daily life Archives - Page 25 of 35

Apr 7, 2009

I Won’t Leave You Hanging

I’m sure you probably weren’t waiting all weekend to find out how I did on my exam, but in case you were curious, I passed! And if I might brag (which I can, seeing how this is my blog), I passed by quite a bit. 95th percentile. That makes me feel a lot more relaxed about taking my license exam this summer, since the questions are very similar.

In fitness news, the whole Hot by BlogHer plan is still going strong for me. I’m down 8 pounds total for March, and while it doesn’t feel like much, thanks to the 30 Day Shred I know that I am getting stronger and smaller. Apparently I have a waist again. And my hips have shed a few inches.

(However, let’s all have a moment of silence for my C cup boobs. They had a pretty good run, mostly thanks to two pregnancies and children, but sensing their unemployment might be long-standing, they were forced to turn in their surplus for the greater good. B cup bra shopping, here I come.)

I’m still using the 30 Day Shred DVD and My Fitness Coach. I’ve moved to Level 2 of the shred, and while the first day left me on the floor with my feet elevated to bring some blood flow back to my lightheaded brain, I’ve managed to make it through Level 2 without dying.

However, my knees are getting progressively worse, so I’m limiting the shred to only once or twice a week now. I decided that it might be fun to try some of The Biggest Loser workouts, and lucky for me Time Warner has them on-demand right now.

My first new workout was Level 1 of Cardio Max with Bob. First impression: loved it! Bob is very different from Jillian. He’s goofy, he runs up to the camera and talks to it, and his workout has fewer jumping motions. My knees still hurt, but now I don’t feel the need to reach for the ibuprofen bottle right after the workout. In fact, after I finished my first Cardio Max workout, I felt great and wondered if maybe it was too easy?

The next morning, however, I felt the results of that workout. Who knew it was possible to overtrain your butt? My butt and the upper back of my thighs burned with every step. And yet the only thing I could think of was Hey, cool, my ass will be smaller!

So I’m going to keep up my mix of activities. Over at the Shredheads blog, participants have split into Team Bob and Team Jillian, but I’m holding firm with a foot in each camp. I can’t commit to one style – I appreciate Jillian’s disciplined approach, and I also love Bob’s more gentle, warm&fuzzy approach. The current plan:

– work out 5x a week
– lots of water
– Weight Watchers for diet

I’ll do another round of photos mid-month to document any further changes. While my first comparision photos were dramatic, I doubt the next ones will be quite as dramatic. But I’m still hoping to rock a sundress in July. With a push-up bra, of course.

Filed Under: daily life, me me me · Tagged: Hot by Blogher

Mar 31, 2009

Beetle-Mania

By Christina ·

You’d think we time-warped back to the 1960s in my house.

Cordy’s newest obsession is the Beatles. This happens every few months. She’ll find something new to fixate on, and it will become her go-to conversation starter, or excuse, or comfort phrase when she’s over-stimulated.

And while an obsession with John, Paul, Ringo and George wouldn’t be so bad, the truth is they aren’t the Beatles that have infested her imagination.

It’s these:

This obsession was triggered over one friggin’ commercial. She happened to see a commercial for The Wonder Pets Save the Beetles while watching Noggin, and suddenly her world revolved around four bugs with bowl cuts.

Do you think the beetles will come to my house?

Will I see the beetles soon?

Mommy, the beetles are trapped!

Are the beetles stuck in a cave?

Don’t forget lunch for the beetles, too!

After days of this, I searched to find when the damn show would be on and Tivo’d it, thinking that she would watch it and then lose interest.

Nope.

They’ve now gone beyond the show to their own world. She has names for them, she draws them, she creates wild stories about them. They appear in her dreams, they keep her safe, they apparently like PB&J sandwiches and they get trapped in caves a lot. I hear something about the beetles at least once every half hour.

But some variation of When will I see the beetles? is now her verbal filler. She uses it whenever she has nothing else to say, or doesn’t know how to respond in a conversation. And Aaron and I have reached our point of frustration most days. You can only take so many questions about the beetles until you want to throw yourself into a pit of flesh-eating beetles just to end the auditory assault. I’m not kidding – it’s worse than the preschooler Why? question.

So until this obsession ends, we tell her she’ll see the beetles in her dreams and we let her watch Wonder Pets Save the Beetles every other day. I’m hoping her love for the beetles will fade like boy-bands from the 90s and I’ll gladly delete the show from Tivo.

Although the past two days, I think I’m seeing a hint of the next obsession coming soon:

Mommy, how does the TV work?

I think I’m going to call up Time Warner and let them explain that one. For what I pay for cable, their customer support from India can satisfy my four year old’s curiosity over and over again.

Filed Under: Autism, Cordy, daily life, kid logic · Tagged: TV

Mar 22, 2009

Brown Thumb To Green-ish Thumb

By Christina ·

Did you see the story about Michelle Obama planting a vegetable garden on the White House grounds this week? It’s the first time they’ve had a garden since the Roosevelt victory garden, and they plan to use the food they grow in the White House kitchens, donating any extra to a nearby soup kitchen.

With the recession hitting everyone hard, it only makes sense to start growing some of our own food. We have a large backyard, Aaron and I are both home all the time (thanks, unemployment), and with trying to lose weight and shape up, we’re all eating more vegetables and fruits. It makes sense that a garden will save us money, while also teaching Cordy and Mira about the process of growing plants and reducing our carbon footprint, even if only slightly.

I know what you might be thinking – Christina is the least likely person to keep a plant alive – and you’re right. I did a great job at killing my pepper plants last summer. I’m still amazed society has let me keep pets and have children. But I’ve been practicing! I bought this little strawberry pot at Target in February, and look! They’re still alive!

Pleeeeeze don’t kiiiillllll ussss!!!

It also helps that my mom, aunts and grandmother are champion gardeners. Not sure how I missed that segment of DNA, but even the talentless can be taught, right?

So the plan is to have an 8’x8′ garden. I can’t have corn, because that’s too tall for growing in our planned neighborhood. If the HOA won’t allow 6′ fences, I doubt they’ll allow 6′ corn stalks. But I do want to plant lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, sweet peppers, broccoli, carrots and zucchini. OK, it’s a little ambitious, but I tend to go all-in on a new project.

My mom grows a ton of tomatoes each year, so I can get those from her. I don’t like tomatoes on their own, but I wouldn’t mind trying to make my own pasta sauce this year. (Who the hell is typing this? Have I been possessed by Martha-freakin’-Stewart?)

If we’re lucky, and believe me, it’ll take a lot of luck, we’ll cut our grocery bill. Our house will be a little greener for it as well – the garden will produce oxygen (remember photosynthesis in 3rd grade science?) and we’ll make fewer trips to the grocery, using less gas.

I can’t wait to get started, although I am a little nervous. To all the green-thumb garden wizards out there – have any advice for a novice gardener?

Parent Bloggers and SC Johnson (makers of Nature’s Source cleaners) want to know how you’re living more naturally now. Visit the blog blast and see how other bloggers are greening up their homes, too.

Filed Under: daily life, domestic zero ·

Mar 22, 2009

Three Times Now

By Christina ·

Our car was broken into last night.

Actually, broken into isn’t quite the phrase. Nothing was broken. It seems that someone forgot to lock the car door – an extremely rare event with me, Queen of the Double-Checked Locks residing at this home – and on that particular night it just so happens that someone was walking through the neighborhood checking to make sure everyone locked their car doors.

Yeah, whatever. I don’t think the odds of it happening were really all that low.

Truth is, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone is walking through our neighborhood double checking door locks every single night. You’d think we lived in the wild west, and not a middle-class suburban subdivision. But this is becoming a way of life around here.

When we first moved here (we were the second completed house on our block), our car was broken into in that literal-smashed-window kind of way. Sort of a welcome to the neighborhood, if you will. We began leaving the front lights on all night to dissuade nocturnal visitors.

Then in 2006, just days before I went to my first Blogher conference, we came home late one afternoon to find our living room window smashed, our entire home rifled through, and everything of value gone. At that point we installed a security system and took extra care to keep everything under lock and key.

And now another car was looted. I’ll be the first to admit that an unlocked car is just asking for someone to open the door, but in the hundreds of days our cars have sat in our driveway, only one night (to my knowledge) has the door been unlocked.

Thankfully, Aaron had recently cleaned the car (read: removed a lot of junk), so there was little of value to be found. Some spare change and a dead cell phone from 4 years ago is all they took we think. And extra thankfully, Aaron’s iPod and wallet were not in the car. He occasionally forgets them, although I think this served as another wake up to check all locks and remove all valuables before exiting the vehicle. (See? I told you I was the Queen of double-checking locks.)

And while I am grateful little was taken, I’m again left feeling angry. Three thefts in four years. The people who do this give me little hope in mankind. Even though I know of so many good people who go out of their way to help others, I’m left to dwell on those who choose to steal from anyone they can, taking away what others have earned instead of earning it themselves.

But beyond the physical items, the greatest thing stolen was my own feeling of security. I’m left wondering if there is anywhere one can truly be safe anymore? I hate feeling like I can’t hold tight enough to everything that matters to me because there are people waiting in the shadows to rip it all away the first moment I loosen my grip.

Call me a Pollyanna if you must, but why can’t everyone just be good to each other?

(And now I must go double check all of the locks on the doors before going to bed.)

Filed Under: daily life, rant · Tagged: idiots

Mar 19, 2009