“What the EFF?”

Most days I try to pack lunch for my son but today we were running late, so I told him to buy lunch. I picked him up from school that afternoon and this is how our conversation went:

Me: What did you have for lunch today?

Him: Oh, it was really good, I had pancakes and bacon. I also had eggs but they weren’t that good.

Me: What was wrong with them?

Him: They were kind of lumpy, not as good as yours.

Me: Did you eat them?

Him: I ate some but I mostly pushed them around my plate and in my mind, I was like “What The EFF?”.

Me: (Trying not to laugh) You said what?

Him: No mommy, not out loud just in my mind, like inside my head.

Me: Do you know what that means?

Him: Frick

Me: (Sigh of relief) Okay, well it’s not a nice thing to say and let’s try not to say it again.

Him: But I only said it in my mind….

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Mommy Moments

I had a moment the other day when I realized just how differently men and women think. Here are the scenarios that played out at my house:

 

Scenario 1:

Woman: I am hungry, I think I will go get a snack. She opens the pantry door and looks around. She finds that there are two packages of cookies and a bag of chips. She thinks, if I eat those snacks the kids won’t have anything to pack in their lunches. I don’t really need a snack anyway; I don’t need the extra calories. I really want to start eating better. I need to go grocery shopping, I should go make a grocery list. 

 

Scenario 2:

Man: I am hungry, I think I will go get a snack. He opens the pantry door and looks around. He finds that there are two packages of cookies and a bag of chips. He thinks, perfect cookies and chips. Picks up the snacks and walks away, leaving the empty boxes in the pantry.

True story.

Happy Birthday to Me

I am going to keep this short because today is my birthday. Today I got to do something most moms never get to do… NOTHING! I got to sleep-in and when I finally decided to get out of bed, I enjoyed my cup of coffee in peace and quiet. I sat on the couch and caught up on my favorite shows without interruption. I took a long shower and used all the hot water. I shaved my legs, which honestly, was way overdue. I got dressed, put on make-up and did my hair without having to rush out the door.

This may not seem like much to most people but if you’re a mom, you understand. I recommend this to all moms out there, it not only gives you a moment to breathe and recharge your batteries; it helps put things in perspective. At the end of the day when it was time to pick up my kids from school, I couldn’t wait to see them and give them a big hug. It gave me a new appreciation for everything that I have and helped me to see how blessed I am. Happy Birthday to me… best present ever!

Saving Mommy Money

I am always looking for ways to save money. I try to put aside the money we save to do fun vacations with the kids. Here is a few things that I do to save some cash…

CLIP COUPONS. I would not consider myself an EXTREME couponer but I like to combine the coupons with sales or deals and stock up. These days they make couponing so easy, you don’t need to buy a newspaper anymore. You can get digital coupons right on your phone or you can print them right off your computer. I love to use Coupons.com because they pull all the coupons from different websites and put them in one place. So it makes it really easy to find the specific item you are looking for. The best thing to do is match a store coupon with a manufacturer coupon and get double the savings. For example, I was buying the Gerber Organic Baby Food pouches. Publix was running a sale for 8 pouches for $10. I found a Publix coupon for Buy 3 Get 1 free and Coupons.com had a coupon for $1 off six pouches. If you do the math, after my coupons, the pouches were only .81 cents each.

REBATE APPS. These apps save you money after you buy groceries. There is two apps that I like to use is Ibotta and Checkout51. I am sure there are other rebate apps out there but I have found that these are the easiest to use. After you shop, just open the app and select the items that you just purchased. Scan the item’s bar code and then take a picture of your receipt. Just like that money will be added to your account. You have to have $20 to cash out. They will send you a check or you can choose gift cards. Most of the time they offer bonuses on items, so you will earn $20 sooner than you think. Also if you use my referral code pyqubba you will get a $10 bonus! It only takes a few seconds, I like to do it while I am putting my groceries away. Why not save money on items your already buying?

REWARDS CREDIT CARDS. This can be a tricky one because you don’t want to put yourself in debit. The only time I recommend that you look into rewards credit cards is if you are already planning to make a large purchase and you have the cash to back it up. For example when my husband and I get our tax return, we always do big home improvement projects. One time we wanted to re-rock our driveway and we knew it was going to cost around $3,000. After shopping around, I signed up for a Marriott Rewards Credit Card. We charged the rock on the credit card, then paid it off right away. Doing that we earned 80,000 bonus points, which gave us more than 5 nights free at a hotel for our vacation.

Pet Peeve

Pet peeve is such a strange term, since it has nothing to do with pets. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary it is defined as something that a particular person finds especially annoying. I consider myself a pretty laid back person, for the most part I don’t let a lot of things bother me. However there are a couple of things that I find especially annoying.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store for only a few items. I walked in the door and grab a basket, not a cart, because I was only getting a few items, right? Well like most visits to the grocery store, I over filled my basket with more stuff than I really needed. So I struggled to the check out with an overfilled, heavy basket. The lines were long, which was okay, I picked a line and stood there. As I got closer to the checkout, the woman in front of me put her groceries on the belt, while the person in front of her paid. I was able to set my heavy basket down on the edge of the belt but I could not unload my groceries onto the belt because she did not lay down a divider! I could not reach for one unless I invaded her personal space and reached over all her groceries. As we stood their, she could clearly see that I was waiting for a divider to unload my groceries. Come on people how hard is it to have the courtesy to put a divider behind your groceries, so the next person can start unloading their groceries!

Another thing that is especially annoying to me is when someone ask you, ‘Did you know that you have a huge pimple on your face?’ I feel saying in the most sarcastic tone possible, No I forgot to look in the mirror today and I didn’t feel the giant red crater on my face but thank you for drawing attention to it!  Just a Public Service Announcement to everyone out there, if someone has a giant pimple on there face, THEY KNOW ITS THERE, you don’t have to tell them. Unfortunately my husband and kids are guilty of doing this to me because they have no filter. I am sure they have the best intentions but it still drives me crazy.

 

Week 7 & 8 Weigh-In

In my last Weigh-In post, I said that I needed to start working out more. Well to be brutally honest that didn’t really happen in Week 7 but in Week 8 we decided to paint the outside of our house. That counts as a workout right? It sure felt like a workout. The day after I could feel muscles I haven’t felt in a very long time. Even though it took me a few days to recover, I felt really good. It has really encouraged me to get more active.

This week was the first week that people have started to notice my weight loss. There is no better feeling than someone saying to you, “You look good, have you lost weight?” It took 8 weeks and 12.5 lbs for the people around me to notice. So even when you feel like giving up because you feel like it’s not making a difference, just stick with it, it takes time. It’s a slow process.

My Week 7 Weigh-In results were not good, only .5 lbs lost and I was starting to feel discouraged. I just kept doing what I needed to do, hoping that it would pay off in the end. My Week 8 results were much better and has renewed my faith in the process. I lost 2 lbs in Week 8. That puts my total weight loss at 15 lbs in 8 weeks!

Another WIN this week is that my current weight is now 179, so I am officially in the 170’s! I still have about 25 lbs to lose to reach my goal but I feel confident that I can eventually get there.

Week 5 &6 Weigh-In

I pretty much got the diet down to a science, it’s basically the same routine everyday. Oatmeal for breakfast, fruit or veggie snacks, Lean Cuisine lunch, yogurt snack and a sensible dinner. Sometimes I mix it up, if I get tired of something or I have a craving. I really need to work on making exercise a priority. I was walking in the afternoons but lately my afternoons have been too busy with other activities.

Week 6 was hard because it was Valentine’s Day. My husband and I have been married for 13 years. We don’t do the over priced gifts or the over crowded restaurants on Valentine’s Day. We are perfectly content staying at home. He usually cooks me a nice dinner and I usually make dessert. This year he made me delicious steak and lobster dinner, better than I have had at any restaurant. He knows that I have been working really hard to lose weight, so he made a salad to go with it. Then I decided to make a chocolate cake for dessert and that is when my will power went out the widow. It was self sabotage. This is the first time in 6 weeks that I have fallen off the wagon. It happens, it’s over and I am back on track. I can’t change it, so I just have to learn from it and move on.

Week 5 I lost .5 pound and Week 6 I lost 1.5 pounds, so that gives me another 2 pound loss. It’s not as good as I want it to be but at least the scale is moving in the right direction.

Mommy Mode

When one of my babies are sick, I go into automatic mommy mode. This Mommy mode allows me to take care of my sick baby at any cost. When my baby needs extra love and comforting, it doesn’t matter how tired I am or how many other things I need to do. Most of the time I end up catching whatever sickness they have because nothing will stop me from holding them in my arms and kissing them when they need it most.

It is amazing to me this instinct that women have, that allows us to do things that we never thought were possible. When I was a young girl growing up, I was never one of those girls that day dreamed of getting married and having children. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I wanted those things, I was just more focused on going to college and having a career. So when I met the love of my life at 21 years old, got married at 22 years old and had my first child at 24 years old, you can imagine how fearful I was of the future. I was only fearful because of the unknown. Was I going to be a good wife? Was I going to be a good mom? Can I take care of another human being?

It’s normal to have fears as a mom but I promise the automatic mommy mode will kick in and you will look back and think, how did I survive that? Whether you’re up all night feeding a newborn baby or you’re up all night comforting your sick child, just remember that even though it feels impossible, we are built for this. Maybe it’s a chemical reaction in our brains, maybe is adrenaline, I don’t know the science behind it, I just know that it is there to get us through the hard times.

Monday Blues

I just have to take a moment to vent… I HATE MY JOB. Yes, I have a full time job. As much as I like blogging, it doesn’t pay the bills. I am stuck in a career that is male orientated, where women are not taken seriously. I am stuck at a desk all day long, in a room with tan walls and no windows. Like most people in the world, I am over worked and under paid. When I am at work I don’t complain, I just keep my head down and do my job but I still have to listen to everyone around me complain.

There are days that I dream about marching into my boss’s office and quitting. Then reality hits and I am back in the real world, where I have bills to pay and children to feed.  It wasn’t always like this, there was a time when I love my job. When I thought I was making a difference and actually helping people. I was focused and wanted to work my way up the ladder. Then it seemed like the further I got up the ladder, the more I got screwed. Now I wish I could go back down the ladder where things were simpler.

I feel like life is too short to spend most of your day at a job that you hate but what am I supposed to do? I can’t quit a job I have been in for over 10 years and start at square one. It’s like being in a long-term relationship, you get to a point where there is no turning back. You have invested so much time and effort, and you don’t want it to be for nothing. I have built up so much vacation time and I hold the health insurance for my family. Maybe this is just the Monday blues or maybe everyone hates there job and that’s just how it is in the real world. How am I supposed to encourage my children to go to college and find a job that they love, when I am not sure that really exist?

Week 3 & 4 Weigh-In

I haven’t been able to post for over a week because I have been very busy at work. There was not much to post from last week anyway. I was very disappointed in my Week 3 Weigh-In. I have been strict about my diet, I only give myself one cheat meal a week. For some reason I only lost .5 pound in Week 3. I couldn’t believe it when I looked at the scale, all I could think was all this hard work for a half pound, it wasn’t worth it! I decided to suck it up, put on my big girl panties and move on. I wasn’t going to let one weigh-in discourage me.

Week 4 was off to a good start, I have been eating a lot of fruits and vegetables because they are 0 points on Weight Watchers. Yes, above is an actual picture of my snack and yes it is in my car, I wasn’t lying about being busy. Not a lot of exercising, just a few walks/runs in the evenings. I know I need to drink more water but I don’t like water, so I am working on that. I joined a Facebook group of girls that are on the same weight loss journey, so we encourage each other. It is nice to have a support system and see that they are going though the same things I am. So weigh-in day has come and I was not hopeful. When I stepped on the scale I could not believe my eyes, I lost 4 pounds! That puts my current weight at 183.8 pounds. My total weight loss after 4 weeks on Weight Watchers is 10.2 pounds!

I know 10.2 pounds seems like a lot and a realistic, so I know that not all months will be like this one. I am just going to keep going and do the best I can, that is all I can ask of myself.