Method of Motivation

This was my light bulb moment last night.

I was thinking about how in the next year we plan to start potty training the tiny one. And with that I began to think about all the various methods I have known people to use; one of which being the sticker chart method. 

The basic premise being that you fill a section or the entire chart with stickers by not having an accident and you get rewarded. 

In order to have some physical representation of our own fitness goals and such we are going to try do an adult equivalent of this. I figure, what could it hurt and also it is a good way to keep us both accountable (Collin has agreed to try this).

My plan is to set monthly goals (i.e. drop six pounds) and in return give myself something like a new e-book, a shirt, or ten dollars into a pool for something bigger I want. You know, something small and simple, but still good motivation. I also plan to set "next level" goals each month. I guess it would be like a tiered concept; lose x  achieve y -  but lose z and achieve a. Hope this makes sense. Feel free to comment or email me if you want any clarification.  

My chart looks like this:

If you are interested in trying this out, send me an email (the link is somewhere over there >>) and I will email you back a PDF of the chart.

I made a generic chart that I can cross out the days as befits the month's structure; example, I will cross off the first four days of the first week for January. 

The 30+ minutes of activity during the week will NOT include my daily walks at work, but will be comprised of time crawling after the wee monster (her favorite game right now is for us to chase her around the house, and you'd be surprised what a work out it is crawling on all fours all over the place in a hasty manner...), and running as I get back to that again, and maybe Wii Zumba (I have missed it a lot), and even just dancing around like an idiot with my husband and child. 

One the weekends I have Saturday listed as fun time. This is both so I make sure that I am enjoying whatever I am doing, but also I want it to be a fun family thing; like going to the park, walking to grandma's (round trip walk from our house is three miles), working in the yard, and other things that we can all do together. I also think taking the family to the zoo, on a hike, to OMSI, or to the beach are all acceptable forms of fun physical activity. On the nasty weather days that we are likely to see for at least the first third to half of the year it will probably be some of the weekday stuff too, like chasing the shorty or dancing around the house.

You'll notice how Sundays are for "mental health." I have it marked as relaxing, but it doesn't mean that my (our your) version of mental health/relaxation doesn't include physical activity. For example, I LOVE gardening and the project that is renovating our backyard this spring has me over the moon excited. I also find gardening to be very cathartic and meditative, much as I do running. Some Sundays the relaxing may be just that; snuggles with the family or reading a book. I might even get wild and work on my crocheting. I have an afghan that is dying to be completed... It's like years in the making... No joke. Other times it may be walking for coffee with the fam bam, or visiting friends. Anything really that will make me feel recharged and ready to take on another work week. 

We'll see how it goes, and as I mentioned before, I am going to try to be an open book about the next leg of my weight loss journey (I don't want to say it is the last leg because maintaining will be just as much of a journey).

Again, if you have any questions, or want a PDF of the chart, comment below or email me.

Wishing you health and happiness in 2015!

Remember, it can't just be a resolution; it needs to be a life style change. 

Twenty Fourteen: A Year in Review

What a crazy and amazingly awesome year of change we have had. The biggest change, if I allow myself an extra twenty six days prior to January 1, 2014, was the birth of our tiny human. We'll skip that first chunk and skip to the actual year we are reviewing, but it was a pretty big way to start a new year.

January found me on the second half of my maternity leave. One day truly blurred into the next, but it was wonderful and magical. I would have given anything to take more time off with her rather than go back to work when she was two months old, but you know the saying, "bills, bills, bills."

February and March were pretty routine with nothing too crazy happening. Little one went to daycare, we went to work, I picked her up from daycare and we spent our evenings fascinated by all the new things the wee one was learning. Infant development moves at light speed and is a marvel to witness.

In February I interviewed for a job at the same company Collin went to work for last December (ten short days after our baby entered the world). It was interesting and I was really interested in the opportunity. I even made it back for a second interview and got on famously with the manager. I thought for certain I was going to land it. Days turned to weeks, and suddenly it was April.

I hadn't heard anything and after a weekend of soul searching and discussion with my other half I had come to peace with staying at my job until I could get back into school and complete a degree. Literally not even two full days later after making this choice I found that I had a missed call while checking my phone at lunch. It was from Collin's company. I was kind of like, "Oh, hell no. I am not going through this again. I am at peace with where I am." By the time my day had ended at work I had ANOTHER missed call. This time it wasn't HR, it was the manager my second interview was with. I called them both back and was given an amazing job offer. I talked it over with Collin and agreed it was a great thing for all of us. I took it.

So the end of April brought a new job and a new commute. The next couple months were adjusting to a new routine and watching as our daughter began to do more and more things. Rolling, sitting, scooting, applied sciences, and spacial physics. Okay, maybe the last two are a stretch, but again, amazement abounds as we watch her grow and change.

July came and we began to entertain the idea of buying a house, and at the end of the month took the plunge to get pre-approved by our bank. The program they offered at our credit union was great, but we knew there had to be better options, and we were lucky enough to find one. After having looked at several open houses and scouring Zillow we met with an agent recommended to us by my boss. She was perfect. We went to look at one house that was completely misrepresented on the web... Like it was horrible.

The second house we went to look at was a foreclosure listed as eligible for "Home Path" financing; this typically is indicative of a home needing massive rehab. Our agent opened the door with extreme hesitation. We figured we'd look at it and it could give us at lease a good idea of whether we might like one of the identical houses for sale in the neighborhood. It's a newer development and it is a great place for a starter home while the kids are younger.

We were all shocked to find that the house was in overall great shape. There was some cosmetic things we wanted to correct, but otherwise it looked great. We went home and slept on it, and called our agent the next day to make an offer. Since it was bank owned we just went in at asking and the bank shocked us all by accepting the offer within less than  twenty hours. We set up the inspection and it went great so onward we went with financing.

The months following the offer until we moved are kind of a hazy blur. Beyond work, our days were filled with packing what we could when we could and trying to be patient while all the paperwork went through. The tiny minion popped out all eight of her first teeth in this time period, which was a fun adventure in and of itself. No joke, we didn't even know she was teething for the first four because that is the kind of awesome mellow child she is.

Around mid-October, I was offered a promotion. The unspoken condition was that I would need to spend three weeks being tortured as I learned all that I could from someone who has a completely different and almost incoherent thought pattern. It was a struggle as I am sure some of you remember from my posts. All in all I must applaud the fact that certain things the person had a really strong and well devised system for. I think she was just overwhelmed by it all.

Right around the time of the offer we were lucky enough to be able to have an early Thanksgiving dinner with a portion of my dad's side of the family, and it was wonderful and very therapeutic given all the upheaval in our lives at the time. A short time later (just before Halloween) we were advised that Collin's mom was beginning to transition and that they felt she only had a few days left. Well, stubborn, beautiful woman she was proved them wrong there.

As the torture time came to an end we finally closed on our house! It was the biggest sense of relief I had felt since delivering my healthy little monster. Closing combined with the end of my training was the best. To sweeten it all we were able to move before the holidays so we had plenty of time to really settle in.

Thanksgiving arrived and I was over the moon to get to spend time with so many of my loved ones. My mother's brother and his wife were in Oregon from Boston and it was amazing to see them. It had been over two years and they had yet to meet my baby girl face to face. After a joyous dinner I was blessed to be able to pick up my oldest niece and keep her for a couple days. She enjoyed playing with Emma and spending time with us. When we took her back home we went to the carousel and let monster try it out for the first time. She loved it!

Unfortunately the holiday was also a bittersweet when Thanksgiving morning we heard that Collin's mom was beginning to become unresponsive (yes, she held on for an entire month more than they expected). She passed away the morning of December 1st.

With these sad tidings, December became a blur of poor eating choices and celebrating life. My tiny toddler turned one, she got to see Santa at our company's Christmas party, and we had a lovely house warming/ birthday party. It was great to be able to fill our home with friends and family and just enjoy the awesomeness of owning our first home. In my last post I covered everything holiday related so I am not going to go into that all over again. But I will show your our holiday family photo and a picture of me with my little monster from Christmas morning.

Today is it. The last day of 2014. 2015 is looking to be a year of physical and financial goal achievement, but other than that we have no major plans in the works. I will be celebrating my 30th birthday in a month! I am excited for that.

Our focus in 2015 will be paying off the remaining debt we have, while putting small weekly chunks into savings to build our reserve back up, nurturing and spending time with our tiny demon spawn, making improvements on our home (both the yard and house; which I will try to share via photos and such as we go), and complete our fitness goals.

With regards to the fitness stuff, last night I had a wonderful idea on how to help keep us accountable and motivated. I will try and share this later today so that anyone interested can give it a whirl in the new year!

Phew, made it! Happy New Year!

In A Traditional Sense

The major holiday has officially come and gone. I must say it was a pretty great season this year. The only dark cloud that cast a shadow upon it all was the still fresh wound left by the loss of Collin's mom. But her passing was also a good reminder as to why we need to enjoy and cherish each moment we have.

I may not be religious in the traditional sense but we do believe very strongly in tradition and with the holiday season we have developed some pretty strong traditions and hope to build some new ones with the little one and future baby (hoping for numero dos in just under two years).

Here's a glimpse into our annual traditions.

Christmas lights go up the weekend following Thanksgiving. That's how it has been and how it will always be. The reason I am so staunch about this is that I insist on taking them down New Years Eve or Day.

The Christmas tree we are a bit more flexible about. We put it up three weeks before Christmas this year, but honestly I would rather keep it to about two weeks before the big day. It finally started to crap needles everywhere two days before Christmas and the cat was trying to eat them like a moron. So we removed the decorations and put it on the back deck.

Christmas Eve is Swedish Christmas with Collin's extended family. This is comprised of a bunch of extremely fatty foods and alcohol. The constantly present dishes are potato palt (potato dumplings with bacon in the middle) commonly served with melted butter, and Swedish meatballs made from scratch served with lingonberries. A new aspect to this tradition will forevermore be my bread pudding for dessert. The drink of choice for this get together is hot buttered rum. Next year, I hope the tiny demon will stay up for dinner and gifts. She was passed out shortly after six p.m.

Christmas morning I plan to continue the tradition Collin's mom had of frying the leftover palt and making Swedish pancakes for breakfast. This year we skipped the pancakes and had leftover bread pudding, but from here on out it will be pancakes. Then after breakfast it's time for gifts. This year was fun; about halfway through opening her presents the wee one got the idea that she needed to rip the paper to open her presents. Then she preferred playing with the paper over the presents themselves, but isn't that the way of it?

Christmas day or Boxing day (the day after) we do our dinner, which we have adopted the tradition of doing an English style roast dinner including Yorkshire puddings (equivalent to a popover). We make sure to pick up a pack of crackers (fun little party poppers filled with tissue paper crowns, toys, and jokes) and tend to have a great time with it all.

I think a new tradition will be our post holiday cleanse. Starting tomorrow we will be doing another mild juicing, and we will also be doing four weeks vegan eating. Well lacto/ovo-vegetarian at least. We are excited to try this and the money we save by not having meat for a month will be worth it in and of itself. If we truly enjoy this next month of meals we will probably do this once a quarter (one month of every three / four times a year). I will keep you posted on how the next weeks go.  The main reason for this much needed cleanse is to flush out the ten pounds of junk and bloat I have gained in the last week.

Yea, to say I feel gross is an understatement. The bloat is so bleh. And I know that is what it is, because when I weighed myself, though I feel like I gained fifty it's really only about eight to ten. Another thing I was really terrible about over the holiday week was not drinking enough water. Honestly, this whole month I was pretty bad about it.

Back on track I must get! My goal for the coming months is to drop six pounds (or more) each month. I am feeling confident and motivated to reach this goal finally. In my mind it is just as important (if not more so) as our financial goals. 2015 is lining up to be a year of goal achievement and awesomeness.

One thing I am committing myself to doing is putting small but regularly increasing increments of money into our savings account. I am trying that ever popular fifty two weeks savings challenge. The gist of it is you save a dollar amount equal to the number of the week; so week one you set aside one dollar, and week twenty four you set aside twenty four dollars. If you stick to this plan by the end of the year you will make a final deposit of fifty two dollars and have close to $1,400 saved. Pretty awesome? I think so.

To keep myself accountable on both the health and wealth goals for the year I will try to share where I am at with both goals via at least monthly updates.

In the next few days it will be time for the year in review for 2014, and what a crazy and exciting year it has been! Much love and best wishes from me to you!

Why Do Adult Humans Drink Milk?

Serious. What other mature mammal in the animal kingdom not only ingests milk past childhood but also ingests the milk of various other creatures instead of their own?  This was something that Collin and I briefly touched on one evening and I have been meaning to pose this question for sometime. (Well, I have for the last ten odd days, at least)

I think this query will replace my pondering on the point of why Canadian bacon, which isn't even called that in Canada, is on a Hawaiian pizza....

This post is going to be semi- split personality; one topic hilarious to keep it light and then a serious nugget betwixt the laughter. Just want you to be prepared. It's not all me being scatter brained.

I brushed against this next bit a couple posts ago and failed to revisit it as promised.

One thing that was extremely unexpected with my weight loss is a mild case of body dysmorphic disorder. I say mild because unlike a full blown sufferer it doesn't consume me. Part of me likes to just chalk it up to insecurity but I know it's a bit beyond that.

Since having lost the majority of the weight (still have about 65-75 lbs. I want to drop) I still have a hard time seeing me. I look in the mirror and I still see the 430 lb. me, not the 260 lb me. My clothes are smaller, people tell me constantly that it looks like the weight is falling off, yet still I see the old me more often than not when I look in the mirror. To top it off, when I am having a "bad" day it makes it harder to believe people when they tell me I am looking great.

I have to purposely take the time to look at pictures of me now versus pictures of me then. Even then it's hard. And don't mistake me sharing this as a cry for any sort of praise or such. It doesn't do anything to help me. This is more a moment where I hope by sharing this flaw of mine it will help someone else recognize an issue of their own. Regardless of what the mirror or other people say, one must learn to love and adore their own self. I have to remember this. I can shout from the roof how much I love myself and how happy I am with where I am from where I was, but there will always be the shadow of that 430 lb. girl looming over me. I will still see that in the mirror on a bad day, even once I achieve my goal and get the excess skin removed (got to give praise to the dude who had the balls to try a go fund me campaign... Might need to consider that in a few years). It's an ongoing struggle and I think it helps me knowing that it's there and acknowledging it.

Now for some fun, another glimpse into the talking points that fill my amazing marriage.

Again, I don't even remember why this happened. Something about blowing spit bubbles. I then went and said, "Oh my god, wouldn't that be a horrible stripper name? 'Spit Bubbles'? And it ain't because of her mouth!" We then fell into a fit of laughter. Yea, I know. We have a winning sense of humor, and you know you wish you had been there. I am trying to get better of noting these interludes so I can share these gems with you. Sometimes they are too funny and I have to run to the toilet before I can pee myself and then I forget to jot them down.

Last week, in an effort to socialize more with my new neighbors, I went to a holiday cookie exchange hosted by the lady who lives next door. It was great. I got to meet several gals that live around me, and learned that we all have small children that are close in age. One of them brought her adorable three month old daughter, and boy that did not help my baby fever at all. The most hilarious moment though was learning that the chick with the three month old knows my niece's dad because her husband co-manages the restaurant he works at with him. Small effing world. They live next door on the other side. Funny, funny, funny.

Since we plan to raise our family here I do plan to be involved with the community as much as possible. I think that is important, especially in smaller towns, but people in large cities need that community too. And I am going to back away from the soapbox now because I don't feel like having this discussion. I have baddies to kill in WoW.

Next post I will share some of our festive traditions and our meal plan for the next month. It's something we will probably start doing quarterly, like juicing, so stay tuned!

Shocking Facts and Musings Ending with A Simple No Yeast Pizza Dough

Okay, they are not all that shocking... Well, to me they aren't but to the unsuspecting public they could be.

Collin and I had a rather short but in depth talk about both our mental states and where we are in the grieving process and both of us recognize that we are the type of grievers that feel we need to fill the emptiness in our hearts with something. I mentioned this in my last post I think. Yea, we are each other's support system to keep us from doing something we normally wouldn't.

We also admitted we are both suffering from some pretty serious baby fever. Oooo, I bet that one was a shocker... No? Well it was to us when we admitted it to one another. It doesn't help that we know quite a few people who are expecting... Like at least half a dozen.  No, there will be no new Wilson Baby in 2015, so just cool your jets.

This brings me to the next observation:

Okay, first I just looked over at my cat to find her on this mountain of throw pillows and blankets on the couch.... She looks quite happy.

Okay, back to the observation: Kid's toys are a pain in the arse to wrap! I was wrapping all our gifts tonight, and as I am wrapping the wee one's I started having flash backs to wrapping my nieces' and nephew's gifts way back when.  It probably didn't help that I wrapped hers last AFTER wrapping everyone else's odd shaped gifts....

We had the tiny monster's one year appointment yesterday and I was happy to find that she has slowed down in growth. At her nine month she was in the 100% for height and 89% for weight and 96% for head circumference. At this check up she was 89% height, 82% weight and 86% head circumference. It's nice to finally have all her stats within a 10% range (7% technically).

Talked with her doctor about transitioning to milk, she said we could go forth and just cut out formula entirely, so we did. Today. She didn't seem any less content. Also, as she has only ever had her formula from a bottle, we eliminated those as well. She didn't seem to give a crap about the lack of bottles today.

Have I mentioned how much I love my little monkey? Seriously, we took them away cold turkey and she hasn't made a single fuss about it. I can't imagine having a more agreeable and easy going child. So I am prepared for future kid to be a little nightmare. Hahaha! No, I truly believe that we can have roughly the same outcome on demeanor in the early months if we stick to our style of parenting.

I am enjoying the tail end of my guilty holiday pleasure; Love Actually. I love this movie and could watch it a million times and never tire of it. We also shared the Labyrinth with the wee demon this evening, not that she actually paid attention to it at all. There were a couple of songs that almost sucked her in and that was about it. Maybe in a few years it will be more exciting for her.

The house truly feels like our home. I spent the better part of yesterday hanging some floating shelves on the living room wall around the TV and most all of our pictures are now hung in the hallway.

A week from now we are hosting our housewarming / the kid turned a year old party. With it ending up landing five short days from C day I'm thrown for a loop. What do I do for a theme? My thought? Nothing. There will be food and visiting and catching up and that's all I really want out of it.

Wednesday was crazy. I was feeling a little off and by the time we got home from picking up the kiddo at daycare I was beyond a little off. I pushed through and made dinner even though I almost burned it by needing to lay on the couch while it was cooking. I barely remember the evening. I couldn't remember where the thermometer was (still have a few boxes packed) so I used the little one's ear thermometer. I know, the thing really can't be inaccurate but I made myself think it was because I'm an adult... At one point it read 102.3 degrees... Many don't know this about me, but my internal temp has always ran lower than average. Typically I hover between 96.6 and 97.1 degrees. So I essentially had a "normal" person's fever of 104... Scary right? And then by bedtime I was down to 100 degrees and then when I woke up in the morning I was back to normal. The only other issues I had were some abdominal cramping and such that I will not expand on. No idea what happened. I think it may be tied to our crappy sleeping and stress and maybe a touch of food poisoning, but yea.... Weird. I know it freaked Collin out. I don't get fevers like that.... Ever. The one positive out of that little issue was I dropped all of my grieving weight......

Today was our company's children's holiday party. It was great fun. I was so proud when it was time for pictures with Santa, hell spawn did amazing! She didn't freak out, scream or cry! We couldn't get her to smile really but I'll take the no meltdown. She got a little gift bag with a little purple stuffed bunny and some coloring pages and such. We named the bunny Doug. One of his limbs was immediately being chewed on the moment he was placed in her hands. So I started calling it a new chew toy. Realistically, anything plush and fuzzy is just that for her while she is teething. Screw teething toys, give the kid a fleece blanket and she is good to go.... No joke.

Our company holiday luncheon was Thursday. Luckily, my appetite wasn't jacked after Wednesday's interlude. The lunch was catered by the Marriott and was amazeballs. Caesar salad, cheese tray, rice pilaf, green beans, beautifully cooked salmon, and some tangy sweet and sour meatballs (that's just what I partook of). And it was polished off with a wide array of yummy desserts. I had this light, decadent, chocolate mint cake. It was perfect. I really do enjoy working for this company because they really do value their employees and go above the societal norm to show them that. Side note: one of my team members celebrated her 35th year with the company and received a gorgeous diamond bracelet as a sign of their gratitude for her dedication, along with commemorative pin. Apparently they give pins out at the one year mark too (Collin should be due for his this week). It's just weird to work somewhere so employee oriented. It's also nice.

There was something else I was going to share but can't remember so I am going to tell you about the amazing pizza crust I made tonight using two (technically four) ingredients. Greek yogurt and self rising flour. It is really that easy. I personally don't keep self rising flour but found a nice quick fix for that so we'll go over that first. If you do not have self rising flour you can accomplish the same ends by pouring 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder into a one cup measuring cup and then filling the difference with plain old all purpose flour. The pizza dough recipe only calls for one cup of the self rising flour so you are good to go with that.

You mix the one cup self rising flour with one cup of greek yogurt. You can also add seasoning if you so choose. The recipe I found said to use a stand mixer on low for a minute to bring the dough together, but I don't see the point. I mixed mine with a rubber spatula by hand and it came together perfectly. While I was a-measuring and a-mixing the oven was a-preheating to 350 degrees F. Instead of greasing a cookie sheet I opted to use some parchment paper; what's great here is that you have something you can pull double duty with. I dumped the dough ball directly from bowl to parchment paper and then rolled it out with a floured rolling pin. Get it to your desired thickness then transfer it (parchment and all) to your pan/sheet.

The recipe I followed said to top and then bake for 20-30 minutes. I did mine for about 27 or 28 minutes. The crust was crisp-ish on the bottom and pretty chewy but not raw. Next time I may pre-cook the crust for about five minutes before adding the toppings... We'll see.

Considering the crust was so simple to pull together I must applaud it; this was the tastiest non-yeast pizza dough I have ever had. I strongly recommend it.

Now I am going to find some mindless thing to watch. Most likely a cooking show. I am really into Ree Drummond's Pioneer Woman right now.

They have a small collection of it on Netflix. Have a great night and enjoy your tomorrow! I know I will, baking and bath time for the little hellion.

350th Post: Phone Drinking Cyborg Baby

Wow. Three hundred and fifty posts. CAH-razy. I recently re-read my first post, titled "Jerk My Turkey Stick", because my dad had begun reading my blog, from the start and he said it made him laugh so hard it hurt. Totally reminded me why I began sharing my life and thoughts with you all.

My tiny toddler (title earned by being a year old AND because she is walking) is a cyborg. She is also one of the only tiny humans I know to have an iPhone 4s. It's really more a glorified iPod; it's kind of fried but still works on wifi and has a bunch of kids' apps.

But back to the cyborg tendencies of the child. We have two cases for her iPhone. One is a Fisher Price toy thing (see picture below), and the other is a silicone owl (see next picture).

The other day I gaze upon my wonderful offspring to find her holding the phone in the owl case like a juice box (for lack of better words) and tilting her head back like she was drinking from it. We then decided this meant she is a cyborg and that's why she sleeps so well. If she didn't sleep as much her batteries would run out so much quicker. I think she was trying to suck the juice from the battery. You know, have a little LI rush as opposed to a sugar rush.

Achievement unlocked: The tiny monster reached her first birthday!

So bizarre to think about her being a year old already. Even though there is no way she will remember it beyond us telling her and showing her pictures, I made sure it was still a special day. I threw together an easy peasy spice cake with purple funfetti frosting and we got her a couple of presents (something I had not intended to do but will explain further down below).

We brought her home from daycare and immediately had cake. Me being the prepared person I am (remembering other little ones' first birthday pictures) I put down two shower curtains from the dollar store to save on some of the clean up. The little prissy princess was almost disappointing in the way she approached the cake. Like, she gingerly scraped some frosting off with her little hand and tasted it, and that was it. She did eat some of the actual cake, but even with Collin trying to encourage her into smashing it she just wasn't having it. The only mess she made was when she leaned forward over her tray to look at her feet or something and smashed her chest into the cake. We wiped her down and changed her shirt.

Then it was time for the presents!

Again, little miss priss was so gentle and Collin had to help her unwrap her gifts. The first was the Fisher Price case mentioned above, and the second was a toddler size chair with a stuffed kangaroo sitting in it (she loves giraffes and kangaroos). See pictures.

She loves them both so much. She loves to snuggle the kangaroo and drag it around by the tail all the time. And she will climb in and out and in and out and up and down on the chair. I think we did good.

No lie, it was hard to divide up the things we bought her for her birthday and Christmas. We got her a couple of things for that holiday too.

Now, I will explain the scary issue I have that led me to buying gifts that I had no intention of purchasing. I mean, I will always want to give my children small things for birthdays and Christmas. Even if they don't need it. Other things that they want as they get older they will learn they have to work for, but this whole plan/philosophy of ours on how we parent our kid(s) is a whole post of it's own (and I don't need/want/expect anyone to agree with it).

Like I was saying, where some people sleep, or drink, or whatever when grieving I make irrational decisions. I am much better about it than I was say ten, hell even five years ago. If I was still that me I would have gained fifty pounds from eating everything in the last week, I would be smoking, we would have a new/unnecessary TV, we might be getting a puppy, and in a extreme move of reckless behavior I'd probably end up pregnant. Because all of those things would surely heal the pain of losing someone who was a prominent mother figure for me.

Yea, drinking would probably be the cheaper option.

Instead of all that I did pack on five pounds of bereavement weight as of Friday's hop on the scale and bought five gifts total for the demon spawn's first birthday and first real Christmas (I don't count last year since we were just out of the hospital). Much healthier than the old me would have coped.

I think the next post will touch on something serious that I am recognizing more and more in myself. Completely unrelated to my shopaholic tendencies: body dis-morphia. This is something I am really struggling with, especially with the current mild depressive state I am in. That five pounds I mentioned above feels/looks like thirty to me. Yea, that might give you an idea of how I still see myself. But we'll go over that next time.

Now I am going to have a healthy evening snack of stove top popcorn, and enjoy some Property Brothers.

It's Like Laxative for Your Soul

To say this week has been tough is an understatement. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that all that has happened has truly happened.

Collin and I have both been suffering from mild insomnia related to our emotional constipation. It seems different to grieve a loss when you have a small child in the picture; one that is completely unable to understand why mommy or daddy is so sad. That's one point where we put up a block. Then there is work; we know we are entitled to bereavement time, and we are taking it. In the same breath there isn't much we can bring ourselves to do to process this life altering event so we go to work, we focus on our duties and push through when a moment's daydream leaves us reeling and on the brink of tears. My only makeup since Monday has been waterproof mascara just to be safe. The time we have taken off we have thrown ourselves into various projects around the house. Collin tearing out the deck, me cleaning and putting things in their places (pictures and such).

Admittedly, we have not allowed ourselves the time to truly feel the loss. I know this is why sleep eludes us, and what does come is restless, fitful, and uncomfortable. Last night, the one semi- "decent" stretch I had I awoke from with a throbbing right arm after having slept on it completely wrong. I swore for a moment that I must've dislocated something.

Today, while on another painful and fruitless adventure, Collin asked what remedies there were to help with the sleeping. I mentioned melatonin (a good natural remedy) but that I wanted to try something else first. He agreed to try whatever I had in mind, so I told him. We need to pick the saddest movie in the world and watch it after the wee one is in bed. We hmmed and hawed about which one to watch and after researching online and seeing what we had readily available to us decided upon Marley and Me.

I know, you're asking how does a movie about a dog help cope with losing a mother. Well, it creates an outlet for you to really relate to and come to grips with the emotions you have been bottling up inside. It really pushed us to think about the pain and sadness of this loss. Even though we had seen the movie before and knew full well how it ended it still sparked the dynamite that blew the dam out of the way. By the end tears were flowing and paper towels were soaked. I know my husband well enough to know he will have no shame in me sharing this, but as Owen Wilson's character said goodbye to his beloved pup both of us were quietly sobbing.

It really brought that pain right up to the surface like a cork in a bowl of water. There was no way to push it back down.

I am now completely exhausted, but as I was starting the dishwasher and as I brushed my teeth all these thoughts about how amazing it felt to have that release began to swirl through my mind. I knew that if I didn't take a small chunk of time to pound this out on the plastic I would miss out on the benefits of feeling all those emotions.

I(we) will be sad for a good while; I am not delusional or sleep deprived enough to think that one good cry over a movie is going to heal the hurt in my heart. At least now, I feel like I am allowing myself to mourn.

It's not all sad though. I am hoping to share another post with you in the coming days. I could share things and thoughts now, but they are so completely contrasting to this that I feel it better saved for its own. The joy of life deserves just as much recognition as the sadness. Never have I experienced them working separately. Where ever the pain is, so too is the joy.

A Dandelion Puff In a Hurricane

That's about how I am holding together.

It still seems surreal that my mother in law is no longer with us. I mean, I knew it would happen soon but now that it has it just doesn't seem like it's possible. I have to really think about what day it is, or what day tomorrow is. It feels like forever since it happened, and then it feels like it was barely seconds ago since we heard the news. She passed away Monday morning.

I was expecting it to be hard.

My mother in law was more of a mother to me than I can ever explain. We spent so much amazing time together, and it pains me more than anything that my little monster will never know the wonderful woman that she was. One solemn thing I can vow is that she will hear all that we can possibly share with her about her grandmother. Every story, every recipe, every crochet pattern I will share with her and our future kid.

I try not to dwell too much on the end of her life because it just doesn't seem right that she went out that way. If you knew her at all, you knew she was a pistol. Of course now I am thinking of the movie Big Fish and the song by Yellowcard "How I Go." She was a thrice married, green peace loving, conservative liberal, quilting, crocheting, knitting, baking, smoking, coffee drinking, red meat eating, adopted a baby from Korea (sorry to let the cat out of the bag), bad ass mother fucker. One thing that stayed pretty true to the end - she wouldn't think twice about telling you what's what.

One of my favorite stories about mom was from when Green Day played the Auditorium in Salem years ago. She was working the event (as her and Collin had done numerous times) and was out back having a smoke. Hot damn if Billie Joe Armstrong didn't come out there and start chatting with her. She talked with him and then as he was going back in he thanked her for listening and talking to him like any other person. Well, the joke was on him -  she had no freaking clue who he was. Kills me every time.

Last night as I was trying to process, but not process all of the emotional storms rolling inside me. I really needed to find a picture of her smiling. Any picture; just some proof to remind myself that she wasn't always the scared and confused, bed ridden woman that we would visit on the weekend for the last few months. I knew that such photos existed from our wedding, but having just moved who the hell knows where they may have ended up. I know where some physical photos are; in the garage stored away on the storage shelves above the garage door, but to get to those I risked waking Emma in the process should my clumsy ass drop anything. I have no idea where the digital copies wound up, I know I saw the disc when we were packing before the move, but who's to say what box it was in.

As some may have seen I vented this frustration to the world, and the sweet rescuing angel that is Collin's aunt responded. She messaged me that she would find what she could and send them to me. Her husband was the photographer at our wedding. Plus, she was her sister. She pulled through in the biggest way. The following photo is one of my absolute favorites because it is completely candid and genuine. She didn't even know she was being photographed whilst talking to the mother of one of my dear friends.

She looks so beautiful and happy in this picture.

His aunt also sent me several other photos from much earlier in mom's life. I am hoping to have many of them printed and framed. I mean it when I say I want my kids to know about this spectacular woman.

This is a picture (again from our wedding day) of Collin, his mom and his sister.

So many memories jockeying for position in my mind. This may turn into a series of posts and stories. I am too emotionally exhausted to write out anymore tonight.

Tomorrow we are getting together with his aunt and sister. We are both off on bereavement tomorrow, but I am going to slip into work in the wee hours for about an hour to get some critical things done. Things I can't do remotely. I imagine we will be discussing plans for a celebration of life. We had planned our house warming/the kid is one party for this weekend, but postponed it following the news of mom's departure from this plane of existence.

As we are all reminded when we or someone we know suffers the loss of a loved one:
Hold those who matter closest, and always let them know how much you love and care. Whether the end is expected or not, you never have enough time.