Indigo Girl

My Legs Hurt

I have had such a week at work. Part of it was great and part of it was horrible and I am all done processing it. The thought of summing it up again makes me tired, so please forgive me for being cryptic. I'm glad it's over.

After all that, I knew I had to run today and I ran the farthest I've run since getting plantar fasciitis: 7.7 miles! (I really want to round up to 8 miles, but it's not quite close enough, and I don't want to round down to 7.5 miles because I ran MORE than that and I want credit for it.) Aside from the 3-5 seconds I stopped for a red light and traffic, I ran the entire time - no walk breaks. My foot feels fine today and if it feels okay tomorrow, I'm going to continue to increase my distance. My legs and butt hurt, but it's a good kind of hurt. I hope I can walk tomorrow. 

I picked the girls up from school today and we got shamrock shakes from McDonald's. They are so delicious (please don't tell me what's in them - I already had to record the calorie count in My Fitness Pal) and I figured it was about time to introduce my children to them. Then we went to the school skating party which was about as fun for me as you'd expect.

If you use Google Reader then you know they are retiring it for some reason on July 1. I haven't read anything about why they are no longer offering a popular service, so I don't know the business behind the decision. If you use another RSS reader that will work on a computer and a phone AND you like it, please make your recommendation.

Bananas and (Non) Creepy "Dates"

A bought two bunches of bananas at exactly the same level of green-yellowness, so they were all perfect to eat at the same time and only 3/5ths of us eat bananas. C, E, and I made a valiant effort, but I had three too brown ones and made a breakfast cookie someone posted on Fbook:

2 smashed up bananas, 1 cup of quick oats, and a handful of chocolate chips and/or nuts. Form into 16 cookies and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

I don't know HOW she got 16 cookies, but whatever. They are not bad fresh out of the oven. I'll see how they are in the morning.

I stopped my food diary for a week and then came back to it. I don't think I'll continue more than another month or so - logging on My Fitness Pal is going well and I'm still losing weight - but I'll do it for a while yet. I've been doing a better job with portion size when I pause before eating my meal and really look at the food instead of just shoveling it in. I used to be planning how to get seconds before even finishing firsts. Now I do a kind of cheesy visualization of the food in my stomach and how that is enough to fill me up. It helps.

I had an epiphany the other day that I wrote about on my food diary. Basically, I was unable to resist the Costco cake in the break room, but instead of feeling guilty about it, I enjoyed the hell out of it and then went back to eating mindfully. I didn't figure "Oh, today is worthless now. I may as well eat this whole gallon of ice cream!" This is a huge step forward for me, because, frankly, I don't want to live in a cake-less world and I have to fight that all-or-nothing mentality.

 We went to a school Valentine's Dance last night. E and L are on the cusp of ditching us for their friends - next year for sure. This year they still wanted to dance with us and be near. There were enough parents willing to cut a rug that it was good, clean fun.

Today I ran six miles and then L and I went out for lunch. A and I have been talking about doing regular one-on-one things with the kids now that we have less tag team parenting, but it wasn't until Moxie and I were arguing about using the word "date" in this situation that I finally decided to do it.

(For the record, I think date can be a nonromantic time - like a movie date with a friend or a lunch date with my daughter - and she thinks it's weird/creepy to use the word date when it's not romantic and insinuated that it's incestuous to use it re: parent-child time. We decided we have a different connotation of the word date. If I said, "I had a lunch date with L today!" it would be no different to me than if I said, "I went out to lunch with L today!" or "I hung out with L today! We got lunch together." Usually I am on the side of creepy/inappropriate, so it's odd to be on the other side.)

 Anyway, L and I discussed how weird it is that urinals aren't in stalls and played a zillion games of tic tac toe while waiting for our food. Then we wandered around a craft/fabric store and finished by getting frozen yogurt. 

Cold Weather Hurdler

I ran 5.5 miles yesterday morning. It was cold (10 degrees) and not everyone had shoveled their sidewalk. I sometimes ran in the street, sometimes pretended that I was running over sand or through mud, and always was an Olympic hurdler when leaping over snowbanks. Usually when I run that far without having run recently, I get shin splints, but I only have sore butt muscles today. I consider that a win. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. It was slow and I had to be careful not to slip, but it was a great run.

After knitting the ruffle scarf for L, I knit the same yarn differently and made a shawl for C's doll. You're supposed to use two skeins to make a person-sized thick scarf, but I didn't have any more and I think it fits the doll well.  I started a easy bag that required me to cast off and on in the middle of a row. I messed up the first time, so I did it a couple times with my practice yarn and then started my project again. Here's what I have so far: 

I'm excited because it actually LOOKS like half of a bag. I think the hard part will be lining it and sewing it up evenly. There are also instructions to knit a little flower for decoration.

After lunch, we drove to a suburb for an ice festival. It was kind of lame, but we met friends there, so that part was fun. We were waiting to watch the crazy people jump into the icy water, but the children were distracted by throwing chunks of snow into the water flowing from the dam. If you ask them, this was probably the highlight.

A couple toddlers wandered over, wanting to be like the big kids, and my kids were so sweet with them - they gave them little chunks of ice and showed them how to toss them into the water.

We left the festival to go to an awesome sledding hill on that side of town. It has a really tall, steep, fast hill on one side and then a double hill on the other. L went over a big bump the first time down (I was in front of her and heard a group of people gasp when she hit) and injured her back. She spent the rest of the time crying, first because of pain and then because of disappointment. When we got home, I have her some ibuprofen and she soaked in the tub for awhile. She emerged in a much better state of mind.

A left to run some errands and brought home delicious burgers from the hole-in-the-wall deli around the corner. After we put the kids to bed, we watched Rachel Getting Married and I started knitting my bag. 

Braiding

I did a 5 strand braid in L's hair yesterday: 

It turned out well, didn't it? I used this video and it was a lot easier than I thought. I attempted a waterfall braid in E's hair today and was successful! God bless You Tube videos and all those lovely creative people who make tutorials. I have no natural hair talent.

It's 8:30 pm when I'm writing this and I am totally exhausted. I took an awesome strength class today where we did sets of 12 and kept adding on. So we did 12 squats and then 12 lunges on each leg. Then we did 12 squats, 12 lunges on each side, and then 12 chest presses. Then we did squats, lunges, chest presses, dead lifts. And on and on until we were doing squats, lunges, chest presses, dead lifts, overhead triceps, a squat with a bicep overhead extension, a shoulder thing where your arms make a W and lift overhead to an O, a modified burpee, and a couple others I'm forgetting. It fools you because you think, "Oh! Just 12! No biggie!" and you use heavy weights and a heavy bar and work hard and then you are going through the cycle for the eighth time and she's still adding stuff and it's brutal. I stayed for step class afterward and I could tell my legs were already exhausted. It was a seriously great workout.

I went grocery shopping after the Y, unpacked the groceries, and then made all the food in the entire world ever. I made bacon and waffles and these went into the freezer for Wednesday night brinner. Then I made black bean soup for tomorrow. I made mashed sweet potatoes for my lunches this week and butter chicken and rice for dinner tonight. I made school lunches and snacks for tomorrow and then I cleaned everything up. (<--cleaning up is the worst)

I picked the girls up from school and we conquered multiplying double digit numbers. E slowly worked her way through a worksheet and I could tell she was frustrated. Part of it was her saying angrily, "I am SO FRUSTRATED," and part of it was her quiet sobs. I offered help, but she kept plugging away. I gave her a cookie (FOOD IS LOVE) and told her how my mom used to "accidentally" break a cookie and then say, "Oh my! We can't serve this to a guest! I guess I'll have to eat it myself! It's a sacrifice I'll make."

When she finished the worksheet I checked her answers and she got ONE right. ONE. Out of twelve. Her sobs increased. We took a break and ate dinner before tackling it again. This time I wrote out the problems on a new sheet of paper (the erasing and rewriting! How can I see anything?) and had her talk her way through the problems so I could hear her reasoning, like "Okay, four times six is twenty-four, put the four down, carry the two . . ." It became obvious almost immediately that she was occasionally multiplying when she should have added (and vice versa) and/or forgetting that extra zero in the second line. Her answers had all been really close to correct, so I figured it would be something fixable. She cheered up when she was allowed to double check herself with the calculator and I heaped praise upon her for her perseverance and excellent attitude despite her discouragement. 

I think she's hit a maturity growth spurt, because I've heard her staying calm while fighting with L and saying things like, "L. You just hit me with a ball. Who wants to play with someone who does that?" and "I'm very frustrated because I asked C not to color in this area and she has." Thumbs up.

Food Diary

I feel like I have a pretty good idea about my main faults (stubbornness, need to be right, insensitivity when sensitivity is inconvenient, quick temper, pride . . . I could go on, but this is getting kind of depressing) and it's come to my attention that I'm perfectly capable of lying to myself about what I eat. I can totally negate a half dozen cookies without even blinking. I can ignore that a serving of pasta is one cup and a serving of garlic bread is two slices. I can tell myself that I'm estimating a cup of pasta when it's clearly more and that I'm eating the crusts of the garlic bread so four slices count as two. I'm able to ignore the fact that I ate donuts for lunch and pour a second glass of wine at dinner anyway. It's a amazing talent.

I've been trying to figure out what to do, how to solve this problem and get back to to the mindful eating I was doing last year. I don't like how I feel when I overeat and while that should be enough to end this cycle, it does not appear to be. Against my wishes, my brain pointed out that we should put that pride to good use and get some accountability. For some people, writing down what they eat is good enough. I was doing that for a while, but then I started leaving off the alcohol and desserts. Denial is strong here.

I've decided to keep an online food diary and you are welcome to look at if you like. Some of you are probably like "Um. No." and others are maybe "Why? Also: no." I am well aware that it's the height of egotism to have a blog in the first place and to think that someone wants to read WHAT I ATE EVERY DAY is just. . . ugh. I KNOW. But I need some sort of accountability and I am not able to be accountable to myself because I LIE to myself. The only other thing I can think of is to tell A every time I eat something and that's even grosser. I was talking to A about it and he said, "You can just lie online, too." He's right, but if I commit to No Lying or Omitting, then I won't. It will be A Rule and I'll follow it. My brain is weird.

I know there have got to be a couple of you who are weird like me. I *cough* follow a few other people's food diaries. I LIKE talking about food and seeing what people eat and how they find a balance. I like learning about new dishes or new ways to make something or getting new snack ideas.

It's intimidating to tell people exactly what I'm eating. In my mind, you all eat 1200 calories per day of organic vegetables, tofu, and brown rice and will look upon my chocolate chip cookies with disdain. Or you're doing Whole30 and are horrified by my sugar and processed foods. I don't know. I guess all I can do is admit what I eat and be mindful of my strengths (fruit, legumes) and weaknesses (portions, emotional eating, sugar) and go from there. If reading my food diary makes you feel superior, I guess I can serve as a bad example.

I'm committed to be totally honest - even the ugly parts - but I'm hoping that because I have to admit it, it will stop me from eating four brownies. If I were a better person, I would include pictures (those are my favorite food diaries) but I don't want to spend that much time on it. It's weird enough that I'm posting what I eat every day. Please don't judge me too harshly; I honestly don't know how else to break this cycle of overeating/denial. I hope that this is temporary and once I get back into good habits, I can go back to keeping a private journal.

Cough

I've sent L to school the last few days with a cough. I would label it "incessant." I thought very hard about keeping her home, but it's a cough, that's it. No fever, no snotty nose, no sore throat. She feels fine and her face crumpled when I told her I was thinking of keeping her home. "But I looooooove school!" she sobbed. I told her that sometimes it's not about her, it's about keeping illness from spreading, but coughs can linger for days and weeks, so I hate to start keeping her home and it's October before the cough is gone. It's a tough call is what I'm saying.

My scale is stagnant, but I've had a few fitness wins that I want to record. Pants that I had to suck in to zip up four months ago now zip up easily. So I haven't lost any weight, but I must have lost some inches. 

I went for my health insurance screening and my BMI* is within range, my total cholesterol and HDL are awesome, my LDL and triglycerides are too low to measure, and I'm not pre-diabetic. (Yet. I have a lot of diabetes in my family. It might be inevitable.)

*BMI is a useful screening tool, but I don't think it's the be-all-end-all that some fitness gurus say. I know that it's not an accurate picture of health for muscular body types. At the same time, I think a lot of us overestimate the amount of muscle we have to excuse a high BMI. 

Anyway, I celebrated my screening with breakfast in the hospital cafeteria - the only meal that is consistently enjoyable. I had bacon, eggs, and a huge cinnamon roll, slightly warmed in the microwave so that the icing was soft. Fasting for twelve hours make me hungry!

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*sigh* I wrote that all on Friday and forgot to post it. Since then, E has gotten sick and I have either gotten sick or had a reaction to the flu mist. I know it's a live vaccine and it's always a chance, but I've never had a reaction before. Boo and cough. We were all JUST sick with puking. This frequent illness is not normal!

Running Again

I started running again a little over a week ago. I don't run in the summer. I hate the treadmill/track and it's too damn hot out, even early in the morning. But I ran in the cool rain two Fridays ago and it felt good. Unfortunately, I developed shin splints even though I only did four miles. I hobbled around, miserable, during work that weekend. 

Last week I ran a neighborhood circle, about five miles. Usually I run the flatish part first, up a steep but short hill, and then a gradual decline back home. I reversed it this time and it was a much harder run. That gradual incline is almost three miles - that's tough! I took Lucy with me and by the time we hit the hill, she was tired. I forget she's nine and an old lady. 

This week I iced my shins immediately after my run and then later that day before I went to work. It was marvelous - no pain! Still, getting old is bullshit.

After school, C's teacher let me know that she is doing well despite her young age and is "a good fit" for kindergarten. That was really nice of her and hopefully I can stop worrying now. (BWA-HAHAHAHA!)

Last week, on varying days, E forgot her lunch, her water bottle, and lost her sweater. Natural consequences are not working; she is too laid-back. When she realized she forgot her lunch, she was initially sad, but perked up quickly, commenting, "At least Mama won't have to make a lunch for me tonight!" I've asked her to come up with a plan to help her remember her lunch and water bottle. We'll see what she decides.

Failing at Greek Yogurt

Sunday morning I dropped A off at the airport again and my kids off at my in-laws' house before heading back to sleep and go to work. I'm a single parent until Friday afternoon while A is gallivanting all over a spectacular city and doing extravagant things like riding the subway. L: "He's SOOOO LUCKY!" Despite having my phone pre-dialed to 9-1-1, I don't sleep as well without him here and our tupperware drawer has gotten messy.

I've been trying to like Greek yogurt because it's . . . I don't know, the new thing? Healthier? Less sugar, more protein? Most of us don't need more protein, but I could do with less sugar, I'm sure. I bought the vanilla-honey kind to use in my strawberry parfaits, but I need to add a liberal amount of honey to make it palatable. The Greek yogurt tastes more like sour cream, I think, and I don't care for sour cream.

I've also started making homemade coffee creamer and I'm still experimenting with different recipes. If you have a good one - specifically for hazelnut and peppermint - please share! I found an organic hippie recipe that is sweetened with maple syrup, but the one that has sweetened condensed milk is way yummier.

 C had her last day of preschool today and I am filled with bittersweetness. On one hand, I will have all three kids in full-day school and can look for a new job. On the other hand, I fear change. And there is something about no longer having any kids at home that makes me feel one step closer to death. I felt the same way when I no longer had a baby to put in the baby nursery at church. Hello, mortality!

Snail Nerd

You guys, I took  A VIDEO of the snail, Couscous Ninja. (You can see Betty in the background.) I think his little mouth cleaning the tank is fascinating. And I put a piece of lettuce in the freezer for 30-45 minutes (to soften the membranes) and then took a picture of him eating it. A is doing a very good job of saying, lovingly, "You are so cute" to me, but I'm not sure how much longer it'll last before he's laughing and pointing.

I got done working Sunday morning and was already celebrating not having to work again for an entire week and then one of my favorite coworkers sneaked up behind me and whispered that she's pregnant with her THIRD AND FOURTH CHILDREN! She was telling me before other people because we are going to be twin mom bffs! I love being in on secret pregnancies. If any of you out there have a secret pregnancy, please tell me.

A took C to see the Pinkalicious Musical and that night we went to Karen's birthday party and ate amazing homemade cake and breadsticks. There was other delicious food, too, but man, those breadsticks. Yum.

I did a double class at the Y on Monday morning: weight lifting class (with my pastor!) and then step aerobics. I sent a FB message to my weight lifting instructor and told her, "I can hardly walk today! I'm cursing your name!" and she replied, "You know that's music to my ears!" She's so perky and so evil.

Running and Backsliding

I dropped off C and our carpool buddy at preschool this morning and it was raining quite heavily. I was ready to run as soon as I got home, but there was all that rain as I pulled into our driveway. I know myself and I knew if I went inside, I would not come back out. So I sat in the car for fifteen minutes, the rain cleared, and I ran an easy 3.5 miles.

(Easy means I ran at a comfortable pace, not pushing myself. It does not mean that I am bragging about how easy 3.5 miles is.)

As usual, I struggled mentally at first and then suddenly hit my stride around 2.5-3 miles. Sigh. My foot starts hurting when I run more than 4 or 5 miles, so I've been sticking to short distances, but I hate short distances. I push myself through those first few crappy miles because I know I'll start feeling good eventually.

Another thing, and this one I am embarrassed to admit: I've gained weight. It's not a lot - six pounds - but when you add that to the eight that I never finished losing, I'm still 14 lbs above where I'd like to be and I joined WW over a year ago. My goal was to lose 30 lbs and I should be there now, focusing on maintaining. It's tempting to blame it on the program, but it's me. I am cheating. I am not writing down everything I eat, I am fudging on amounts, and if I use up all my points, I don't stop eating extras, I just STOP WRITING IT DOWN. My will power has taken quite a hit.

It's not like I'm hungry and eating an extra piece of chicken. I would be okay with that. It's that I'm NOT hungry and eating half a bag of caramels or I AM hungry, but was probably full after two pieces of pizza and a salad if I had stopped to think about it instead of shoving two more pieces of pizza in my mouth. I need to be more careful of the amount I'm dishing out for myself (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, ICE CREAM). I've stopped thinking of food as fuel; I'm eating when I crave something or when I'm bored. I'm eating past the point of fullness. I'm not letting myself get hungry between meals. 

I start my WW week on Fridays because I usually need a few extra points to get through two night shifts. When you're awake for 24 hours, you eat more. I try to make good choices, but I have a snack (usually a granola bar and piece of fruit) about four hours into my shift (around 11) and a small meal (usually soup and salad) around 2 am. It's not excessive, but it adds up when you consider I still eat during the day. 

I'm hoping that by confessing I will be motivated to pull myself together. I've been gravitating toward sweet snacks and extra portions and I need to reign myself in again. This is a lifetime job of listening to my body and trying to feed it appropriately.