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Was there a health kick going on over here? Oh, there WAS! We’ve been on a down swing for the last week or so here, with my birthday and our trip, but there is still a general health kick in effect. If not a kick, per se, an awareness of what I put in my mouth at least. And like I said, let’s just say the last 2 weeks because of work cake and lunches and gifts of Hershey’s Bliss chocolate, I have turned a blind eye to said awareness, but at least I know what I have to do.

And HOO BOY am I acutely aware of the imbalance that is cause by stuffing my pie-hole with apple cider doughnuts frosted with cream cheese. If you even saw my skin these days, you’d cringe. And if that is not reason enough to get back on the wagon, I don’t know what is, because I am a damn greasy mess.

Here is a bit of a State of The Union if you will:

Total lbs lost: 6 or 7 depending on the day
Total lbs to go: Around 50 for pre-pregnancy (as in pre- Bud) weight,
Status of pants: Size 22’s are a bit loose but we are not at all comfortable in a size 20
Gym routine: eh….blah….needs work.
Current Focus: much less dairy, much more water, figure out how to kick it up at the gym

So, I don’t know. The hard thing about all of this is that I want to see the results right away. Tout de suite. NOW. It is discouraging to go through the motions and feel like you’re really making strides and to not see the scale move or see defined muscles. And the rational part of me know that it’s a frickin journey, but the irrational part is saying SCREW the journey and let’s pop some pills and drink some Slim Fast. I know. I KNOW.

Hard.

Suck.

Anyway—I’d been putting off having a family photo done because I hate the way that I look. I hate that I have multiple chins and that my face is full. And yesterday I decided to stop putting it off. I look like what I look like. And I will probably loathe the photo. But what if I drop dead next month, and the last one we have is prior to Liv being born. And also, what message am I sending to my kids, not wanting to be in a picture? I wouldn’t ever tell them that it’s because I’m fat, but they’re not dumb. They’d pick up on the implication eventually.

So, yes. Family photo. 2 weeks from today. Think I can drop 50 by then? (ha) (sort of)

Finally, I’d like to ask a question. How do you make the most of your workout time? I go to the gym in the mornings before work, and depending on the day I have between 30 minutes to an hour to spend there. I mostly do cardio, sometimes do weights, but I don’t feel like I’m getting the maximum impact. What do you do to keep it fresh and keep the momentum?

These are a few of the photos I took over the weekend with Hub. It was weird to not have the children as photo subject with the scenery being backdrop.

Me standing on the deck outside of the diner we had lunch at on our way home. I love the grapevines in the background.
This was the distillery where Hub got to try vodka and corn whiskey. LOVED this place/
Shot of the waterfall at Watkins Glen State Park, and just a few of the 800 steps to the top
View looking out of the state park in to the town of Watkins Glen
View of the pier at Seneca Lake

Hub and I had never let the kids sleep over anywhere until about a year ago. It wasn’t necessarily that it made us nervous, we just generally thought there was no point to it. My mother finally wore us down though, and like I said, around a year ago, Bud and Lucy (not Liv, my BABAY) spent the night with them. There have been sleepovers since, now with Liv included, and Hub and I usually drop them off in the evening, have dinner and see a movie, sleep in and pick them up the next afternoon. It is a nice break and we are glad to have my parents who are willing to take them.

When we took our mini-vacation with the kids this summer, Hub and I started tossing around the idea of taking a little trip ourselves in the fall. No place super far or anything over the top, but a little vacation just the two of us. My mother was on board with the idea, and we started planning. This past weekend was our weekend away, and let me just tell you, it was amazing.

I dropped the kids off on Friday night, and Hub and I were up early on Saturday morning to get on the road. We didn’t rush though, went to the local cider mill for doughnuts and coffee, and then hopped on the thruway headed toward the Finger Lakes region of our state, specifically, the wine trail. Hub is not a wine drinker, so really, it was all me doing the tasting. We went to 4 or 5 wineries and took a cellar tour at one of the bigger ones. We had an early dinner, checked in to the hotel, went out to see a movie, and well, you get the picture…we just did whatever we wanted to do.

Sunday morning, we stopped at a state park that allowed you to hike up through a glen. It was a series of 800 steps to get to the top, and we made it only 200 steps because, well, I was a bit dehydrated. But what we did see was gorgeous, and we are looking forward to going back someday. We then went to a distillery where Hub was able to taste some vodka and whiskey, we found a super cute place for lunch, and then we headed home.

We spoke to the kids briefly on Saturday, and that was it. We spent the entire weekend focused only on each other, which hasn’t happened in about 7 years. It’s not as if our relationship was in any fragile sort of status prior to the trip, but I do feel like this sort of thing was just what our relationship needed. To spend time with my husband when neither of us was focused on being a parent, or who had to get which kid and when, or what we were having for dinner; where I didn’t have a kid hanging off of me, or fighting for my attention. Without the distraction of the daily minutiae, we were able to focus on each other, and be reminded of the reasons that we are together. It’s not because of the kids, or the house or the bills, but it’s because we genuinely like, love and respect each other.

I can’t wait to do it again.

Well, I turned 32 on Thursday which was reasonably uneventful. The bakery donuts I requested for breakfast (because screw the diet on your birthday), Red Lobster for lunch, putzing around with Hub and Liv looking for a new couch, finding my Kindle hidden in the donut box. Just an average nice relaxing day. The kids also got me this mug which may be my favorite mug of all time:

I am a mug connoisseur, you know. I love mugs.

Aaaaanyway, how old is Liv? 2? So it was just about 2 years ago that we finished our kitchen remodel, with the exception of a floor, backsplash and trim. Saturday, after telling Hub that I really liked the flooring I saw in the Valu ad, we decided to check it out in person. Before I knew it, we were pulling everything out of the kitchen and installing a new floor. And I was scrubbing down the fronts of all my cupboards and stove so they wouldn’t look dingy next to the new super fancy floor. And then I figured why not also scrub the fridge, and the top of the stove and the walls….and well damn, it turned in to a weekend project.

But look:

Ok, I missed a spot on my kick plate. Whatever.

I never dreamed I could be so in love with a floor. Of course, we still need to subfloor and tile the hall part of the kitchen, but the main area….well it is just gorgeous. It almost makes me want to become a clean freak….or at the very least, buy a steam mop.

I even managed to read an entire book in between. Long live the Kindle. It was hard not to drag it to bed with me like the kids do their favorite toys. The only downfall of the weekend was Liv throwing her slipper down the open kitchen vent. Seriously. Hub has to open the duct up to get it out before we turn the heat on, and all Liv cares about is “where’s my nother one slipper?” She knows where it is though. She put it there. I caught the second one just in time.

This girl. She tries me. But on the same token, she makes me laugh right out loud (unintentionally) so often. She is something else for sure.

But yeah. Good weekend. Good weekend indeed.

Every October since 2005, I’ve taken my kids’ photo at the same spot in Letchworth State Park. I really enjoy going back year after year and seeing how the kids have grown. I hope it will be a tradition we continue for years to come.

Can you believe how they’ve grown? I can’t.

2005

2006

2007

2008 (aka the year the kids dropped Liv)

2009 (the year where nobody sat still)

2010

I’m going to try and go easy on the photos here. Really, I am. But we had such a great weekend it will be hard not to share them all. But I will persevere! I’ll only share a few. But I will gladly send you to my Facebook page if you want to see more. You wanted to be my Facebook friend anyway, right?

Anyway, we usually spread our Fall activities out over a couple of weekends, but when warmish weather presented itself this weekend, amidst the 40 and 50 degree temperatures we’ve had recently, we decided to get the big ones out of the way—especially considering that Hub and I are spending one of the weekends away. You get kind of good at predicting how cold October will be around here judging by the first few weeks. Sometimes it is in the 80’s and sometimes it’s in the 40’s. This year has been much of the latter, so it was pretty lucky that this weekend was mostly 60 and 70 degree weather. Hub worked most of the day on Saturday, and the kids and I spent most of the day at my mom’s house visiting with out of town family.

Sunday though, we took our annual trip out to our favorite farm where we rode the train out in to the orchard, and picked about 2 pecks of apples (whatever that means). We packed a picnic and did appley things, and finished it off with ice cream; though to my disappointment, they were out of my favorite pumpkin ice cream. It was the perfect day for apple picking though. Breezy but warm, borderline HOT. We had a grand time.

And Monday, we kept Liv home from daycare since the kids were off of school, and we headed out to Letchworth State Park, one of my all time favorite places and the spot where I have taken a keepsake photo of my kids for the last 5 years. (I’m planning my Autumn through the Years post for tomorrow, so you’ll see those photos then.) It was a bit grey and did end up raining while we were walking through the craft fair, but it was sunny and great when I was taking my photos, so I couldn’t have been happier. The photo of my girls and me was taken by my friend J who we ran in to, which was weird considering how specific my photo spot is, and how absolutely huge the park is. But there she was, and she took the picture shown here, as well as a photo of our whole family (but I haven’t seen that one yet).

I love my family all the time, but weekends like this, full of family fun and tradition, really make me remember what I’m in it for as a parent. These kids, man. They just…well, cliché as it sounds, they make me whole.

Today I saw a tiny baby while we were at Tae Kwon Do, maybe 2 or 3 months old. Just alert enough to be smiling, still round and roly poly with the soft tufts of baby hair. Snuggly and just loving her mama.

I didn't only get a twinge today. I got a huge lump in my throat and my eyes filled with tears at the prospect of never having that again. My own gurgly, drooly snuggly baby.

Today I realized that I do, in fact, want another baby.

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

We haven’t done this in a while, and I think it’s safe to say that around 2 is the time that babies stop looking like babies, and are officially toddlers with their own toddler faces. Doesn’t Liv look so old with her hair in a clip instead of in pony tails? Sigh…

Saturday was cold. Ok, it was like 62 degrees but it was breezy and I was freezing. We took the kids to the driving range for a bit, and then to the local ice cream stand that was closing for the season, so the combination of being outside and well, cold ice cream made me cold in my bones. I’d already had a hankering for chili, but after the cold afternoon, I was dead set on making it. The problem was that I had never made it before, and I wanted it to be really good, and to not suck. I read a ton of recipes on Saturday night, deemed them all just ok, and decided that I was just going to do my own thing.

I do this with recipes all the time and it drives my family bananas. My mother called me a few weeks ago to ask me for a good recipe to make with chicken thighs. I knew immediately what was good—oven fried chicken—the recipe is on the back of the Bisquick box. Except that I don’t really follow that recipe, only the concept and so, well, I told her just to use the recipe on the box. She found it to be delicious, so it worked out. What was my point? OH! That I can never give anyone a recipe.

So yesterday morning, after church, all 5 of us went to the grocery store. Hub and Bud went to get all of our weekly items, and the girls and I shopped for chili. All the canned tomato products were on sale, and so were organic beans. For a split second, I thought about buying a chili-o seasoning packet, but shook it off and went for spices instead. We came home and I got to work immediately, sautéing onion and garlic, crumbling in the ground beef, and chopping the last of the green pepper from the garden. I combined everything in my crock-pot, and seasoned, tasted and seasoned some more. I was surprised; it actually tasted like chili! I turned the pot on high, and let it go. I taste tested a few times, and each time I was just in awe because I really made chili! And it was good! Not the fooling myself in to thinking it is good because I made it kind of good, but really really good!

Hub is not a chili kind of guy and ate cream of potato soup instead, but he sampled it and deemed it delicious. If not for all the beans, he’d have eaten some too, he told me. And as we were eating he told me to write the recipe down. To remember this one because I’d be pissed if I couldn’t replicate it in the future. Write it down while it is still fresh in my mind. Indeed.

So, here is my chili recipe, of which I am eating seconds of for lunch today, and that I have even packed a container of for my parents because I am so proud of it.

Ingredients:

2lbs of ground beef
2 medium sized onions (diced) (ish…I like A LOT of onion in my food)
1 large green pepper (diced)
2-3 cloves of garlic (chopped small)
2 tbsp oil
1 large can (29oz) crushed tomatoes
1 large can (29 oz) tomato sauce
1 can light red kidney beans (do not drain)
1 can dark red kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can of pinto beans (drained and rinsed)
2-3 Tbsp Chili Powder
2-3 Tbsp Cumin
A few shakes of paprika
A few shakes of Frank’s Red-hot
Salt

1. In a large frying pan sauté onions and garlic in oil until tender
2. Add ground beef to frying pan and crumble; cook until brown.
3. When the beef is nearly brown, stir in green pepper and continue cooking
4. Remove beef mixture from heat and drain
5. In Crockpot combine crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce and beans
6. Add beef and seasonings.
7. Stir very well and taste, adjust as necessary
8. Cook on high in the Crockpot for 3-4 hours
9. Enjoy it! Garnish with taco cheese if you want! Marvel at your greatness.

I think Hub was a bit annoyed with me as I ate my chili, and I kept proclaiming that WOW! I was really good! I really thought it would suck, but it doesn’t.

So yeah, now I have a chili recipe just in time for fall and winter.

Yesterday was a bad day. On the way home from my mother’s on Tuesday, Liv threw up in the car. Not once, but 3 times. She continued to do so through the evening and spent a restless night in our bed. Though she was better in the morning, she was still sporting a bit of a fever so I kept her from daycare, and I worked from home.

I was exhausted. Drained. I didn’t even give any thought to breakfast until after the big kids were on the bus and FIL asked if I wanted anything from Tim Hortons. I did, of course. My standard large black coffee. I should have stopped there, and made some oatmeal, but I asked him to get me a pumpkin muffin. You know, the one with glazed caramelized pumpkin seeds and the butter cream filling. I regretted it as soon as he pulled out of the driveway.

I took it as a sign though when he came back and they were all out. Instead he brought me a glazed pumpkin donut, which I took one bite of and threw in the trash. I was good. It was near 10 at that point, and I had a call to be on, so I drank my coffee and didn’t eat. And then I began dreaming of toaster waffles, plugging them in to my calorie app in different forms, essentially deciding that I wasn’t NOT having waffles and screw you life change. So, I finished my call, and I cooked 4 fricking waffles. I went light on the butter and syrup, but there you have it. 763 calories. I immediately felt bad in mind and in body. That guilt that I’ve been working hard to eliminate by making good choices, the heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach from eating something that was so dense and sweet.

It was near 11 by the time I ate those though, and save for a few goldfish crackers when I was doling them out to Liv, I didn’t eat until dinner time. We had a decent meal, beef tips and rice. I was hungry after dinner, so I ate one of the banana muffins I had baked while waiting for the big kids to get home, had some water and I went to bed.

Here is the difference in this occurrence to all of those in the past: I got up this morning and started over. Yesterday was a blip. I can start again. I don’t like the heavy feeling in my stomach. I don’t like feeling out of control, as tasty as that option is. I like being tied to my calorie counter and making choices that fit.

In the last 2 weeks I’ve seen a change in my appearance. My skin is better, less oily and has a glow. My pants fit a little bit better. The number on the scale is 6 lbs lower. I feel good about myself. I’ve worn heels to work, worn perfume and jewelry. All of the things I was tying myself to in my weekly wills were happening naturally just because I felt good about myself.

So I know this time is different. I can feel it. I’ve tasted success and have felt better about myself than I have in years. I’m sure there will be more blips, but I am committed to staying on the path. In only 2 or so weeks, I’ve come too far to look back now.