I have been wanting to loose weight for awhile now and I will admit I have not been trying hard enough. I go back and fourth with dieting, I know that my eating is not really the problem. Yes, I could cut back on certain things and I have to a point. I do not really drink any soda anymore ( and on the rare occasion that I do it is stuff I buy at Whole Foods. ), I stay away from high fructose corn syrup when ever possible and I am not a fried food/fast food person. I know that if I really want to loose weight, I need to get more active.
I used to be in really good shape. I walked a lot every day and I stayed really active. After having kids my activity level has changed. While I stay busy with my kids, it is not the type of activity I need to burn calories and drop this weight. After hemming and hawing over my weight for the last couple years I am finally starting to actually do more about it. I have decided it is time to get active.
I am going to start with simple things, like taking a lot more walks, doing more yard work ( things like mowing the lawn and other things my husband usually does ) and finding other ways to add more activity to my days. The walking will be easy, I like taking walks and I always have. Some of the days I will take all the kids but since they are not going to walk long distances every day I will be taking some of the walks after Chris gets home and can stay with the older three. I will just put Amelia in the stroller and take her along. I do not really like mowing the lawn and things like that, my legs always break out in hives when I mow ( even when I wear pants ) but I have found that if I shower and scrub my legs down really good it seems to stop the hives.
I have written in the past about our gardening each year. We usually do a large joint garden out on my parents land and then a small garden here at home. They own a goat farm so they have the room for it. They decided not to do it this year, they are going to give the area a year free of planting and just work on tilling it, fertilizing and try to kill weeds naturally. Since the garden here at our house did so poorly last year (major drought here in Iowa we would just do something very small), we were unsure if we wanted to try it this year. Chris and I talked it over and decided that we would do a very small one here at home.
We want to make the garden a school project for Alex and Destiny. We home school and school year round so we thought this would be a good spring/summer science lesson for them. They have always been involved in the garden but we are going to give them even more responsibilities and plan some lessons that deal with growing a garden. The plan is to grow pumpkins, tomatoes, potatoes, snap peas, cucumbers and green beans. If there is room we may try to grow some melons as well.
Since we are doing a much smaller garden then we have in the past I plan on shopping the local farmers markets a lot more then I had before. I will still want to get fresh vegetables and fruits to eat and freeze for later. Luckily we have several markets close by. The town I live in does a small one, the town my husband works in has one that is slightly bigger and we are within an hour of several large ones.
Posted 05-20-2013 at 01:33 PM by
HollyRay
Here I sit, finally typing on a keyboard after nearly 6 months without a computer. Don’t get me wrong I like my tablet, it is easy, and fits in my purse. However it does have its drawbacks. Since I have had many a mama approach me about my tablet and ask me if it is worth it, here are the pros and cons, that I find, in the tablet vs laptop.
Tablet Pros
Small Price. You can find several brands of tablet at a small cost, on a tight budget a tablet may be the only option.
No keyboard means less stuff for the kids to break. My daughters have their own tablets, and small laptops…the laptops didn’t last long, the tablets are going on a year and look brand new still.
Small and portable. I can take my tablet anywhere just by popping it in my purse.
Multiple Uses. I use my tablet as an e-reader, it has tons of awesome apps for my shopping list, to do, money management, my etsy. I can even load sheet music as well as the piano accompaniment and armed with my headphones I am ready for music practice
Tablet Cons
The on screen keyboard. I hate it, I can’t blog with it, if I misspell something and have to go back it almost always results in a twenty minute fight with the touch screen. I did try numerous blue tooth keyboards, they could not keep up with my typing speed…thanks Mavis Beacon.
Not quite up to speed on internet browsing. Several tablets still have some “bugs” I can never get a drop down menu to open, and I have numerous glitches with opening several tabs. I know this is not true for all tablets, but for 3 of the 4 in my house it is a problem.
They are small. My tablet is often times like my keys…I find it in the oddest of places. Thankfully I haven’t left it in the freezer yet.
We got some bad news at the dentist. My three year old daughter has six cavities While I was expecting it since our doctor already told us that lead poisoning could weaken her teeth and to be watching for issues, I was still sad and upset with myself. I felt like I failed her. I brushed her teeth like I should and did not give her bunches of sugar but yet we are still dealing with this issue.
My other three kids have no cavities I was hoping that the kids would not get them at all (I know wishful thinking on my part). I noticed the spots on her teeth and called the dentist right away. I knew she had cavities Over the phone he told me not to worry, it could be staining since she has deep pits in her molars and just to bring her in to get checked. My gut feeling was right.
Kairi did not do well at the dentist either, she let them look in her mouth but when they tried using any of their tools, she freaked. She started sobbing, covering her mouth and saying no over and over again. They only did a light cleaning, did not even try to get xrays and then wrote a referral to a pediatric dentist that will put her under and take care of all of her teeth at once.
Posted 05-15-2013 at 09:47 AM by
Krista
Being a parent is so, so hard. You know, today I had several moments where I wondered what I ever was thinking when I decided to reproduce. You know those Facebook statuses about people needing to pass a test before being allowed to become parents? Today I wondered what my score might have been.
I know these last few sentences sound like I am throwing myself a pity party, and trust me, at some point I’ll get over it. I’m not looking for attention, I swear. I’m just feeling very overwhelmed, and when wondering who to share it with I thought, who better than other mothers?
Today at my daughter’s speech appointment the director came out to speak with me—uh oh!—about my daughter’s progress. She first asked me how she was doing since beginning therapy. I absolutely raved about how much better she was doing, how much better she was able to communicate and how it had given us a better relationship. She seemed simply conversational…
Over the years I have tried several different methods of selling the kids outgrown clothes. I now have a routine down that makes me money, gets me store credit and helps others out.
When I first started to sell off outgrown clothes I tried eBay, it ended up being way too much work and turned little profit for me. I know some people make a good deal of money doing this, it was just not for me. I do love buying lots of clothing on eBay though. After that I tried Craigslist and a couple of resale shops and both of those ended up being a no go for me as well.
It took over a year before I got my system in place and once I got it, I have not strayed for it. The first thing I do is sort everything out into bins. I have a sell, recycle or trash, donate and give away bin.
I usually start with my give a way bin. I will call my sister to see if she wants some of my son’s outgrown stuff to hold onto for my nephew and then I call a couple friends and see if they are in need of anything for the girls they have that are smaller then my youngest. ( I keep almost all my girls clothes to use until the youngest has outgrown them ). I select some nice items for those people and set them into the bin.
I have written in the past about how our plans for another child are still up in the air and while I know it is best to wait, is becoming really hard for me. Since getting pregnant with my first, this is the longest I have gone between pregnancies and the thought of waiting another two years makes me pretty sad. There is only 15 months between my first and second children, 23 months between my second and third and 23 months between my third and fourth.
Amelia is my youngest and she will be two years old in June. I cannot believe that my little baby is so big already. Time really seems to fly by. It is even harder to think she will be four years old before we make our final decision on a fifth child.
The decision is already made when it comes to me. I know I want another baby. My heart aches for another baby. My husband is the one that is still undecided. He says he would like another child but he worries about my health since I had complications with Amelia. We have been doing research together and the studies I have shown him have calmed some of his fears but I know nothing will calm them completely. He also wants to wait so we can buy a different car, pay down more debt and possibly move. All those things are going to take time. I do know that he is coming around more and more to the idea of another, he no longer is saying IF we have another all the time, now he is saying when and even has told me a couple names he likes.
Posted 05-13-2013 at 01:14 PM by
Krista
I have had a lot going on in the last months. Between the craziness of December—and the bills, bills, bills that come with the craziness–, family issues, the death of a friend, school, potty training and trying to conceive…whew! I have truly been on an emotional roller coaster. It still feels like I haven’t come up for air some days. Some moments I can forget for a little while and just concentrate on my precious girls…and others I wish I could go to sleep for a month undisturbed, or however long it takes to get all the sadness and frustration out of my system.
I was reading a post on a website in which another woman shared her problems. She definitely has a full plate and as I formulated a response, I read “Don’t worry—God doesn’t give us more than we can bear.”
The truth is, I don’t believe that. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I believe in God, and I believe that He is there to help us. But the fact is that the Bible never tells us that God won’t give us more than we can handle. Believe me, I’ve looked. Those words are uttered by well-meaning people to remind you that you are not alone, and that you will get through your situation, no matter what it is.
Posted 05-13-2013 at 01:13 PM by
HollyRay
I am fat. Very fat. Every day I work out and eat right, and I have gotten less fat, but it has been slow going while nursing, then I had a brilliant idea. I want to teach dance again, but that means I need way more stamina, so I set off to increase my workout time from 5 hours a week, to 15. For 5 weeks I would wake up and workout, the workout would rotate between weight lifting, Zumba (I am a instructor), and ballet. Every evening I would do either a Zumba core workout or a high intensity Zumba, depending on what I did that morning. After 5 weeks I had to take a day off, and it hurt, and I knew it would. I used to dance like this in my younger days, and similar crashes would happen, you see it just isn’t healthy to workout everyday and this is why.
1. You need to let your muscles rest. Training causes tiny tears in your muscles, these need to repair. In order for these to repair you need at least 24 hours in between working those muscles, if you lift weights and work upper body one day, you can work lower body the next, allowing you more workouts throughout the week. However working out everyday can cause the tiny tears to take longer to heal, it is ideal to take a rest day every 3-5 days.
2. Everyday workouts can cause exhaustion. We all know that feeling of dread as we start a workout that melts away and after the workout we feel energized. When you workout everyday you have a higher chance of NOT feeling energized, instead you may end up feeling worse. Not feeling great can really deter you from working out anymore, so you may take a LONG rest (a week or more) only to have a harder time dragging yourself back to those workouts. Help keep yourself on track by keeping on top of rest days, and choosing workouts you enjoy.
3. If you workout during all your free time you have no balance. If every minute of your
I recently told a close friend of mine that I am starting a gender neutral diaper and woolies stash now even though we were undecided about a fifth and it would be two years before we started TTC if we had one more. She looked at me with a look of bewilderment and just asked me why? I laughed and then explained that I have a method to my madness.
My first reason is that I am slowly teaching myself how to knit new things. My knitting abilities are not that good yet and I want to do more. I am currently working on a pair of newborn longies, it is taking me a long time because I have a lot of other projects going on and I am very unsure of myself, I have to keep looking at the pattern and I keep second guessing myself. As I get more confident, I am hoping to be able to get projects done a lot faster and have more mama made items. I am hoping that I will also be able to teach myself how to make fitteds so I can have a large stash of those as well. I always love looking at all the squishy mama made fitted diapers.
Another reason is that I want to have a large stash. At this time I am not spending money on anything for this stash, only doing trades or making it myself. At this point in time I only have a few items for this newbie stash. I have a Christmas themed pair that is actually a size medium, they used to be my three year old daughter’s and I have just hung onto them, a pair of brown ones that I am trading for, the pair I am knitting, a couple diapers and some yarn. This is nothing compared to what I want.
