Why We Wait

Warning, this post may offend some of you.  If it does, we are all entitled to our thoughts and opinions, and these are simply a few of my thoughts.  

Recently, my newsfeed on facebook has been peppered with people announcing their pregnancy or welcoming their beautiful babies into the world.  With all the baby cuteness, it is enough to make my uterus feel lonely; feel like it is missing out on the party.  I frequently have an internal battle about wanting babies right now, and then reminding myself that really isn't what I want at this juncture.  Andrew and I are coming up on our three year anniversary this September, and I feel like some people find it mind boggling that we don't have kids yet.  We talk about kids, we know we want them, but we aren't ready yet.  I know, you are never ready.  But, I feel there are stages of readiness.     

Call it selfish, but we like our life right now.  We have the money and the time to work on our house, travel, go out to eat, go to the movies, go out on a whim with friends, or simply sleep in on the weekends.   I can't tell you how many weekends recently we have spent a good chunk of the day sleeping.  These are things you simply can't do when you have kids.  Right now, I don't want to get up at 7:00 on a Saturday morning because my child is hungry and wants to watch cartoons.  Rather, I would like to sleep in until 10:00 and get out of bed only because my body hurts from being in bed too long, and the dogs need to go outside.  With two recent nights of minimal sleep while our foster dog adjusted to being in our house, I had a glimpse of what not sleeping through the night would be like.  I didn't like what I saw; I like my sleep.  

Life is not a race; I'm learning this with each passing year.  When I was younger, I couldn't wait until I was 16 so I could drive.  Then, I couldn't wait until I graduated high school or until I turned 18 and could vote.  When I was 18, I couldn't wait until I was 21..... Once I hit college, peoples obsession seemed to turn toward getting married and having kids.  I felt like life became a race.  Get married, buy a house, have a baby, that was the way life was supposed to go, right?  I got married, we bought a house, and then we got a furry child. 

Recently, there seems to be an increase in the number of articles in news magazines discussing the declining American birth rate.  I find these articles refreshing rather than alarming.  Many of them point to the fact that people are getting married later in life, and therefore having kids later in life.  As a result, it seems people are also having fewer kids.  These articles calm my nerves and anxiety about feeling like I missed the baby boat.  I'm reminded that the boat hasn't completely left the harbor, it is simply circling around at a leisurely pace, waiting for us to decide when we would like to board.   

I wrote this post not to chastise those who had kids right away, but to encourage those who have decided to wait.  It often feels lonely in the world of waiting to have kids and I find comfort in knowing there are other couples out there like Andrew and I who have postponed parenthood.

Hard Work Does Pay Off

I think I mentioned in my last post that I hadn't really made any progress in the weight loss department.  At least, I hadn't made as much progress as I would have liked.  As I mentioned in that post, I was going to buckle down with my eating for a couple of weeks and see if that was the culprit.  Needless to say, I found the culprit of the pounds not dropping off. 

Two weeks ago during my morning training session, after another weigh in I wasn't pleased with, I told my trainer I needed to get serious about my diet.  I thought I could do my diet on my own, but I couldn't.  My trainer sat down and wrote out a meal plan for me and told me to stick to it as much as possible for the next two weeks to see how I did.  The meal plan consisted of the following:

Breakfast-
1 whole egg
2 egg whites (I use the carton of egg whites so I don't waste yolks)
1/4 C shredded cheddar cheese (low fat)
Packet of maple and brown sugar (low sodium) instant oatmeal
Coffee
2 Tbs. fat free/low fat creamer

Morning Snack-
Chobani Greek yogurt. 

Lunch-
Packet of tuna in water
Sandwich thin
pickles
Salad
2 Tbs. fat free ranch dressing

Afternoon Snack-
Coffee
1-2 Tbs. low fat half and half
1 wedge laughing cow cheese
1 bagel thin

Dinner-
Lean Cuisine meal containing a meat and less than 300 calories.
Salad
2 Tbs. fat free ranch dressing

The microwave meals were just for a short time to get things in check.  Slowly I will try to introduce low calorie meals back into my diet that I cook at home.  Portion control is a huge challenge for me.  When I thought I was eating one serving of something I made for dinner,  I was actually eating two.  Even healthy foods are bad for you if you eat too much of them.  

I stuck to the meal plan above almost exclusively for one week before my next weigh in.  At weigh in the following week, I was down 3.5 lbs!  In the three months I have been working with my trainer, I have lost a total of 16.5 inches.  In one week, I lost more weight than I have in the last year. Why? Because of my diet.  Because I wasn't being honest with myself about what I was eating.  There were a couple times during the last couple of weeks that I have gone out to eat.  The first time I was faced with making a healthy choice was over a lunch meeting at Jimmy Johns.  Rather than having my sandwich on delicious bread, I opted for an unwich.  While not as delicious as the bread, it seriously wasn't that bad and knocked about 500 calories off the sandwich. 

Another time I went out with Andrew for dinner to a local pizza place.  I had a couple of small slices of pizza.  The pizza is homemade with fresh ingredients and doesn't come out dripping with grease like most delivery pizzas do.  I just finished up week two of my new meal plan and will be weighing in again tomorrow.  I have made a few splurges this week, but I hope to continue seeing downward results on the scale.  

Let my trials be a lesson to anyone attempting to lose weight and not seeing the results you think you should.  Double check your diet.  Use the MyFitnessPal ap and track everything, and I mean everything, that goes in your mouth for a week.  You will be surprised at where the calories are hiding.  The thing I need to work on now is really getting my water intake up; that is a work in progress. 

Fitness Update

I realize it has been a while since I posted about my journey with personal training.  In good news, Andrew is now doing personal training with the trainer I am working with.  As suspected, his results have been more impressive in a short time period.  I really just don't think it is fair that guys have an easier time dropping weight and inches.  That being said, here is my update. 

I continue to drop inches each week.  My next weigh in will be tomorrow.  In total, I have lost around 17 inches, I believe.  I have lost a total of four inches off my thighs, which is the most inches of any one location.  Good riddance to those inches!  They can go far, far away and not come back.  In terms of pounds lost, I'm stuck around about the three pounds down mark.  No matter how many times I'm reminded that muscle weighs more than fat and inches are the important thing, I'm still beyond annoyed with the scales unwillingness to budge.  

Have I been following the eating plan like I should?  No, not to the letter.  Am I hitting the McDonald's drive thru ever?  No, I'm not.  Ice cream is my downfall.  Yes, I will eat ice cream at least once per week in the summer.  We have tried to make the switch to frozen yogurt, and for the most part we have.  I have fallen off the wagon of food tracking on MyFitnessPal.  For anyone that has ever done food tracking, I hope you can relate when I say it is a pain in the butt.  Last Friday, I used my 20% off coupon from Bed Bath & Beyond to purchase a food scale in an attempt to get back on the food wagon. 

I'm willing to admit, I haven't been the best supporter of my own weight loss.  I don't drink as much water as I should; I would much rather drink coffee during the day.  I don't measure my food; I'm not sure if this is due to being lazy and not wanting to take the time to do it or not wanting to dirty my measuring cups and spoons, but I find food measuring to be totally annoying.  I enjoy ice cream/frozen yogurt at least once per week; I really refuse to give up ice cream as I feel it would be admitting total defeat. 

There comes a time with weight loss, and I'm guessing many of you can relate to this, where you just plain get angry.  I'm angry that I have had to try so hard for so long to drop weight.  I'm angry that I have to count and measure my food to get the results I need.  I'm angry that I have been working out three or more times per week for the last eight weeks and am still struggling to go beyond three total pounds down. 

When you are angry about something, the typical reaction is to blame someone or something.  So, whom/what am I blaming? I'm blaming my body.  About a month ago, I became convinced that one of my medications was causing me to hold weight.  I spoke with my health care providers and decided to wean off my medication.  I'm now heading into three weeks off the medication and am not seeing the results I thought I would see.  With my continued struggles, I'm again contemplating going to the doctor for additional blood testing. 

But, before heading to the doctor I believe I need to give one last true attempt.  It is time to get serious with myself; buckle down and stick to a food plan for a few solid weeks to see where I end up.  Time to stop making excuses and talking myself into eating and drinking things that are sabotaging my efforts.  Time to pull on my big girl panties for a few weeks.  I have run the gambit of excuses; the weight wont come off because I'm stressed from my job (problem eliminated and still the weight is on), my medicine is causing me to keep weight on (off my meds for three weeks and the weight is not coming off), my body hates me (I'm still on the fence on this one).  All this being said, who wants to come weigh and measure my food for me for the next week? 

A Summer DIY Project

I have started a new project with some friends of mine, so for today's post I'm sending you over to our new site to check things out. 

Today, I posted about the table Andrew and I designed and built.  Ok, he did the building and I did the watching.  To be fair, I did stain one of the benches though!  I hope you enjoy looking around on the new site.  I will still post on this blog as well, don't worry!  Click on the picture below and it will take you to the blog post!

Handywork Around The House

Finally, the stump has come out in the front yard, which means we can finish the landscaping project we started about a month  ago. They were out two days earlier than expected to remove the stump, which is perfect timing.  I have tomorrow off work, so I will be spending the day landscaping.  Here is a shot of the machine they brought in to take out the stump.  Yes, the picture was taken through the curtain, but considering the window is right by where they were working, I didn't want to look like a creeper hanging out the window with my camera!

I realized when logging in to update the blog that it has been almost three weeks since I last posted here; total slacker.  I have to be honest, I really don't know where the month of May went.  Seriously guys, how is it summer already?  

We have been pretty busy these last couple of weeks.  Andrew has been working on a table for our deck.  We couldn't justify the cost to buy one from the store, so our solution was to make one!  Here he is working on the table top.

Last night, we finished up with the table leg.  I say we because he built it, I tested it and broke it and then he fixed it!  I had the important job of breaking/testing.

Today, Andrew has been working on getting the benches for the table constructed.  The plan is for the benches to be done tomorrow so they can be sanded down.  By Friday, we hope to have everything constructed and sanded so we can get a couple coats of stain on everything before Saturday.

Our plan was going fine until we came home tonight to find a puddle of water on the floor in the kitchen.  Random standing water anywhere in the house is never a good thing.  After tearing a hole in the ceiling (in a location that was previously patched due to water damage), we discovered that it was the toilet in the guest bathroom that was causing the problem.  Two hours later, we have a hole in the ceiling, the toilet missing from the guest bathroom, and a shopping list for tomorrow morning.  Thank God for YouTube!  Through watching several videos and having my Step-dad on speaker phone, we figured out that the prior owners, who remodeled the guest bathroom, didn't raise the flange on the toilet up when they tiled the floor.  Consequently, the toilet has started to leak due to the seal not being completed properly.  Here is the lesson learned from this, if you are going to DIY a project, have a pretty good idea of what you are doing.  And, if you have problems once, don't just make a quick fix.  ALWAYS, I repeat, always find the root of the probelm.  If you make a temporary fix, you could be causing larger problems down the line.

Off to the store we go tomorrow morning to buy a new seal and a riser to put on the flange so we have a better seal and can try to avoid the problem in the future.  Of course, all this happened after I cleaned the bathroom tonight; go figure.     

So, there is a little glimpse of what we have been up to. The joys of home ownership!  Thank God for a handy husband who isn't useless with power tools.   

Major Landscaping Projects Ahead

I can't believe it has been almost a year since we bought our house; time flies!  Since we moved in last July, it was too hot to work on any major landscaping projects last year.  We also wanted to make sure when we began to tackle landscaping projects that we had thought through things.  With our landscaping projects at the last house, we took some shortcuts and learned some lessons.  This time around, we want to do things right.  Our big question to start the spring out was if we should tackle the front landscaping or the back landscaping first.  Andrew begged all winter to take the pine tree out in the front, so that came down a couple of weeks ago.  Since that left a huge bare spot in the front yard, we opted to work on the front landscaping this year. 

In addition to taking out the pine tree, we also removed three evergreen bushes and two burning bushes.  No, there was nothing wrong with the bushes that were removed other than we didn't like them.  I chopped the burning bushes back last fall because they were blocking the view of the house.  The evergreen bushes took a beating this winter and were brown in several spots, so they were an eye sore. 

I debated all winter about what to do for a border out front.  Pinterest is my best friend when I'm looking for good landscaping ideas.  Initially, the idea we went with for the border out front we were going to use in the back.  We have a different idea for the back, so we decided to move the original idea to the front. 

The picture above is what things looked like the spring before we bought our house.  You can see the evergreen at the left front corner of the house.  If you look, you can also see along the front walkway the burning bush that were way too tall for that spot. 

Here is a close up photo.  There are the lovely brown evergreen bushes and what is left of the burning bush I chopped back last fall.  This picture gives you a good idea of just how close the tree was to the house. 

This is at the start of our weekend project.  The first things to come out after the tree a couple of weeks ago, were the evergreen bushes.  As you can tell, Andrew does the digging and I do the photographing. 

 Here is Sunday night when we finished up for the weekend.  We stopped short of landscaping around where the evergreen tree used to be because we have to wait to have the stump removed.  Once the stump is out, we will finish with the border around the rest of the front and around the side of the house back to the fence line. 

I am pretty excited to have my hostas back!  I really missed my hostas from the last house and was pumped to have a spot to plant more.  I finally got the guacamole hosta I have been eyeballing since last year!  Because of the two large trees in the front yard, this spot get shade most of the day.  I have started here with a few hostas, and will add to it each year.  In addition to hostas, I also have a few astilbe plants, a white bleeding heart, a pink bleeding heart plant, and a couple of columbine plants.  I can't wait for everything to start growing and filling in. 

Here are a few tips we have learned along the way with our landscaping projects:

1. Don't buy all your supplies from the same store: most of the time, we have to make several stops to get supplies for a landscaping project.  While it is a pain in the butt at the time, you save money in the long run.  With the internet and online ads, it is pretty easy to price check things without driving from store to store. 

2. Don't be afraid to ask for a price adjustment: this is a tip from my days working at Target when I learned this is actually a thing.  The landscaping bricks we used for the border were purchased from Menards on Friday night.  In Sunday's ad, they were on sale for $.10 off per brick.  When you buy two hundred and eighty bricks, that adds up.  Monday, I made a trip to Menards with my receipt and asked for an adjustment.  We now have about $30 in store credit to use.  I could buy more hostas with that money! 

3. Don't underestimate the time it will take to do a project.  If you are going to tackle a landscaping project, don't cut yourself short on time.  That will lead to cutting corners to try and get the project done.

4. Earlier is better: I can't emphasize this one enough.  If there hadn't been snow on the ground, I would have been out in the yard in March working on this project.  I would much rather work on a landscaping project when it is still cool out rather than blazing hot.  I always tease my mom that we did the hardest landscaping projects on the hottest days.  We were tilling up the front yard one 4th of July weekend when it was 100 degrees out; that was not cool. 

These are just a few of my tips; I have many more if you want to hear them! 

Since we have to wait for the stump to come out of the front yard, we will be taking a couple of weeks of from landscaping in the front yard.  Luckily, it is time to plant my flowers pots!  Happy growing season everyone!

Spring Chores

It seems the weekends have been nice the past couple of weeks, but a day or two of non rainy, cold weather is all we get.  I hope it shapes up soon and stops raining; we have landscaping projects to get taken care of!  We have been working around the house the past couple of weeks to get some things checked off our to do list. 

First on our list of outdoor projects was to take out the pine tree in the front of our yard.  The tree was far too close to the house, and was blocking a lot of sunlight to the front yard.  A few weeks ago, the tree came down.  Taking that tree down was my first experience with an axe and a hatchet; it felt pretty good to cut something down!  Now, if only it would stop raining so we could get someone out to remove the stump that was left behind. 

The pine tree on the far left of this picture is the 

one that got cut down

The day after we took the tree out was too rainy to do anything outside, so we moved inside to replace the fan in our living room. The only light that we had in the living room was a small track light above the fire place and the two lamps we had on the end tables.  The living room had a total lack of light, so we bought a new fan with four lights in it.  The fan previously in the living room was dated and didn't have a light kit.  Installing the new fan was pretty easy, and we are thrilled with the amount of light the fan provides in the living room. 

Once we can get outside, we have some landscaping plans in the front yard.  For now, I am left planning which flowers to plant out front and what I am going to plant in my flower pots this year.  I know I have previously shared my rule about no plant in outdoor pots until Mother's Day.  We are two weeks out, so I'm getting pretty anxious.  I did plant my herb pots last weekend, but I'm concerned they might have been washed out this week with all the rain we have had.  I have a couple of new pot ideas this year.  I will share the start of one of them with you.


I bought a couple of plastic white urn style pots from Menards.  They were on sale last week for $9.00 per pot.  I bought a can of Rust-Oleum Metallic paint and spray painted them a nice amber color.  They look great in the sun and will look good on either side of the garage door this summer.  I currently have a couple of geraniums in the containers, but they have been staying in the garage to keep safe from all the rain this week. 

That is it for house projects for now.  Stay tuned, we have a lot more to come.  Landscaping season is just kicking off!