Weight Loss Has Made My Boobs Deflate

So I'm down a few more pounds. Officially, 197.2. Which, I hit on my scale at home on Christmas morning, but Christmas and New Year's indulgences pushed me back up a few pounds. But, the official Weight Watchers scale says 197.2, and I'm keeping it. For reals, I'm down a pants size. I'm in 14's now. Comfortably in 14's. They fit, there's room in the butt, room in the legs. Let's say they aren't sausage casings. It seems however, that the largest part of my weight loss has come off my boobs. This isn't the best. I was a 42D. Now, I'm a 38 B/C. My boobs are seriously deflating. I love my kids, but 18 combined months of breastfeeding has certainly taken it's toll.

Cut Down on Spending Money Week 1

I've put a goal to myself to stop spending money on work lunches. This week I brought my lunch from home 4 out of 5 days. The day I missed, I actually made my lunch, but forgot about it, and left it in the fridge (Mondays, they're a bitch).

Money that I Spent (outside of necessary items, like household food)
Monday- Lunch from Q'doba- $7
Wednesday- It was my turn to buy the office candy- $20
Thursday- Bought The Brothers Sisters from Amazon, Kindle Daily Deal, $1.99. I heard it was good.
Friday- Breakfast sandwich- $5 (we ran out of eggs when I put together a bread pudding last night)
Total: $35.99

Things That Are Going To Screw Up My Budget

Philosophy. They have a good sale going on, and while I don't exactly NEED anything right now, I WANT some things right now. But, I'm resisting. So far.

Old Navy. Again, things I WANT rather than NEED. So, I've been doing the old fill up the online cart, and then forget about it trick.

So, why am I saving money? Well, the time has come to take my darling children to Disneyland. We've promised them this trip for Christmas 2014. That gives me a little over a year to sock away money, and do this trip right, because we're only going once. I have no love lost for Disney. The thought of spending thousands of dollars on this trip to hang out in lines with horrible screaming children- my own and other people's- basically gives me hives. To even begin to deal with this, I'm taking my parents along for moral support. That means we need three hotel rooms, or a family suite and a room. I can't sleep for a week in the same hotel room as my kids. I just can't. So, it's adjoined rooms or a family suite for us, and a separate room for my parents. My Dad also has limits, and staying in a hotel room with children is one of them. My Dad also will not be going to Disney. He'll hang at the hotel pool or find other things to occupy his time. He did Disney with us when we were children, he has no want to do Disney with his grandchildren.

Kid's Writing Prompt

My kindergartener's teacher does a daily writing prompt with them, just to have them get in the habit of writing sentences. I got the April booklet home yesterday, and I was looking at them with my daughter. My favorite was "If I Won a Lot of Money." Avery's response was classic Avery:

If i wone alot of mony i wold bue a car. Becus mom is meen and wont bue me a car.
Translation: If I won a lot of money, I would buy a car. Because Mom is mean and won't buy me a car.

Avery is 5. We've not yet had the car discussion with her. I don't know where her response came from. I clarified with her that she meant a car to drive, not a play car. So, she still has 11 years before that happens. My husband and I died laughing at this one. The logic and scheming of this child is frightening. She will probably rule the world one day.

Birthday Party Goodie Bags

Dear Readers-
Last weekend, I made a shocking and momentous decision. I refused to spend an ungodly amount of money on goodie bags for my daughter's 10th birthday. Now, I know what you're thinking "But how did you manage that? Did you not care what the **other** parents will say about you? Do you want your daughter's friends to think you are a cheapskate?" And, the truth is- everyone can go fuck off.

The birthday party itself put us back about $250. But it was $250 well spent. My three kids and a dozen of my daughter's friends went bowling. Two hours of unlimited bowling, pizza, soda and a cake. The best part was NO ONE CAME TO MY HOUSE. Yup, I didn't have to clean a thing. And, there was a definite start and end time, so I wasn't stuck with extra kids for extra hours. On top of that, built in activity! So I didn't have to plan anything. Greatest birthday party ever.

Then, the gift bags. I don't know about you, but extravagant goodie bags seem to be the norm out here. Probably $5-$10 per kid, per bag. That's ridiculous. And, my kids (and probably yours) do not need piles of candy and crappy plastic toys. Toys that break on the way home, or are abandoned in the family room two minutes after they get home, and I have to throw them away without the kid seeing or much drama ensues. So, I bucked the trend. The birthday package included bowling pin shaped goodie bags. I got some, not much, candy on clearance at Walmart. Gave each kid 6 pieces of snack size candies- Milky Way, Butterfinger and Take5- and that was IT. I'm done with extravagant goodie bags. Done with them.

Please parents, join me in the goodie bag revolution! No more crappy plastic toys! No more pounds of candy!

Stand Strong!
New England Girl

I'm Going to do this NaBloPoMo Thing...

November is here, meaning it's NaBloPoMo. Which basically means I'm really attempting to blog everyday this month, just for the heck of it. As you can see by my very sparse posting history, I'm not very good at blogging on a regular basis. Sure, I read a bunch of blogs. But write one myself? Not so much.

So, in the case that I actually get a reader or two, here's a quick background sketch all about me!

• I married my high school sweetheart at the ripe old age of 22. We celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary this year (I think the traditional gift for the 12th year is a 12 pack of beer), and have been together for 17 years.
• We have three school age daughters, all of whom were born before I turned 29.
• The hubs and I grew up in Massachusetts, lived in Rhode Island for a few years, and finally moved to the Phoenix metro area in 2001. 
• We are rabid fans of all New England sports teams
• I read a LOT and I have a huge Goodreads account to keep track of what I have read and plan on reading- Goodreads- keen23
• I don't take life too seriously. Shit happens and you can't let it bog you down. 

Thing I learned today- IHOP has pumpkin pancakes! I'm trying to keep down my carb intake (said as I finish two pieces of nutritionally bereft, but oh so delicious golden slices of white bread toast with ample butter) but now I can't stop thinking about them! We're totally going to IHOP sometime this weekend.

Other thing I learned today- If you attempt to save money and buy the cheap cat food, not only will it stink up your house, but the cat will refuse to eat it, and will intentionally knock it off the top of the dryer, because he's a jerk. (I think I forgot to mention the anti-social 12 year old cat who lives with us. Yeah. Him. We've had him since 2000, and he's survived 4 moves with us. He's more spoiled than the children. Also, everyone feeds their cat on top of the dryer, right?)

So, that's what's happening here.

Not Really A Single Parent (But It Feels Like It)

My husband is a chef. He's been in kitchens since he was 14. It's the only job he's ever done in his life, and so far seems to be the only job he'll ever do. From the first time we even got together (at the ripe old age of 17) I knew that we wouldn't be one of those couples who would be home at the same time for most of the week. I was fine with that- I'm one of those people who likes to be alone at times and I thrive on setting myself in a regular routine. Up until 2009, my husband worked at stand alone restaurants or in the hotel industry. This meant that nights, weekends and holidays it was pretty much a lock that he'd be working and I'd be home alone with the kids. Again, I knew this when I signed up for the gig as wife of a chef.

In 2009, this changed. He went into corporate dining (for privacy's sake, I won't mention the name, but it's a big company). This meant a bigger salary, better benefits, and supposedly "more family time." As in, in theory, he works Monday-Friday, 6:00 AM to 5:00 PM (pretty normal hours for a corporate chef). In practice he works from 5:30 AM until 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, or even 9:00 at night. I would be fine with this if there was some sort of consistency. There's nothing worse in not knowing when he's going to be coming home. It sets the kids off- they always ask "when will Dad be home?" Sometimes he's home for dinner, sometimes he makes it home for goodnight stories and other times he doesn't get home until they are already asleep. In a way, I would rather he not be home until after they are in bed all the time. We have a routine, and when he comes home randomly, it just screws with the routine.

We had a talk about this issue this week. I honestly told him that I need him to be more consistent. And if he was going to be home after 6:30 but before 8:00, he should delay until after 8:00. This didn't go over well. But honestly, I can't deal with it. Dinner to Bedtime is awful in our house. Adding him to the mix randomly doesn't work.

Things My Kids Sing

Remember this gem of a song from the 1990's?

We listen to 90's on 9 almost every morning waiting for the bus. As a result, my 4 year old went off to Preschool singing "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. But only the line that goes "If you wanna be my lover" which was absolutely inappropriate, but hilarious at the same time. And, she was on loop, so it was the same line over and over and over again. "Mama, I love this song!" she told me.

Two Turtles in Love

We took the kids to the Zoo this weekend. One where you can feed the giraffes. Avery was terrified of them, and the baby llama in the petting zoo. The giraffe I guess I can understand- it's head was as big as she was. But the baby llama? It's too fricking cute to be afraid of. It doesn't run, it BOUNCES, I kid you not.

Also, we must have been there during prime Tortoise mating season, because the tortoises were getting it on all over the Zoo. And, let me tell you, tortoises are loud and grunty lovers. It brought about all sorts of fun questions like "How come that turtle is taking a ride on the other ones back?" And "Is the Mommy turtle giving her baby a piggy back ride?" I seriously should have videoed it.