much had one eyebrow. Yesterday my goals (in addition to laundry, bed making, food planning/prep/serving/cleaning up etc.) were to wax my eyebrows, file nails/toenails and slap on a coat of polish for both. It was grueling. Sure each of these tasks takes maybe 10 minutes to do, but squeezing them in the average day with two little kids was nearly impossible. I did get it all done, and I look much better for it, but it never fails to remind me why I rarely look "good" and the effort that women must undergo if they do always look "good." Now all three of us ladies could use haircuts, but that will take pretty much an entire day to orchestrate, so maybe next week.

Bloody hell, this girl-stuff is a total PITA.

Also on the "looking good" front is the weight loss. I suspect I may have no loss, or even a little gain this week. I am not surprised since I slacked on my measuring and tracking so yeah, let that be a lesson to me. I am finding it depressing though. I am not bothered as much by the change in number as I am the greater implication for the rest of my life. I know that I fail to lose, or even gain, whenever I don't religiously weigh, measure and record every single bite I eat.

So what does that mean for me in the long term?

It means that I may never be able to stop doing this. I may be a person who can never, ever, just eat and move on. Until the day I die I will be measuring and tracking because if I don't, I will be back up to my starting weight in a matter of days. I know that in theory people eventually learn how to eyeball measurements and balance it all out without writing it down, but I think the fact that I was tipping the scales at almost 200 pounds with no upper limit in sight clearly means that I am not one of those people. I did not get there because I am able to eyeball serving sizes and moderate my eating well. As my friends leader put it "none of us are here because we love veggies and can easily pass up a cupcake." I am a person who will have to working the program for the rest of my life and this awareness makes it very hard to get over these setbacks. I will do it, and it will be fine, but I will have to be doing it and that is somewhat not-fine.

On the upside I may need to buy a new dress since the dress that I was hoping to fit into for the event is now hopelessly too big...at least I have that victory to carry me through the "dark times" of fighting for those ounces.

I will look good eventually. I am not sure how, but I will. Maybe that idea is just enough for now. That and the fact that I can fucking sprint like a bad-ass now. I may never be able to resist a cookies, but I can sure as hell outrun them now!

Life in Random Clips

2011-03-21T09:33:00.000-04:00

We are finally back to being human again. Well, the kids are. I am still exhausted from playing Florence Nightingale while suffering from crushing pain my hip thanks to my own infection with Fifth's Disease, but when the kids are better, life sure is easier. I have some stuff I want to note before it all dissapears so here is a fresh round of random for you guys:

The day after being sick is way worse than the being sick. When the kids are sick (and you inevitably are too) some kind of super-power overtakes you and you manage it all. The day that everyone gets better and you look at the wreckage of your life and only then allow the sheer enormity of it all wash over you...that is the day that really kills you. So looks like lots of house cleaning, blogging, errand running, phone call returning and e-mail catch-up for me this week.
Libya- I am still a bit fuzzy on all the details but the phrase "military campaign that requires no ground troops" makes me feel a little sick inside. I guess we know what forces will be out and about full-time then....
Did actually get out for a run yesterday. Did roughly three miles in super hilly/rocky terrain. I was able to run more than I expected though it still took me about 45 minutes to do the loop. It took Chris the same amount of time, but it is worth noting that he was pushing 100 pounds of kids and baby jogger at the time. I am thinking we may try to make this a family date every week and I can use it as a benchmark for my fitness level.
After a disappointing gain of half a pound, I lost 2.6 pounds last week. I honestly think it is a lot more like a pound a week with the data skewed by PMS, but the point is I am still trending down. Next stop if the 20 pound mark/ 10% starting weight lost mark and I am so excited!
Sorted out the playroom and found another two diaper boxes of toys to be sent to new homes and one bag full of stuff that is ready for the trash. I find the toys to be so hard because I feel that whole hoarding tendency of applying too much sentimental value to an item cropping up. I need to take a deep breath and realize that just because it was a gift or once a favorite doesn't mean it needs to clutter up my life forever.
First week of boat life was pretty awful, yet I got through it. I feel bolstered by the idea that is pretty much as tough as it can get and I was fine. I can do this, it is only three years and I can do this.

Some real posts will be coming later. Promise!

Jealous Yet?

2011-03-16T13:15:00.000-04:00

You should be...this is my new glamorous life:

I hate this shelf in the kitchen, all it does is collect crap and, in this case, lots of medicine bottles. Oh, and the month of never getting any housework done because we are all sick is starting to show...please don't look too closely at the dust and fingerprints.

We have done the upper respiratory infection with dual antibiotics, we then did the stomach flu thing and now we are doing a round of one toddler with a raging ear infection and one preschooler with parvovirus. The good news is that Cha Cha is now old enough to use some medications to regulate the icky symptoms better than acetaminophen and steamy showers, but that has also thrown me into a tailspin of monitoring the use of said drugs. I am now juggling Motrin, Tylenol, Benadryl, Mucinex and Augmentin. Did I mention that since they are only separated by 5 pounds, the dosages are very similar yet different enough for it to be a significant issue? (That is why we have like 20 Tylenol bottles. Each kid gets one labeled with their dosage each time we go to the clinic...yippee!) Yeah, my paranoid fear that someone will get a bad mix, or too much, or in the case of the antibiotics not enough medicine requires a chart. For now I have a list, a command center and million highly calibrated syringes....I am officially a crazy person. The real method is to just avoid using this stuff whenever possible, and that is my general philosophy, but sometimes you have to suck it up and just be glad that we live in an age where we have these tools at our disposal.

Marking my door with a bio-hazard sign and moving on...guess this means no play date on Friday and it might behoove me to skip the baby shower this Saturday since parvovirus and pregnant ladies can be a bad mix...bleh.

Healthy Living Means More Shopping

2011-03-14T08:41:00.000-04:00

As we all plow through month three of our plans to get fit and fabulous, here are the things that I found really helped to keep me motivated with the working out. When all else fails a little retail therapy can put you back on track.

Honestly, to get started working out you don't need much, but some things do make it much easier and more pleasant. They key here is to be properly prepared so it doesn't suck, not to spend a billion dollars, or better yet, use the perceived need for expensive gear to be what stops you from getting moving. In no particular order here is the stuff that helps me drag my buns out for some exercise:

Good shoes- They need not be pricey, but they do need to be comfortable and supportive. Granted not all exercise forms need shoes, and some do require special shoes, but for the most part a comfortable pair of relatively sturdy sneakers will get you through a large sampling of workouts. I highly suggest finding either an outlet near you or one of those "famous brand shoes" stores at your local shopping center. You can often get higher end athletic shoes for under $30.
Sports Bras- Ladies, lets be frank, the girls will take a beating if you don't wrap 'em up. No matter where you fall on the boob spectrum, they need some good support. Again, you don't have to spend a lot, but make sure you have some good full coverage, comfortably snug bras around. I like the Hanes ones, both the Sport Cotton Pull-Overs and the ComfortFlex Bandidni. Both retail for around $10 per two pack and I find that wearing one of each does a much better job for my Ds than the so called "full figured" models at double the price for a single bra.
Workout clothes- These can be anything you like and find comfortable for the activity at hand. You can use whatever you have around (you will still get a workout if you run in your PJ pants), but I found that getting a few items that were for "working out only" helped me mentally prepare for the idea that I was going to really do this. Once I have put on the outfit, I have to work-out. Hot tip: check your local big-box store. I scored yoga pants/crops for $2 and running shorts for $1 on the Target sale racks. I also like the Danskin line at Walmart (sorry, I know, I know) and with nothing over $15 you can get kitted up with some cute stuff on the cheap.
Some gear- once you do find an activity you like, do get some of the needed gear. A yoga mat, a set of small weights, one of those resistance band things...all can be found on the cheap and will serve as a good investment for keeping up the workouts. Gear can get pricey, but once you have an activity you like, it is worth it. Do check out Craigslist and Freecycle since odds are that just as you are getting into a exercise plan, someone else has lost interest, or pool you resources with like-mined people and swap out stuff to keep it fresh.

Really, that is pretty much it. Granted I do have a treadmill and WiiFit, but honestly with sneakers, my five pound weights, my yoga mat, some good bras and some yoga pants (total cost under $100) I do have all I need to get in a good workout every day. I also highly recommend Exercise TV. I don't use the site, but have found that most cable packages that offer "OnDemand" have this on there. I have been able to do tons of work-outs in all kinds of exercise categories for "free" given that we are paying for cable anyway.

Hopefully this will help us all keep at it now that the novelty of all those resolutions has worn off. Anyone else have a "must-have" for working out success?

Trouble With a Capital "T"

2011-03-13T04:00:00.001-04:00

Bitz was awful at Chris' SOAC graduation. Just horrible. She was "that kid." I am still burning with shame. Granted she was not bad by 16 month old standards, but that is just it...people don't realize she is only 16 months old.

While she and Cha Cha are separated by 2 years and 7 months (to the day, I am organized like that) Cha Cha only has 5 pounds of weight and 4 inches of height on her. People often comment that I am brave to have them so close together. That is because they assume they are 12-18 months apart. Bitz is easily the size of an average 2 year old or a smaller 3-4 year old, yet behaves very much like a toddler. So now not only is she having an award winning meltdown in the corner of the auditorium as I try to sneak her into the hallway but, people are evaluating that behavior assuming she is anywhere from 1 to 3 years older than she really is.

I just want to scream "Don't judge me! She is only 16 months old." I imagine that would only add to the ruckus though...

I Tried...

2011-03-12T21:46:00.000-05:00

I really did. I swore that I would chill out for a week, avoid infuriating political news and practice just keeping it to myself. Well, clearly that didn't last.

In the latest twist of internet slactivism a staggering number of people with whom I am FB "friends" posted this little gem:

"The US Supreme Court has ruled that you have the right under

the First Amendment to protest military funerals. I invite you to

start your protest in my front yard and we can see if your First

Amendment right is better then my Second Amendment right."

This sort of blindly patriotic, backwoods gun-toting, violence supporting, pro-censorship bullshit never ceases to surprise and disgust me. The sheer idiocy of getting a hard-on about rights when the whole goal here is to deny another their rights through the use of violence is appalling. When people say things like this they are just as bad as those "Palinites" and their "targeting." I mean really, do people not see how inappropriate and down right stupid this is?

Apparently too many people that I know are:

Pro-guns/violence as an answer to socio-political issues
Sure that we are in Iraq due to 9/11
Fully capable of not seeing the inherent hypocrisy in this statement
Genuinely convinced that the goal of our military, and its members, is the noble cause of protecting our freedoms from foreign influence
Of the mind that the US is still a world leader
Total morons

This is also a prime example of how I often don't "blend" with the local population of military wives. Many people come into this line of work genuinely believing they are doing something so noble in the name of this great nation. That may be true on some level, and I am certainly proud of Chris and his work, but to assume that choosing this line of work makes you somehow sacrosanct is problematic. The patriotism (and by that I mean the rabid kind) often blinds people to the unfortunate truths of real American life. My pragmatic view of this as "just another job" often puts me at odds with the "I love my sailor and how he protects the free world from everyone we don't like" types.

So yeah, I agree that it is morally reprehensible to protest at a funeral, that doesn't mean we can just remove the right to do so. We can't say that some views are more worthy of protection than others. True freedom doesn't work that way.

The reality is that the day someone in this country loses their right to free speech just because someone doesn't like what they have to say is the day that all our fallen military members have died in vain.

I Heart The IRS

2011-03-12T04:00:00.000-05:00

No really, for real, I honestly do. Long story short, I goofed on our taxes and my math had us getting only about half of the refund for which we were eligible. When our return arrived Friday, sure enough, it was for the correct amount. The correct amount doubly corrected since once you removed my goof, we should have claimed a credit instead of a deduction...and they fixed that too. Say what you will about the IRS, but around here, we are in relationship bliss.

So today's picture is the floor where my dining/craft/office room meets the hall. This is where you would have found me, flat out on the ground, arm over my eyes trying to stave off an anxiety attack. It was not that the payment appeared to be wrong, I am sure you can just mail them a check for the difference or whatever, it was the idea that I would have to do another round of bureaucracy. Seriously, we have not had a single thing go smoothly since the move. Nothing catastrophic, but one person can only do so much bureaucratic drudgery before it takes a toll. The idea that I would have to fire that all up again damn near killed me. Melodramatic? For sure. Regardless, you can imagine my relief when Chris held up the calculator and said "maybe we should have accounted for_____." Oh yeah, thank goddess someone realized that...

Check out the wallpaper...Holy Laura Ashley Batman! Oh well, it is a rental...

Points

2011-03-11T13:24:00.000-05:00

Had to report a small gain this week, though I am not surprised since I was less than stellar with my tracking, weighing and measuring. We enjoyed having Chris home a lot this week, but that means we ate out a bit more than usual and that I was less vigilant with my points. Oh well, it is a new week and I am now motivated to do better.

Brunch: 4 Points

In other news, Chris graduated SOAC (Submarine Officer: Advanced Course) today and we become part of a boat family on Monday. It is going to be a time of major change for all of us so...gird your loins, away we go!

The Slow Crawl to Freedom

2011-03-09T07:35:00.001-05:00

Thanks to some cute youth chairs from IKEA, we are now a high chair free house. While arguably the $30 space saver high chair was the greatest investment ever (even better since my ILs were so kind as to gift it to us) I am glad to see it go. No more wresting with trays, scrubbing the fricking straps...all gone.

However, this means that table manners are next on out lengthy list of things to do. Cha Cha is definitely old enough to learn the basics like utensil handling and napkin use while Bitz can certainly play along now that she can at least use utensils and get actual food into her actual mouth. Why my obsession with such etiquette? I am not raising debutantes, but I feel that the general table decorum of this country is appalling and by simply teaching my girls to be relatively polite members of this otherwise jerk-filled society will surely give them some advantage. See also: Thank-You notes. This is not about snobbery, (well, yeah it is but anyway...) but about the idea that meal times are meant to be valued. As a culture we have lost our reverence for food, and mealtimes and all the pleasant fanfare that can go along with food. I think that our cultural disconnect between nourishing our bodies and nourishing our psyches may have way more to do with America's dietary issues than saturated fat or white bread. Note to self: get some cute kids books on table manners and make place-mats as an art activity.

Winter Winds...Coming to an End

2011-03-08T09:26:00.000-05:00

As my beloved Mumford &Sons put it best:

"Remember spring swaps snow for leaves,

You'll be happy and wholesome again,

when the city clears and sun ascends."

Sure, the song is really about heartbreak, but we are so close to Ostara I can taste it!

Training

2011-03-07T08:13:00.000-05:00

ASICS Women's GEL-Enhance Ultra

Using my new running shoes to get over my workout slump. All &Sundry explains so well in this post how working out can be so unrewarding at times. I think I have finally established that I don't enjoy training. I am not a person who enjoys the sensation of pushing myself and having to do it harder, faster and better each time. The feeling of it never getting any easier that "real" training creates leaves me cold. I am, however, the kind of person who now enjoys a good round of exercise, the post-workout feeling and the knowledge that I am doing something for me and by extension, for my family. I won't be running any races, or breaking personal records, but I will be out there everyday fighting the good fight for healthy living. That is enough, it really is.

Disgust

2011-03-06T08:39:00.000-05:00

I was really planning on blogging this week. I was going to be writing about real stuff, new issues, some political stuff, some parenting stuff, I was so ready to get back into it. However, the only thing I can seem to excessively focus on these days is Georgia State Representative Bobby Franklin and the fact that we are apparently living in some kind of time-warp where his type of idiocy is tolerated.

I won't bore you with all the details, but you can read about how he wants to make miscarriage a felony and how he wants to effectively remove the rights of sexual assault victims and then you can get as pissed off as I am about it. (At least I hope you will...)

I sometimes feel like I don't even have words to adequately explain how wrong this is.

Do we really have people in this country who feel this is okay?

Is is really possible for religious fundamentalism and this kind of archaic sexism to be persisting at this level?

What about the technical details... where does this leave women with fertility issues? Are you a felon if you can't sustain a pregnancy? Are fertility treatments now felonies too since often we are trying to impregnate women despite "our" knowledge of the low chance of success?

If men were the majority of rape victims would this even be an issue?

How do I explain to our detailer that we will leave the Navy before we live in GA because we are not willing to participate in this kind of anti-feminist, religiously driven bullshit?

How do I explain to my girls, my beautiful babies who will grow into beautiful women with the world at their disposal, that in this country it is still apparently okay to degrade women, deny their rights and treat them as if they were part of the Salem Witch Trials? How do I do that?

Clearly I am not in an acceptable state of mind to write about anything so next week will be just photos. My goal is seven days of photos in the hopes that I can find some perspective. Then again, I am not sure that I am the one who needs a dose of perspective here...

Headlines

2011-03-04T08:48:00.001-05:00

I have been trying very hard to get back into my former news addiction. I find that an awareness of current events pulls me out of my "mommy-slump" and makes it easier to function like a normal adult instead of an adult covered in boogers who can only seem to talk about pre-school and preferred sippy cup brand. Of course, this awareness also never fails to make me feel like the general populous, as a group, are a bunch of total idiots so, lets take a quick look at some notable current events that just beg for attention.

Protesters at military funerals- Arizona tried to outlaw this after the recent shooting, but the Supreme Court said "nope, sorry, the 1st Amendment applies to all, even disrespectful jerks." That is a tough call, while anyone who protests at a funeral in this manner needs to take a long hard look at their personal convictions (and by that I mean "are a total F-wit"), this country is founded on the idea that you can speak your mind and practice your personal beliefs without unreasonable restriction. The same rights that make us capable of positive change because dissenting/radical ideas can be heard also also allow our country to be a bastion of conservative, discriminatory and puritanical ideas. It is a double edged sword for sure.
The Wiki-Leaks Drama- The guy is busy making a plea that he is being persecuted for using his rights of free speech. No, he is being persecuted for sexual assault. That is generally not a "right" in the countries in question. I am not surprised he is trying to spin it this way, he is a total lunatic, but I am so disappointed that people are buying it. I agree that what he did with Wiki-Leaks was probably fine by the letter of the law (though of questionable person ethics/morality), but that is not the issue in question. I can't believe that people are so stupid as to get so caught up in the "1st Amendment fervor" that the concept of sexually assaulting a person is just slipping under the radar. That man is evil genius, that much is for sure.
College Football ~~Criminals~~ Players- SI is releasing an expose showing that 7% of the players in the nation's top 25 college football teams have criminal records. I find this very interesting. While it is unfair to broadly label all athletes as "jock thugs" I think the whole American fixation with athletic prowess above all else is problematic. When the rate of criminal activity in the college football population is more than twice as high as the rate in the general college population, we need to take a long hard look at what kind of sports culture we are creating. There is a lot more to this since the whole thing is heavily tied up with money, fame and the "boys will be boys" attitude that is still far too pervasive in this country. I am curious to read the article and also curious if this holds true across all college athletic populations and/or if there is a gender discrepancy.
Planned Parenthood- Under the guise of stopping federal funding for abortion (though it is far more complex than that, but I won't bore you) Planned Parenthood is losing its federal funding. There has been a media circus made of how PP "forces women to have abortions" and how the organization is nothing more than an "abortion farm." That is a service they offer if you are in need of such care, there is no denying that. I am sure they provide a disproportionate amount of pregnancy termination services because they serve the populations that most often have nowhere else to go for that kind of help. However, this does not mean that their only agenda is to make everyone get abortions against their will. The real issue here is that they offer contraception, pregnancy termination and woman's health care to women who are un/under insured and these are services that the current conservative ruling class feels are wrong and, perhaps more importantly, this is a population that the ruling class feels are not deserving. The abortion issue is just a convenient excuse to deny rights to economically disadvantaged women. Clearly there is a lot more at play here.

So there you have it. A nice round-up of the lunacy that is living in America these days. I think I am starting to see why I quit being aware of current events. My psyche just can't take too much of this...

Interesting...

2011-02-27T19:03:00.000-05:00

I read this article in TIME and while it was the stupidest thing I have seen in a long time, it did make me think about a few things. The article basically aims to debunk the "hCG diet" in which you are given hCG, the hormone that makes your pregnancy test turn positive and it somehow makes you lose weight. The article clealry shows how the so-called study basically proves nothing, and that the calorie reduction used in the study will eventually cause a rebound effect and make you gain. Once I had read this tidbit, the brain wheels were a churning.

First I realized that this would work for me. The fake early pregnancy would send me into a tailspin of debilitating nausea and vomiting so yeah, that weight would peel right off. Of course, there is another name for this system, it is called bulimia, and it is definitely not awesome. Now I was thinking about how I did lose a ton of weight being pregnant, but how it call came right back, with a bonus ten pounds per pregnancy and I realized that I was doing the classic post-starvation diet thing where in response to having way too few calories for so long, your body has a field day and packs away pretty much everything you eat as fat.   Aha!

So this leaves me in a bit of pickle. I inadvertently spent over a year being "bulimic," or more precisely I spent two sets of roughly 35 weeks being on a starvation diet...a starvation diet split between two people. This is no excuse for my weight being what it is, but it does shed some light on why losing "the baby weight" just never seemed to click and why my "baby weight" actually packed on rapidly during the 6 months postpartum.

This is all pseudo-science, and probably all in my head, but I think it is an important part of this puzzle that is me getting my body healthy. When I am fighting for half pound losses each week, I need to realize that my metabolism may still be pretty shredded and that those half pounds really do mean a lot to my long-term weight goals.

On the upside I am getting thisclose to my 15 pound mark and generally my healthy goals are going well.   I still lost a pound even during the week we went to NY for the weekend and I did not even record my points. This means that my metabolism is getting better and/or that I am just getting much better at being able to make healthy choices even when I am not paying as close attention as I should be. I also hit a milestone in that I can now run at 5 mph on the treadmill. Not for more than 2 minutes thus far, and that is not really "fast," but still pretty good for a girl who 9 weeks ago was winded after 30 seconds at 3.5 mph.

Mostly, I am just amazed at how much I have learned about food, about working out and, perhaps most importantly, about what works for me. Now I just need to keep on keeping on...and keeping it off.