I managed to squeeze my grocery shopping trip into 30 minutes of shopping and make it home and unload the groceries about 15 minutes later. Then the kids got home before I had the chance to put it all away, and plundered through everything between asking if they could have various things for their snack and shoving folders in my face for me to sign. I got them settled and started on their homework, then started putting things away.

While tackling the refrigerator, I remarked that Chad drove me nuts when he didn’t put condiments back on the door in the fridge, and put them on the shelves instead. I said that I had specifically condensed bottles of things that were open, thrown things we weren’t using out and organized it so everything would fit nicely, leaving plenty of room for fresh fruits and vegetables and for me to put leftovers after dinner.

Ethan said “Why don’t you guys just get a divorce?”

I straightened myself up from where I had been kneeling in the refrigerator and asked him to repeat himself. He did. I asked why in the world he thought we should get divorced. He said “Because you said you’re mad at him about the fridge.”

I calmly explained that I didn’t think people should get divorced because they got mad at each other every once in a while and that his father and I were rarely mad at each other. Even if I was griping about the ketchup not and Catalina dressing not being on the door, I wasn’t actually what I would call angry about it.  He asked what a good reason to get divorced was. So I told him that it should only be when you don’t love each other anymore, and that Chad and I love each other very much.

I told Chad about it later that night and he rolled his eyes. I hope that we can instill in our kids that marriage is very serious and relationships don’t have to end when one or both people get mad at each other. I hope that they can see how we handle our differences calmly.

But it was worth it.

Chad was playing Gears of War with my sister’s boyfriend, and actually sent them home early so that he could take advantage of drunk me. We had a lot of fun having some of the most uninhibited sex we’ve had in a while. It was messy, it was loud and it was awesome. He bragged about being sore all day long.

He said he wants to get me drunk like that once a month. I’m not very interested in putting my body through that so frequently (the drunk part followed by the re-hydrating, not the sex part.) I’ve worked too hard and come too far to start being careless about weight gain now. This means I have to try to be less inhibited without consuming half a bottle of vodka.

Sex has been a particularly stressful thing between Chad and I lately. It seems like around Thanksgiving there was one thing after another just interfering. We had two of my siblings living here, one of them sleeping in the living room and making comments whenever we would have sex about how noisy we were.  Chad’s work schedule got more intense. I think he was working between 60-80 hours a week through the holidays, followed by inventory preparations. Then he was nominated to spearhead a new project and that required him to travel a lot to other stores to help them set it up, he had to take a weekly class that he traveled two hours to and he was going through a promotion interview process.

I was going through the kids end of the school year programs, getting them situated for their new school year and setting myself up for college in the Fall. Now the kids are out of school for the summer and the budget has gotten tighter with electric rates doubling. It’s easy to let sex kind of take a backseat to other priorities when you are overwhelmed with responsibility.

For me, it seems like the less sex I have, the less I want it. I just sort of forget how awesome it is when I go without it for a week. Last night, Chad and I watched a movie and though we talked a bit about having sex, I thought it wasn’t gonna happen. I got some pretty intense cramps towards the last half of the movie. Chad gave me some Midol and massage my lower back and stomach where I was cramping. One thing led to another and I passed out with a warm, fuzzy uterus. I don’t know if it was the Midol, the orgasms or a combination of both, but it’s nice to be reminded how awesome sex is sometimes.

What has helped a lot is flirting during the day. If we take time during the day to hug, kiss, smack each other’s rearend or just pay attention, we’re more likely to have sex that night. It’s like foreplay for me. It keeps my mind focused on Chad all day instead of feeling forced to transition from mom to wife before I pass out for the night. It’s hard to do that when he works 14 hours, 3 days in a row. So we fall into these ruts really easily.

Chad said something about wishing he could post things like ‘You wish your married sex was as awesome as mine.’ on his Facebook last night, so I guess we come out of our ruts just as easily.

In the beginning, there was sex. And it was good. And there was more sex. And it too was good… – Charlie at HowtobeaDad.com

That’s sort of how it was. The sex was good and the frequency was like rabbits in the Spring. Then I got pregnant with Ethan and there was this weird ‘You can’t get pregnant now, because you’re already pregnant’ condom-less hump-fest. It wasn’t even like having our first baby really put a damper on things because we tried having sex less than a week after vaginal delivery. Very. Very. Slow. Sex. followed by lots of dry humping and more slow sex  until things were healed up.

The good sex lasted even through Dylan’s pregnancy. Then somewhere between Tyler and Kristen, I developed a bit of post-partum depression, lost my ever loving mind and maintained over 100 lbs of weight gain from 4 pregnancies in the span of about 5 and a half years. I’m pretty sure my hormones are still trying to balance themselves out and my youngest daughter turned 4 in January.

Over the past 10 months, I’ve really been working hard on getting back into shape and getting healthy. I’ve lost 32 lbs and been eating (mostly) better foods. There have been some days where I was insatiable, but most days I just don’t have any interest in sex. It’s nothing Chad is or isn’t doing. He’s been awesome. He helps keep the house picked up  and deals with the kids on his days off. He would help more on days he worked, if he was home at all, but working 14 hours and the 2 hour commute keep him pretty busy.

Right now, my periods are starting to go all wonky again. I’m pretty certain the lack of interest is purely hormonal. I can’t even seem to psych myself out for sex no matter how hard I try. Here I am, with a ton of sex toy reviews that I am severely behind on. I can’t review them until I’ve actually tried them, but I can’t muster up the want to for plain old sex, let alone anything that involves getting out a toy.

The kids are out of school for the summer. Hooray. The few times I have been horny, it’s been the middle of the afternoon. Chad’s at work, and until sometime in the last week or two, he was working 5-6 days a week for various craziness going on at his job. Retail holidays, inventory, covering vacations, taking a 7 week management course, getting nominated to spearhead a new program and travel to various stores to help them execute and even traveling for a job promotion (that he apparently did not get, yet has not been notified one way or another about.)

He’s been busy, to say the least. But so have I.

I’ve been exercising (though not this week), getting college stuff sorted out, dealing with school related stuff for the kids, dealing with insurance claims for a dog bite, budgeting and paying bills, and sorting out a vacation trip for my birthday this weekend.

On top of all of this, we haven’t actually had a date in a while. It’s been two or three months. Our last date actually involved taking my father-in-law out to a sushi bar because my mother-in-law was in the hospital for about a week and he looked like he needed the break. We did go shopping afterwards, but we didn’t get to spend alone time together. Before that, we took the kids to the sushi bar because we didn’t have a babysitter. It’s really wearing on us and I can definitely feel the disconnect.

Saturday we are traveling to the coast and enjoying a day on the beach with the kids. While my parents take the kids back to their house, Chad and I are going to go check-in to a hotel for the evening. Hopefully there will be some pre-date shower sex or bed sex or some kind of sex. I’ll then put on a new sundress and panties (that I will buy when I go shopping with my sister tomorrow) and go on a double date with my sister and her boyfriend. I will get tipsy, stroll down River Street in Savannah, GA and spend the evening enjoying our time away from the kids. When we’re done strolling, we will head back to the hotel where Chad will get me sloppy drunk and we can get in some more sex (Hopefully. If I don’t pass out after two drinks.) We will enjoy the free breakfast at the hotel, if Chad doesn’t drag us all to IHOP, and then head back to my parents for lunch before we come home.

It’s going to be a fun, relaxing weekend and I am looking forward to it so much. Hopefully I find my sex drive down by the river. For now, I’m going to see if doing some Turbo Fire will make me stop feeling like crap.

1. I’ve been busy as hell. It’s the last bit of the school year around here and I’ve been going to various events at the kids’ schools. Mostly field day and end of the year programs, for 3 different kids (4 next year.) On top of that, our dog nipped the neighbors child (who I later found out had been pestering when we were not home), so I had to deal with a lot of getting the dogs shot records updated and filing insurance claims.* This was all on top of what I was already doing, as far as daily routines and exercising.

2. I started a new blog for the content I wanted to talk about but didn’t think fit in here. It’s a general blog where I talk about kids, family, marriage, food and my weight loss. This blog will now be mostly reviews with the occasionally sex life/news related posts.

3. I’ve been spending far less time online, in general. Aside from being busy, I’ve set goals for myself (which I go into depth about on my other blog) that include doing a lot of things that require being offline or away from my computer. It’s required some rearranging of my schedule and I’ll have to become more efficient with the time I spend online so that I can fulfill my duties on my blogs.

4. Related to reason #3, but deserving of it’s own spot, one of my goals was to be more positive. I found out the more time I spent offline, the happier I was. I enjoy writing, but I found myself caught up in a lot of things that made my online time negative. Between passive-aggressive tweets, blog posts, politics and such, I always came away from a few hours online in a worse mood. That’s not how I want to spend my time anymore, so I’m choosing not to. I still allow myself to be rightfully angry or upset about things that warrant that type of response, but I’m not going to sit here and stew over things I don’t have the control to change.

For example, I’ve emailed my state representatives several times in the last month about issues that concerned me. When they responded and confirmed that they do not line up with my political views, I decided I would put my votes elsewhere in the coming elections. For now, I can only email them when important votes come up and hope they don’t do too much more damage before then.

I’ve found myself focusing more on picking my battles. Before I enter into a conversation with anyone, I ask “What is the outcome of this likely to be? What can I add to this situation?” — If it’s just going to spark an argument that I don’t have time for, I keep my thoughts to myself. If I do leave an opinion and someone responds to it in a way that lets me know that they have no interest in finding a common ground, I leave it be and move on.

Like earlier this week when my Great Aunt sent me a message on Facebook that simply said “Psalm 14: 1″ which I looked up and it says

¹The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

I don’t know what I said or did to provoke this message, but my Great Uncle is a preacher and I know better than to get into a debate about religion and my personal beliefs with them. Mostly because I feel religion is personal and I don’t want to be beaten over the head with Bible verses that I’ve known all my life. Also because a discussion like this would only wound our relationship, and I rather like my Aunt and Uncle and enjoy their company at our family reunions each year. Ultimately, to me, telling them that fool in this context does not mean ‘stupid’, but that the person lacks moral judgement and that chapter 14 of Psalm is talking about Israel and that I don’t particularly hold the Bible up on the same pedestal that they do, is not worth it. Finding out why she decided I needed to look up that verse is not going to do anything but upset one or both of us.

This is what I’ve been up to. I’ve been doing a lot of searching within myself, trying to figure out what I want to do. I want to continue losing the rest of this weight (32 lbs and counting). I want to become more fit. I want to spend time with my husband, children and dog. I was accepted to a local college and should begin this Fall. I want to be more efficient with my time. It’s hard to wrap my mind around how quickly it’s passing by. My youngest child is 4 and will be starting pre-k in the Fall. I find myself wondering where I could be if I hadn’t worried myself with irrelevant issues online. Since it’s my nature to be a problem solver, rather than a complainer, I recognized the problem and came up with the solution. My online time and interaction had to be cut and spent more efficiently.

It’s time for me to start dinner and take the kids/dogs for a walk. Bear with me as I adjust my schedule to allow for blogging.

*The child and the dog are both fine. The dog has had all her shots, but I did not have a copy on hand since the incident happened on a Friday evening. Now the dog just comes in when the children want to come over and play with our kids or when we aren’t home to keep a lookout.

What's on your list?

I’m pretty proud of myself for sticking to my New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve cleared lots of clutter from my life in these 4 short months since welcoming 2011. Things as small as cutting blogs from my reader and spending less time piddling online all the way up to ripping up our carpets and cleaning out our closets. If we don’t need it, I’ve gotten rid of it.

I’ve spent loads more time focusing on managing my time better. The house is organized and clean. Our budget is organized and set up to snowball our debt (2 cards down and 5-7 hospital bills.) Being more organized in those areas leaves me more time to focus on my meal planning and exercise.

The time has finally come to register my youngest for pre-k and I realized I will have free time next year. I’ve gone back and forth on what I wanted to do with my time. I thought of getting a job, maybe back where I use to work that I loved so much. I decided against that because it’s a retail job and it wouldn’t be fair to make them work around my weekday schedule, leaving them short-staffed during their busiest hours. I thought about substitute teaching, but decided against it after hearing rumors that not many teachers are getting called in locally due to budget cuts. They’ve been combining classes to save money. I thought about volunteering at animal shelters, amping up my blog presence or just taking up more hobbies at home. Then I finally decided that I needed to do something better.

I applied to college!

It’s a local college, but they do offer some teaching degrees, which has a lot of benefits for me, schedule wise. I’ve put it off for 9 years, because of the kids and not having a babysitter. I figured it was something I needed to do, getting an education and setting myself up for a good job with a salary. It would help supplement our income and it would make sure that if something were to happen to Chad, that I would be able to support our family. It will help me feel more useful. I know staying home and raising kids is an important job, but I needed to do something for me too.

This past week has been spent filling out paperwork for financial aid, college applications, and getting all of my ducks in a row. Today I picked up my daughter’s birth certificate (to register her for pre-k), got my DTaP shot and immunization records sent off, got my financial verification paperwork sent off, sent in a written request for my high school transcripts and spent 4 hours taking practice COMPASS exams. So far? I’m going to do fairly well on the writing and reading comprehension. I need a bit more practice on polynomials and college algebra. It’s crazy that things were reversed when I was actually in school. The math stuff is coming back to me, I just need to brush up on some formulas. I guess I’ll do that while I wait on the college to get back to me about what else I need to send in.

I do feel a bit stupid about some of the mistakes I made today. I realized, as soon as I started writing my request out for my high school transcripts, that I forgot to put my maiden name on my application. Who does that?! I kind of blame the sex-blogging community for distracting me with the whole transgender birth certificate discussion. (just kidding) I emailed admissions and told them about the mistake. Hopefully I don’t have to re-do the entire application and pay for another fee. I also forgot to have Chad sign the financial verification worksheet they sent me last week. I’m hoping that it’s just typical for people to forget things and I don’t look like a complete idiot. I am doing this on my own, after all. No guidance counselor to help me sort through the paperwork.

I hope everyone is having as productive of a week as I am, minus the absentmindedness. Happy Monday!

I found a few free spreadsheets online and plugged in our information to help sort things out. It’s so much easier to keep track of our budget and snowball our debt when it’s all laid out like that. Why have I not discovered this before? We’ve gotten two cards paid off. We found some mistakes that we needed to get sorted out like:

1. According to the tax office, there is no house on our land. We had a house built in July of 2008. They’ve got the land on file, and we’ve been paying taxes on our land, but because there’s no record of the house, our escrow account is off. We’ve got to get this sorted out. The lawyer who closed on our mortgage is at fault for not properly handling the paperwork and we’re currently trying to contact them to explain the situation. There has been a whole lot of phone calls and circular explanations in the past week. Chad’s going to call the office again, Monday morning, because she’s been with other clients or at lunch and never called back.

2. I was retroactively charged several ‘account management fees’ for the balance left on my bill at the foot doctor. I was diagnosed and treated for plantar fasciitis in 2009 and have been paying down what was left after insurance. In February they started the fees, but I had several charges for different amounts, all in February. I called the office and the receptionist explained it was automated and immediately removed the fees. She did explain there would be a $3 fee each month from now on, but that I shouldn’t have been charged the previous fees. My bill went down from $274 to $227.

3. I had an account from one of the doctors I saw last year about my hormone/period issues sent to collections (despite making payments on it.) I had set up a payment plan with the agency, which I had also paid on. I noticed it was on my credit report, despite the payments and assurance from the agency that so long as my payments were made it wouldn’t affect my credit. After faxing a copy of my bank statement as proof the money was taken from my account, giving them the transaction number from the verification email I was sent and spending a lot of time on hold, they figured out that the original woman handling my account (who was fired) had given me the wrong account number. Basically, I’d been paying someone else’s account. They adjusted the numbers, fixing the mistake, and I set up auto-drafts for the remaining balance over the next few pay periods.

Most of our debt issues seem to be with medical bills. Whenever you go visit a doctor, you have doctor fees, lab fees, xray fees. It seems like every branch has their own bills and it’s difficult to keep up with every account owed. It would seem more logical to set it all up under a single account and then have the doctor’s office or hospital cut everyone a check. Our health care system is so screwed up. Fact is, I shouldn’t be having these issues. We pay $400+ a month in premiums and we still have a huge family deductible (something like $10k, or $2k per person)! I just wish it wasn’t so complicated and expensive. I know it’s even harder for people who can’t afford insurance to find care.

I’m feeling better about my weight loss, despite still not having lost any weight. I’ve maintained, but I’m noticing changes in my body with the new exercise program. I’ve been doing the Turbo Fire schedule for about 2 weeks now (including the Inferno plan and the first week of the program). I’ve got muscles! Big ones! Everything is toning up, a lot. My moods balance out if I exercise daily. My body feels sore, but it’s a good sore. I’ve got before pictures from my first week, and I think I’m going to do monthly pictures to show the progress. I don’t wanna post the before pictures until I get the after ones. It’s hard to wait. I’m excited to see the differences.

The more I exercise, the more I want to exercise. It feels so good to be able to move my body. I sometimes find myself struggling with internal dialogue, telling me I can’t do something and trying to discourage myself. Like certain stretches are more difficult or just different because of the shape of my body, but I have been successful in reminding myself that I’ve come so far. That 6 months ago, 9 months ago, I was no where near this level of fitness. I know I’ll get there.

I hope to take pictures of all the decorating I’ve been doing soon and post them. I hope to post before and after pictures of my progress with exercise and weight loss. I’ve got some reviews to crank out. Life is pretty good. I hope everyone had a great week.

I am, and I'm losing it.

I bought a BodyMedia Fit (from Costco for $235-ish. Best price, hands down, for the unit, 12 months subscription, an extra armband and 3 skins.) It’s this little armband that you wear on your left arm that uses all sorts of things to figure up how many calories you’re burning, how well you’re sleeping, how many steps you’re taking and how vigorously you’re exercising with about 90% accuracy. I wanted it because I hit a major plateau in my weight loss and I felt like a needed a better idea of what was going on with my body.

When I got my BMF, I went to the website to set up my account. It asked me a series of questions. Basic stuff like my height, weight and activity level, what I wanted to do and how much weight I’d lost in the last couple of months. Based on this information, it guessed I’d been eating 2930 calories a day. That’s what a woman my age, weight and height would be eating to maintain her weight while living a sedentary lifestyle.

I’ve been eating between 1300-1500. Except for days when I ‘cheat’, which are date nights. Even then I don’t go nuts and typically adjust my intake for the rest of the day so I can splurge a bit at dinner. This is accurate. I measure my food. I record it quickly after each meal via myfitnesspal.com and I read labels every time I make food for myself. I’m not absentmindedly grazing on snacks all day with no idea how many calories I’m eating. I’m meticulous about my eating habits. So much so, that it aggravates Chad when I ask him to measure out my food if he’s preparing something for me. I just had him go pour 2 ounces of milk back into the jug, this morning.

Yesterday I spent some time reading a book (Name of the Wind). It was an easy day, but I did do some chores around the house. I also did a 30 minute workout and burned about 300 calories. I hadn’t worn my BMF overnight so it estimated my calorie burn, based on what I usually did during the hours I wasn’t wearing it. I had it on the rest of the day though. By 8 pm I had only burned 2091 calories, with only 4 hours left to burn the estimated 400 calories to reach a 2500 calorie goal. A goal that is based on my height/age/weight and assuming I sat on my ass all day. Even with vigorous exercise and light activity throughout the day, I’m barely reaching this goal.

With what I’m burning compared to what I’m taking in, I should be seeing some losses. Even with me averaging less calories burned than the median for my age/height/weight/sex group!

But I’m not and it’s pissing me off.

I try to be patient. I try to think about all of the other environmental factors that could be influencing my results. I just started a new exercise program that is more intense. More intense exercise causes your muscles to hold onto water so they can repair themselves, until they’re better able to handle the impact. I think of period weight fluctuations, but even then I’m not seeing a gain before or a loss after. Just a steady fluctuation between the same 3-5 pounds.

I’ve had tests done before. My thyroid hormones, female hormones, and other tests to see what was going on. Everything is within normal limits. Yet my numbers aren’t adding up. Even with a 500-1000 (sometimes more) calorie deficit each day, I am seeing no losses.

Chad keeps telling me that there are other changes, and there are. He keeps reminding me that these things take time. I know this, but when I am doing everything right and not seeing the results I want to see, it messes with my head and makes me want to binge. Not because I’m hungry or craving anything, but because that was how I coped with shit for a long time. I ate until I was numb. I ate until the kids fighting and the bills didn’t bother me anymore. I’ve learned different coping skills and most of the time I stick to them. I listen to my body and am able to tell the difference between real hunger and boredom.

I’m tired of losing this game. I want to see more progress, higher numbers and better results. I’m tired of seeing people that I know aren’t trying nearly as hard as I am losing weight and dropping clothes sizes. It’s not fair, and yes I am acting like a brat about it. I’m exercising, getting winded, sweating profusely, pushing myself to do intense cardio and plyometrics even though I know my shins will hate me for it. I’m the one counting every morsel I eat and trying to make sure that most of them have excellent nutritional value. I’m the one who rarely puts anything besides water in her glass. But I’m not the one boasting about losing 50 lbs and being in a size smaller pant than I was a month ago.

Logically, I know that if I keep it up the changes will come. Three months without a change in the direction I want it to go it is a long wait though. I did the 5 day Inferno and I’m on day 3 of the 20 week prep schedule with Turbo Fire. I took my ‘before’ pictures and measurements. We’ll see what nearly 4 more months does for my body. I’m hoping I can post something happier at that point.

It has it’s ups and downs. On the bright side, we can take the kids to do fun things, like possibly swimming at my in-laws. On the down side, everyones routine gets thrown out of whack. The kids find themselves getting bored and then they come pester me about different things. Meanwhile, I’m trying to maintain some normalcy around the house and stay on track with my diet and exercise. Fortunately, Chad is back on 3 day rotation at work so he can keep the kids out of my hair long enough for me to exercise when he’s around.

I’m trying to decorate. The painting is done, the floors look awesome and the new furniture is here and arranged. Now I’m trying to figure out where I want to put pictures and wall art. I’ve got some things hung, but I need more frames and I need to get a more concrete idea of which pictures I want up.

My body is tender. Everything hurts now. The kids climbing on me, Chad resting any of his weight on me… everything. I’m sure it’s got something to do with losing weight. I’m bruising more easily.

I had a couple of bad days with food intake. I was frustrated at seeing a gain after sticking to the 5 day Inferno Plan with Turbo Fire. Even though logically I know it’s my muscles retaining water to repair themselves because I was doing new, more intense exercise, I let it get to me. I let that and the fact that we spent money on lots of sushi and Japanese food affect me. We bought 5 rolls, forgetting how large they were and ordered two plates that came with soup, salad, rice, meat and veggies. We sampled everything and came home with 4 take away boxes. I couldn’t let it go to waste, considering how much we spent on it all. All that sodium. Ugh. 3 lbs of water retention. Plus I should be getting my period next week, so I’m sure that’s affecting my appetite.

But, I started a new day. It’s one of the things I slowly came to realize. I can stumble, trip and fall and then get right back up and keep walking forward. I’m back to counting calories and exercising. I have found that I get more of a pay off from exercise, the more intense it is. Jillian Michaels gave me a good post workout buzz, but Turbo Fire gives me a full on high. Both are great workouts, but one is slower paced and more weight/resistance training and the other is cardio. It feels awesome and I can really tell when I miss a day.

It’s weird that one of the reasons I am so intent on working out and losing weight is so that people will stop asking me if I’m pregnant, because I actually look more pregnant now. Pregnancy wreaks havoc on your body, especially your midsection and pelvis. The muscle wall in your abdomen becomes weak and you are left with stretched out skin, depending on how good your genes are. Now that I’ve been exercising so much, I can feel the muscle wall rebuilding and it’s starting to hold up my skin better. Because of where it’s at, it’s making my belly poke out like I’m 3-5 months pregnant. Especially after a meal. I know that will decrease as I lose more belly fat.

Persistence.

It’s time for lunch and I feel that hunger tingling. I need to go fix it before it gets to the point where I start nibbling on extra calories. I hope everyone’s week goes well.

Kitchen before...

Chad came home and started painting our family room, but the shade of green I got wasn’t right. It looked like a highlighter. We had to pick up a new can of the right color and we painted the room Thursday afternoon. We also stopped by Badcock and ordered our new living room furniture. I picked up a couch and loveseat off the floor that was being discontinued. Monday our bookshelves, tv stand and table set should be here.

Kitchen after!

Friday we went to pick up the flooring from Home Depot. The local store only had about half of what we needed in stock so we went to another store and got the rest. We also went on a date! We ate at Mikatas and stopped by Books-a-Million to pick up the new Patrick Rothfuss book for Chad. I bought a larger copy of Name of the Wind so it would be easier to read. The one Chad owned was short and thick, so it was hard to keep open and the writing strained my eyes. I should probably wear my glasses when I’m reading, but reading makes me sleepy and I don’t want to break them.

Yesterday my father-in-law came over and helped Chad put down the flooring in the living room. After lunch my sister’s boyfriend and our brother came over to help finish the family room. There’s just a small section of hallway left to do, but the skill saw died so they called it a night. We also need to put down the molding and t-strips around doors to finish it off. I’ll post pictures when it’s all done. It looks 100x better without the dingy carpet. I hate carpet and we’re going to probably wind up redoing all the bedrooms with the same laminate flooring as the living rooms. Maybe a different shade, but I can’t wait to get rid of the carpeting.

Another after

I’m excited about this week too. I’ve got my Body Media Fit coming in the mail (it should be here tomorrow!) I have an awesome Motion Control sports bra that I ordered from Athleta that should be here this week and a bathing suit (that didn’t come from the plus-sized section) too. I ordered a couple of bags of Shakeology and the TurboFire dvd set from Beachbody and that’s suppose to be here by Thursday. Since my Body Media Fit is coming before everything else, I can get a resting BMR and see if there’s any truth to the HIIT boosting your metabolism for a day or two when TurboFire gets here.

Thursday is my grandma’s 75th birthday (the one who raised me.) I’m heading to Hinesville to see her and baking her a cake. I’ll post pictures of the cake and a recipe once it’s done. We’re doing a girls lunch with her and spending the day with my aunts, mom, sister and daughter. I hope she enjoys it.

Hopefully I’ll get some scheduled posts up and not be completely absent this week. I’ve got some reviews drafted that just need pictures added to them. Today I’ll be taking it easy and flushing out all the excess sodium I consumed when we had Japanese and Chinese food.

Happy Sunday, everyone!