It's a Super-Sweet Thing!

Oh. My. Gosh. I feel like I've just been handed my key into the Grown-Up and Fabulous Club. Let me explain.

Shawn and I have been planning on moving a few towns over for a while now, to get into a nicer neighborhood and find a place where we will want to stay for a few years. I was lining up apartments to go and tour when a friend of ours casually reminded Shawn that another friend's mother owns a big, beautiful, and uninhabited home on the border of Alamo and Danville. Now, the house has been unoccupied for quite some time, and the plot of land it's sitting on has gotten totally overgrown, the spiders have set up shop, and some bored rich kids broke in at some point and spray-painted some of the walls in the upstairs bedroom.

But have I mentioned that this is a big two-story house in Alamo?

The owner knows Shawn from childhood, and when he mentioned the idea of us living in the top floor unit while also taming the yard, repainting, and repairing the rest of the house, and managing the tenants she is trying to get moved into the in-law unit on the property, she was immediately in love with the idea.

So there you have it. I don't know specifics like what rent we'll work out to pay, or how soon we can start moving in, since some things like fixing the spray paint need to be dealt with first. But let me tell you, I've spent the better part of this evening day-dreaming about how I'm going to decorate the baby's new bedroom. Since her bedding is purple, white, and brown, I'm pondering various combinations of lavender and white. Something like this, perhaps:

(thank you, weedecor.com)

I'm just all aflutter over the idea of having a real house to fix up and decorate, within reason, to make it look nice and get to live there. There is a huge yard with a built in bbq and firepit on the patio; I feel myself morphing into Martha Stewart at the thought of all the amazing gatherings we can host there, and just in time for summer, too. The thought of putting on some overalls and gardening gloves, cutting back all the ivy and tall grass and giving the rooms fresh coats of paint, really making the place shine again and bringing it back to life, has really got me excited. 

The house is steps away from the trail that runs through that part of town, and about a block or so down from the shopping area in town where the Peet's and Safeway etc are located.

And did I mention there's a fireplace? Upstairs? And a washer and dryer, which sounds like small potatoes as far as amazing house amenities, but when you've been living in apartments for the last ten years, that's a big potato. 

Plus, I'm still in the Bay Area and close to my family and friends, and now even closer to the bun of my dreams, LJ, who has been living out that way for a while, and who I desperately want to see more often and drink wine with while the kiddos become besties, just like their mommies. 

I just, I don't even know what to do with myself. I have a feeling my Pinterest is going to be getting about 10 new boards on it tonight!

Hot Fun in the Almost-Summertime

Hot, hot, hot today. Not a good day to live on the top floor of the building. Miss V took a long nap this afternoon, which I couldn't resist taking pictures of, since she was wearing her Ruffle Butt pants and sleeping butt-up. Adorable.

Working on this blog is giving me an itch to learn some photography skills. First off will be learning how to properly use the fancy-dancy camera I got for Christmas. Like, how do I get it to not have the stupid date and time stamp?

Afterwards I slathered her in sunscreen and popped on her cute little sun hat, and off we went for a walk down Park Street to the book store.

Mistaaaake.

First of all, wearing jeans was a bad idea on my part. I felt sticky and puffy and bloated. Not hot. Well, not the good kind of hot. Especially watching all the smart chicks in their cute shorts and tank tops.

Second, it was just too dang hot. The baby got all lethargic and sweaty, and I kept giving her drinks from my water bottle and spilling it down her shirt so she could cool off. Once at the book store, I didn't see the book I'd come for, so we left again and just went straight home.

However, experiencing the first summery day of the year has made me want to start training for a half marathon again. When I was in Campbell, I loved running. There was a great trail just down the road from my apartment, and I would go there 2-3 times a week after work and work on my mileage. It was great. So I think I'm going to look into some halfies around here and then put together a training program.

So, stayed tuned for more news on that front.

Something Different

So...I was reading back through last month's workout magazine, in which there was an interview with mommy and all around super lady Rebecca Romijn. Here's a woman who carried and birthed and is subsequently raising twins (who are adorable, btw), and looks like a slice of fantastic in a swimsuit. The article was nice, too, pointing out that she has to workout lots and watch what she eats in order to get that shape back after kids, and maintain it now. She also mentioned the mommy's guilt at leaving house and home to actually get those workouts in, which is definitely relatable. But the one thing that really stuck out for me was when she talked about how, after having her kids, the diet and the forms of exercise that she used to swear by were no longer working for her, that she had to change everything up and do things she'd never tried before in order to get those 60 lbs of baby weight to go away and stay away.

Since bringing Miss Violet into the world, I have been telling myself that losing this weight should be a snap. After all, I've lost a bunch of weight before, I know what things to do and so forth to lose it again. In practice, however, those old habits weren't working for me this time around, and every time I tried to tell myself to just go back there, I would get frustrated and down on myself because it wasn't working. Why couldn't I "just" do what I used to do, why wasn't I strong enough (metaphorically) to just slip right back into that old routine, etc.?

Reading the lovely Rebecca's interview, it dawned on me -- um, nothing is the same as it was before having a baby. So what makes me think that my old tricks and routines would work the same, either? You know how I lost weight after college? After work, I went straight to the gym for anywhere from 60-90 minutes, 4-5 days a week. I didn't even have a cat at this point, it was just me. I bought bags of ceaser salad and ate them for dinner, because I was only feeding myself. I was also getting more and better rest each night, since I could sleep without interruption from the time I laid down until the time my alarm clock went off. I had more time, energy, and well, time, to dedicate to being in the gym and reading fitness mags and being in the zone.

Now, I'm lucky if I get 6 uninterrupted hours of sleep a night. I have to concern myself with making sure the Mister has something tasty and filling enough for his dinner. When I get off work, I know that both Shawn and the baby are waiting for me at home to take over child care duties, give dinner, bath, books and bed; on top of working on my writing, keeping up with housework, reading if I have a chance, etc. So the time to dedicate to working out and exercising must be carefully carved out of each day, looked for and stolen whenever it presents itself. Which means I have to think about it more than I used to -- most days, I can't just head to the gym on autopilot after work, I have to think about my schedule the night before, plan out how and when I'm going to fit in a workout the next day so that I can pack the appropriate bag to take with me, or know that I'm going to do a dvd when I get home so there's no need to bring anything to work.

And while there's good in that, it also makes it more difficult to get the momentum of a routine going -- if everyday is different, it's easier to find a sudden excuse not to workout that day, or not to eat healthfully. And in the beginning stages of a weight loss effort, it's especially easy to be derailed. And what was keeping me the most stuck was the constant inner questioning of why I just couldn't knuckle under and get back to my old routines. As I hope we're all aware, berating ourselves is no way to build positive mojo.

So, recognizing that things are of course different now has relieved that pressure from me, and has reminded me that, as long as I'm doing something just about every day, I'm moving closer to my goals. I made a little mini goal for the next two weeks to use a piece of fitness equipment every day. So if I'm too tired or busy to hit the gym on a given day, I can pick up the hand weights I have at home and do some bicep curls in the evenings.

It's not about going back to the person I used to be, it's about moving forward into the person I will become, a new me, moving into my (jesus) thirties soon, not the twenty-something I was when I first lost weight, but now a busy, strong, determined woman with a fiance and a baby and a lot of stuff on my plate, who will find new ways of being the hot and fabulous chick on the outside that I have always been on the inside.

Blankies and other things

How it gets to be after 10pm on a Sunday night is beyond me. I swear it was just Friday afternoon. Really, work again tomorrow? Sigh...all right, but pass the merlot, will you?

Mommy's been on a wine kick of late. I don't know what started it. When I was in my earlier twenties, I shunned wine, I thought it was pretentious and stupid and I hated hanging out with girls who were all, ooh, wine, let's drink wine, la! Somewhere in the last year, however, I've turned into that girl. So, score one for karma, 2 points for the-jokes-on-me. Maybe giving birth had the added side effect of maturing my palette, I don't know. I'm still not sophisticated enough to consider myself a wine snob, I mean, when I swirl and sniff I just smell wine, not any notes of oak or delightful zephyrs of blackberry or anything. But I do love a good glass of red at the end of the day, either while finally getting to sit down with my book for a few uninterrupted moments, or while checking back in with my writing for a page or two. It used to be I drank wine for the classy, let's play dress-up, appeal of it, since I didn't actually like it. These days, I'm enjoying the beverage for its own sake.

Score another point for karma that I finally got around to throwing out the two wine racks I'd kept in the house for years just before this new found love arrived.

***

Little Miss V was sick this weekend. It took me most of Saturday to notice it. I'm still not sure if I gave her something, since I'm convinced my sniffles were purely allergy-based. But Saturday morning she had a drippy nose, and I didn't trust my instinct at first when I knew she felt warmer than usual. We went over to my friend's mother's place to socialize and so forth, and by the time we were ready to leave, she had heated up to the point that it was plain she needed some baby meds and an early bedtime. So I took the poor little fussypants home, had Mr. S go to the store for baby Tylenol, and fixed her a bottle. She fell asleep before pops got home with the medicine, slept for about two hours, and when she woke up again, we gave her a bath to calm her down. She loves her bath. Still, she was having trouble sleeping because of the congestion, so when she woke up for the second time she and I snuggled on the couch together for SNL. I fell asleep before the musical guest, but Shawn said she laid there awake for the whole show and then fell asleep. We slept on the couch all night.

She was doing better today, got another couple of doses of medicine, and by bedtime tonight she was still a little snotty, but better, mostly her normal temp, though still pretty exhausted.

She has started showing an affinity for different blankets of hers, mostly the soft chenille-y ones. There are two, a pink and a purple, and it makes me infinitely glad to see her dragging oen around behind her on her toddles around the house, or gripping it in her little fist while I'm putting her to sleep and sucking on it, hehe. She never took to a pacifier, but I wanted her to have a blankie or a lovey so bad, everyone ought to have one, I think. I tried to get her to like the pretty blankie my mom made for her, but alas, it's the store-bought ones that she prefers. I will feel less responsible for any neuroses later on her life for the fact that I did not, in fact, force this attachment on her, only that I really wanted her to form one and I shall do nothing to dissuade her from it. She made this choice on her own, I'm just going to encourage it. :)

Learning from Newborns

My nephew Ian was born this morning. He's a doll. It's only been 9.5 months, but I'd already forgotten just what it was like to hold a newborn. *love*

His mom is doing great, exhausted of course. They seem to be doing well with breastfeeding so far, which makes me happy. It makes me reflect on how hard it seemed for me to start breastfeeding in the beginning, and I realized that the difference between myself and my friend is that she was remarkably calm. I was not. For some reason, I felt this crazy pressure to breastfeed right from the beginning, compounded by the lactation ladies being bewildered by the difficulties I was having, and the delivery room nurse giving me a nipple shield right off the bat because "my nipples were too flat." On top of my usual need to be perfect and thus be really hard on myself, the nurses didn't really set me up for success.

And tonight, going into the recovery room and holding that little boy, swaying with him and patting his back and soothing him when he started to cry, I realized how much I've grown since that first day. I have confidence now. I may not always know what I'm doing when it comes to getting her to sleep through the night or eat green vegetables, but being back with a newborn again reminded me just how much more I do know now, and it gave me hope. If I can just maintain that confidence, and steal some of my friend's calm, there's not much I won't be able to do.

Snot Rocket Weekend

Mr. Shawn is away this weekend at NAMM, so little Miss Violet and I have had 3 solid days of quality mommy-baby time. It's been fun. We've been all over the place. Friday I took the day off work because she was sick, and Shawn had already left. On a whim, we drove out to San Francisco to check out a potential wedding venue (I think it's the one!). Then stopped over at Grandpa's house to roll around on the floor there (her) and enjoy some homemade beef stew (me). 

Yesterday, Saturday, we helped Shawn's parents move into their new condo, and got to see lots of cousins and aunties and uncles who were there helping as well. It was pretty funny to see all the big ol' man-cousins playing with the baby and being silly. I like to think she earned her keep that way, even if she couldn't lift any boxes. 

So far today, we slept in, then tidied up the house a bit, and now she's napping and I'm watching some football and hoping to write a bit before my writers' meeting in an hour or two. 

Through all of this, Violet has been working on Tooth #5, (bottom left) which no doubt has something to do with the massive faucet of snot that she's been running all weekend. It's actually pretty comical to see her sneeze out these giant rockets, but then she wipes it all over her face before I can swoop in with a tissue. Gross. Someone's getting a bath tonight. I've also been running the shower and the humidifier a lot, to help clear her up while she sleeps, poor thing. She sounds like an asthmatic old man. Poor baby.

Hope everyone's enjoying the rainy weather. Go Niners!

New Year, New Hot

Ah, weekends.

I spent this morning having coffee with a dear friend whom I haven't seen in a while, she's been busy planning her wedding (ee!), and so time has gotten away from us. It was nice to sit outside Starbucks, enjoy a coffee and the sunshine and just chat. Plus she got to have some quality face time with baby, who is, I must say, comedy gold at this age (9 months). I've missed having girl time, with mommy friends or otherwise, and even something as simple as walking to the local Starbucks felt glamorous on a Saturday morning. Since baby and I had been up since 7am, I had time to shower, put on something casual and easy but cute, and put on some easy make-up that made me feel super hot without being over done.

My current trick for doing quick makeup and looking put together without dousing my face in product, is to use foundation as a concealer only. I use Nuetrogena Clean Make-up, and dab a bit of it under my eyes, on any little blemishes that might have shown up, and usually a bit above the bridge of my nose between my eyebrows, where my skin tends to get a little red. Then I put on a cream blush, circled a bit on the apples of my cheeks and blend up to my temples. I lined my bottom lids with a thin line of black, and put on black mascara, and finished off with some clear lip gloss -- not too shiney or gooey -- and that was it. I felt fabulous, understated, totally put together and hot and it took me about 5 minutes while Violet was playing with measuring cups at my feet. The only annoying part was that, since I had slept in my contacts (shameshame) I had to wear my frames instead, so I couldn't top my look with my giant sunglasses. Bummer.

Violet and I walked to the coffee shop since it's only a block or two from the house. Gal pal and wedding-planning bestie L was already there. We sat out in the sun, since for some glorious reason it's still amazing outside in January. 

One of our favorite topics is getting in shape for our weddings (hers is in June, mine is in December). She's already lost a bunch of weight, (she did that HGC diet? I don't know about all that. I've had enough of pregnancy hormones, thanks) and is now looking to tone up, mostly from doing P90X. 

My weight loss efforts last year were a bit disappointing, I just couldn't seem to get the motivation up to get started and really keep on with anything, and I ended up feeling defeated. About a week ago, however, Shawn mentioned that, for New Years, we should go "total health nut." After defining with him that he meant things like no soda and junk food and working out, rather than like, meatless and wheat grass, I was all about it. He's always been better at eating healthy, and doing it together, a lifestyle as a couple, was a really exciting thought for me. 

So, come January 1, we stopped drinking soda, buying candy and junk food, and I've been working out every day. I've brought a gym bag to work, and go running on my lunch breaks, or walking on days that are for strength training. I've gone back to using MyFitnessPal, a super website for tracking food and exercise, and the support there is awesome. 

My goal is to reach 145lbs by this summer. I have smaller goals as well:

175lbs by April 2, the baby's first birthday

165lbs by May 2

155lbs by June 2

145lbs by July 7

The idea is to be back down to my fighting weight by this summer, so I can rock my bikini and try on wedding dresses, and also have enough of a buffer between Ultimate Goal Weight and Wedding that I have room for any slips that might crop up, etc. 

I'm very excited for this. Doing it as a couple makes it fun, and I've missed running. My first mini goal is to break the 180's by the end of January, and leave the 190's behind for good. 

Stay tuned...